🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
After four turbulent seasons, the Manifest journey has come to a close.
If you spent the series finale sobbing into your tissues, you weren’t alone. Saying goodbye to the show was just as tough for the cast and crew. “The whole filming of the last episode was super emotional,” Manifest star Josh Dallas, who plays Ben Stone, tells Tudum. “We did a read-through of the final episode and I was a mess throughout the whole thing, because there were two things going on: [There was] what was happening with the characters in the show, but then it was also Josh, the actor, sad about saying goodbye to this character and to the story and, most importantly, to this group of people that had come together over the last five years to create the story. It was supercharged, super emotional. Don't ever let ’em tell you that boys don’t cry.”
But how, in the end, was it all connected? There have been countless mysteries, dozens of “callings” and far too many heartbreaking losses, but in the series finale, the 828ers finally face their death date. So what was on the other side of the glow? Who survived and who perished? Did anyone lose their baggage? Read on to learn more about the show’s satisfying final destination.
With just months to go until their death date, dangerously deluded passenger Angelina (Holly Taylor) gets a fragment of the Omega Sapphire embedded in her arm. The precious stone allows her to project “callings” at will to manipulate her fellow passengers.
And with fear and paranoia surrounding the 828ers reaching a fever pitch, the government decides to detain all passengers.
We pick up eight months later and most of the 828ers are detained, away from their families. And to add insult to injury, they’re also being experimented on by government bigwigs, including Zimmer (Patricia Mauceri).
The good news? Thanks to Cal’s (Ty Doran) inexplicable growth/age spurt, he’s able to evade capture. The not-as-fun news: With Ben and Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) in the slammer, it’s up to Cal and Olive (Luna Blaise) to take odd jobs to provide for themselves and their young sister, Eden (Brianna Riccio and Gianna Riccio).
Director Zimmer, who works at the Pentagon, first appeared in Season 3, Episode 2, “Deadhead.” She’s always been a stickler for getting answers and not overly sympathetic to the passengers’ plight.
In Season 4, Part 2, she has a lot more power over the passengers as the apparent ruler of the detention center. She oversees testing — of both the ethical and the not-so-ethical type — on the 828ers to get answers about the callings. Saanvi (Parveen Kaur) and Zimmer frequently butt heads given their very different priorities regarding passenger well-being.
Zimmer’s also ruthless and willing to make a deal with the devil if it means getting what she wants. In that same vein, she and Angelina (Holly Taylor) briefly get buddy-buddy since Angelina can easily manipulate the other passengers with fake callings.
For much of the season, Angelina and her followers are on the run. Eventually, they settle into the Stone family home.
Not content to just play house, Angelina and Eagan (Ali Lopéz-Sohaili) tie the knot in Episode 8, “Lift/Drag,” which was directed by Roxburgh. “Our [cinematographer] Andrew Priestley really came in with some good ideas there,” Roxburgh tells Tudum. “I came up with a few ideas that I was really proud of and then I was like, ‘How do we make this interesting, shot-wise?’… It was a really nice collaboration.”
When it came to Angelina’s wedding dress, creator Jeff Rake really wanted it to be something that could’ve been in Ben and Michaela’s mother Beverly’s attic. “It was just what they found around the house,” says Roxburgh. “What would you find in Beverly's house? [Something] that is super old, a not-so-modern wedding dress. We had some fun ideas there.”
The newlywed bliss doesn’t last long, though, as Adrian (Jared Grimes) convinces Eagan to abandon his new bride.
After Angelina is briefly brought into the detention center, Ben decides to inject her with an unproven callings antidote. But rather than have its desired impact, the other passengers lose their ability to receive the callings — except for Cal, who’s inundated with all of the callings at once.
He’s understandably overwhelmed, but farms out the bits and pieces he can process to his fellow 828ers, forming a supersquad of callings investigators who diligently try to do what they can to save humanity from the death date. It works well, until it doesn’t: Suddenly, Cal can’t receive any callings at all.
“I can’t stress enough how amazing of a human [Ty] is,” says Roxburgh. “To be able to direct the beginning of [Cal’s] downfall when he stops getting the callings was really cool, because it allowed me to push him and he went with it. Those were my favorite scenes to direct because he’s just so hopeless in this episode. He’s really at the end of what he can offer and it defeats him until we get to the [very] end.”
For Rake, Cal has always been the show’s “emotional North star” and the character who’s steered the mythology of the story, so it made sense to let
“the boy ultimately guide the father” in Doran’s last scene when Cal sacrifices himself to save the rest of the passengers and Ben has to let it happen.
With the Earth in constant turmoil thanks to the sapphire-induced fissures, the core group heads up Storm King Mountain. Cal sacrifices himself into the fissure, producing a beacon that summons all of the passengers together.
“It felt like when your life flashes before your eyes at the end of your life — for me it felt like my five-year stint [on the show] was flashing before my eyes,” Roxburgh says of the big reunion. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we went on that adventure with that person and this adventure with that person. We helped this person!’”
Some of those actors had been on the show since day one, others were new, but Roxburgh says, “There hasn't been a bad seed on our show. It’s so rare that that happens. And so to have everyone kind of conglomerated in this overnight shoot — it was almost like a weird sleepover. It was awesome.”
