What I’m Watching: Manifest

Manifest: Season 1, Episode 4 “Unclaimed Baggage” (C-)

I watched this episode with my mother-in-law, who is very into it and much more impressed by each of its hours than I am. I continue to find it lackluster and far from interesting, and this episode included a new freaky element in the form of the dripping gray angel. There’s not much consistency to the abilities that the passengers - or some of them, at least - have, and the only thing that does remain true from moment to moment is that they usually lead them to the wrong places first. Preemptively ending the undercover investigation means that Michaela isn’t going to be trusted anymore, and her number one ally, Jared, is also going to be benched and unhelpful after taking the fall for her bad call. I never expected this show to feature an “Angels of America” reference, and it seems to me unlikely that Bethany would be able to smuggle someone on board who wasn’t actually a flight attendant without anyone noticing, especially since he was so clearly scared in the middle of the flight before they went through whatever temporal wave caused all of this. Ben’s parenting struggles make sense even if they don’t have much to do with all this supernatural, science fiction stuff. He was not at all pleased to meet Danny, played by Daniel Sunjata from “Rescue Me,” who showed up to help Olive out of an unfortunate situation that pretty much exemplifies what teenage rebellion looks like.