What I’m Watching: Manifest

Manifest: Season 1, Episode 5 “Connecting Flights” (C)

I guess it’s about time that we saw what happened with those who weren’t on the flight and how they reacted both to the news of its disappearance and then to the shocking announcement that, five and a half years later, it had miraculously returned. Learning that Ben and Michaela volunteered to be bumped for $400 amplifies the misery that those who thought they had lost them must have felt, and unresolved questions like Jared’s proposal surely made it much more difficult. Seeing how Michaela’s mother embraced Jared’s new relationship while her father resisted against is informative most for how it shapes Michaela’s friendship with the woman who is now his wife and who got so close to him specifically through their shared mourning. Grace meeting Danny at her support group and trying to introduce him to a very resistant Olive is definitely different than how we’ve come to know those two characters now, faced with this impossible situation of having new lives interrupted and rebooted with these unbelievable returns. Back to the actual plotline, we’re not getting anywhere interesting as Agent Vance managed to track down Bethany while Thomas got away, and now Vance has a very conflicted Jared on the hook following his help getting him reinstated. Cal nearly gave his father a heart attack running through the subway on his own, but the fact that he has impulses which direct him the same way the voices do for Ben adds a new dimension to this already convoluted explanation that I still don’t think will end up making much sense in the end.