But what would an 828 reunion be without the aircraft itself? Don’t worry, it shows up… right out of the ground — and what else is there to do but start boarding the plane? Then Angelina appears and demands they get off her “ark” and leave it for her and her group.
That’s not going to fly for Ben who’s still furious at Angelina for murdering his wife Grace (Athena Karkanis). However, it just so happens that, back at the Stone home, Olive is realizing that the only way the passengers can actually survive the death date is if they let go of past grievances.
For a second it seems like Ben will fail this final test and not bring an injured Angelina onto the plane with the rest of the passengers, but after an apology or two from his nemesis, he picks her up — echoing a mysterious drawing the Stones had long pondered in a journal — and carries her on board.
The flight takes off, but there’s no drink and snack service; instead, the passengers are judged by a divine power and the worst of the worst implode. Yep, you read that correctly. When Adrian’s skin starts to crack, Eagan pleads for his friend’s life, offering up his own in exchange. Adrian is saved and Eagan starts to implode, before he is also saved.
Saanvi almost implodes, too, but is also ultimately spared.
Despite her last-minute hints of goodwill, Angelina is among the passengers who implode. See: all the murders she committed.
When judgment is done, the passengers have one last test as the Dark Angel — aka the creepy, dangerous smoke-y thing — comes at them. Ben and Michaela fight back, listing all the good they and the other 828ers have done since they returned. They prove their point, and the Dark Angel vanishes. Phew.
With the Big Bad vanquished, they have one more last test, as the Glow (which enveloped the plane during their initial 2013 flight) reappears. Michaela tells Amuta (Leajato Robinson), who is serving as the captain of this flight, to chase the light.
Once there, the aircraft stops moving. The passengers deplane and move forward until they exit a tunnel. Suddenly, they’re back at JFK — and it’s 2013! (You can tell because current president Obama is on TV in the airport!) The passengers are confused, but realize they’ve been given a second chance. The past five years and everything they experienced has really happened for them, but no time has passed at all for anyone who wasn’t on Flight 828. Now, they have the option to make different — better — decisions.
Ben reunites with the now-alive Grace and both older Stone siblings embrace their mom, who had died during the five-and-a-half years they were missing. Cal is back to his 10-year-old self, and Ben tells Grace he knows someone who will be able to cure their son’s illness.
At the airport, Michaela gently turns down Jared’s (J.R. Ramirez) proposal. And knowing that Jared and Drea (Ellen Tamaki) will have a daughter named Hope in the 2024 timeline, Michaela tells her now-ex to have hope. After the broken almost-engagement, Jared bumps into Drea at the airport. She’s there to investigate what went down on 828 since 11 passengers (those unlucky imploded few) are missing.
And Michaela gets a happy ending, too. She realizes Zeke (Matt Long) is driving cabs in 2013 and she runs to find him. While he doesn’t know who she is, it’s clear there’s an immediate connection. “[Zeke] doesn't know this woman,” Long told Netflix. “She knows all that she has known through the whole show, but he has no clue who she is. He's in 2013, living his life. I hope that it really touches [fans] because when I read it, when Jeff told me about it, I was moved to tears. I just think it’s an incredible way to tie up the story.”
There’s a lot going on at arrivals and we also learn that Saanvi and Alex (Sydney Morton) are each other’s final destination too.
Yes and no. The scenes were filmed in 2022 so the show utilized body doubles and Jack Messina’s face to make him appear the correct age. “We had to make Jack, the actor, younger than he was,” Dallas tells Tudum. “So there was a little bit of movie trickery involved there.”
“I’ve always had a broad idea about what the ending was going to be, but it wasn’t until I was riffing long and hard with my excellent staff of writers that it all came together,” Rake told Netflix back in October 2022. “There have been a bunch of fans who have identified some of the key pieces of the ending and I always try to stay away from even liking those tweets because I’m so nervous about people landing it.”
The actors, however, found out later in the game. “Ellen and I were at a bar and we were reading the script on our phone, a drink in, and we both just started crying,” Roxburgh recalls with a laugh. “Not the ideal environment to read a final script — but it was beautiful. They tied it up in a way that maybe some people will be mad, but I think a lot of people will be happy. A show with so many loose ends and bits, it’s hard to put the final stamp on and I think they did a great job.”
Adds Dallas, “It’s a great ending for the show and for some of our core characters.”
Wrapping the show, for good this time, was also emotional for everyone involved. “Season 3 [when the show was originally canceled], I really had not been able to say goodbye because it didn’t feel done,” Roxburgh says. “But I’d like to think that I’m pretty in touch with my own feelings and it felt done [now]. It felt like the right time to end the story. I’m absolutely going to miss going to set with everyone and I’m going to miss just playing in that world, because it was such a fun and exciting world to play in, but I think it’s perfect. I think it’s supposed to be left where it’s left.”
The passengers are back in 2013 and everyone on the plane (excluding Cal) has memories of what they went through. Everything really happened, but now they have a do-over.
“We bend over backwards to try to make clear that everything you’ve watched happened,” Rake said. “This is real. We’re not trying to mess with people's minds. It’s all real. This all happened.”
Stream Manifest now.
