If you would like to read my review of last episode of Manifest, click here.
Synopsis: Ben forms an unlikely partnership with Vance in a high-stakes race to locate the missing passengers of Flight 828. Meanwhile, Michaela helps a suicidal passenger who believes he is the Angel of Death, and Cal goes back to school, navigating both his unwanted celebrity and his former friends, who are all now 16 years old. (TVGuide)
Writer: Gregory Nelson and Margaret Rose Lester
Director: Nina Lopez-Corrado
Rating: TV-14
Running Time: 43mins
Airs: Mondays at 10pm on CityTV (Canada)/NBC (United States)
“Point of No Return”starts off with Ben, Michaela and Cal landing in New York with Cal explaining how he wishes they never came back to New York because that’s the city where he has cancer unlike in Jamaica where everything was happy. Back in present day, Ben and Michaela have late night snacks and bond over their current struggles. They discuss what the plan will be when Vance and UDS hit back and Michaela says they need to be ready. At UDS, the scientists are told to rush their procedures before Vance can shut them down as Marko sits in a chair, wired up and ready to go.
The next morning, Ben surprises Grace with a drink in bed and agrees Cal should go back to school while suggesting they make a date night. Ben and Grace want to drive Cal to school, but Olive says it’s best if she takes him to avoid any unwanted attention. While Grace is preparing for date night she runs in Lourdes at the store who is buying ovulation tests. Olive notices Cal enter the lunchroom alone and offers to have him sit with her and her friends where they make him feel like a regular kid.
Michaela arrives at work and chats with Jared when The Calling reaches out to her with a new phrase “Don’t lose him.”She gets approached by someone at the precinct because a fellow passenger is threatening to jump and they think maybe Michaela can get through to them. The passenger is Harvey and he blames himself for the deaths of people around him. She tries to reason with him, but Harvey jumps and plummets to his death.
They investigate his house and discover “I am the Angel of Death”written on Harvey’s wall. Apparently Harvey blamed himself for the deaths of two bar patrons he spent his Monday night with. They learn that Harvey told these people about the Callings and they ended up dead, so she becomes concerned that because she told Jared that he is now cursed. The bartender they spoke to winds up dead and after three people, Michaela draws the line. She doesn’t want to risk Jared’s life any longer and decides to walk away from him.
Meanwhile at the office, Ben is pulled over by his boss who shows him a Flight 828 fan site with stalker photos of Ben and the rest of the passengers. As the buildings’ fire alarm goes off, Ben notices a disguised Vance walk by. He approaches him and destroys Ben’s phone before taking out the USB Drive and explains that they need each other. Vance wants Ben to hack the USB Drive to figure out what the data is and gives him an encrypted phone.
Ben digs into the information and with the help of Doctor Clarke he’s able to decipher that the experiments are forced Callings made by UDS. He convinces Vance to use Clarke as their mole to plant a bug on The Singularity Project servers in the hope that it gives them access to the whole UDS network. While Clarke is distracting the UDS employee, he is called off for more serious matters as Ben is coincidentally searching ever key term relating to Flight 828 and UDS. They overhear him talk about moving the experiments and looking for whoever searched up the terms. Vance doesn’t want to put Ben in harm’s way, but his bravery convinces Vance to use the NSA resources to find out more.
Ben gets a break as he and Grace go out for date night and enjoy themselves for what seems like the first time since he’s returned. However, it’s back to business almost immediately as he receives a text from Vance who has narrowed it down to two locations, but in order to be sure Ben has to break into his work, use his boss’ pass and access UDS’ information. He manages to do so while Cal becomes worried that Marko will be in pain again soon. The episode ends as Vance, Michaela and Ben look at the warehouse in hopes of stopping UDS once and for all while Cal starts to become uneasy as Marko is prepped for his next experiment.
Captain’s Log
- Who or what is the mysterious shadow figure?
- What are the Callings?
- What did the light do to Cal?
- What will happen to Marko?
- Will Director Vance or Jared get caught in the crossfire?
- Can Michaela, Ben and Vance stop UDS?
- Who else will we meet from the manifest?
Overall, this was a good episode. The involvement of Vance in Ben’s investigation helps to finally bring together the two sides working on the same goal. With the death of another passenger, the mystery revolving around the Callings continues to grow deeper with the characters and their sanity being stretched thinner and thinner. It’s only a matter of time until the big reveal, but until then these case-of-the-week episodes with bits of story progression will do just fine. After all, who doesn’t like a family date night?
Score: 8/10
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