With Jace at large and apparently hellbent on killing Michaela, everyone makes their best efforts to track him down, which includes Ben reaching out to an unlikely ally, and Olive doing more research while Michaela and Zeke follow every lead. Saanvi gets increasingly worried as Jared’s investigation continues.

After a slow start, Manifest finally felt like it got out of the starting blocks properly in the previous episode, and that momentum continues here, as the continuing issue of Jace unfolds.

Michaela is determined that she won’t simply stand around waiting for the killer to strike out at either her or her family, and against the better judgement of basically everyone else continues hunting him down. A lead from Pete doesn’t quite pan out the way she hopes, and leads to a confrontation with partner Drea where she’s finally forced to reveal at least some of the truth behind… well, everything. That’s a conversation that’s going to need elaborating on later, one feels.

Ben decides to reach out to Pete, which is made slightly more difficult by the fact that Pete has been given over to the custody of Eureka for more tests. Time for some of that old Ben Stone charm, as he’s faced with the dual challenge of convincing the still pissy Vance and his uptight chief scientist to let him even speak to Pete and also then convincing Pete that he needs his help. Turns out that Pete has good reason to not want to talk about or think about his Calling though, as his interpretation of what he’s being told to do is pretty dark.

Saanvi, now working at Eureka herself, is starting to get increasingly freaked out by Jared’s persistence in investigating the disappearance of The Major. There’s an interesting set of layers here – on the surface, Saanvi is simply feeling extreme guilt for having killed The Major and the fact she has to keep lying about it. You also sense that guilt is being amplified by the fact of her daughter looking for her. But on another level altogether, Saanvi is beginning to question whether she made the right choice in trusting Vance and his colleague at all. There’s some tense scenes here, and I sense that this thread hasn’t been tugged at for the last time, by any means.

Meanwhile, Olive goes back to look at the Egyptian manuscript to see if she can decipher anything more from it, following a strange clue left behind by Jace at his last known location. What she discovers seems to alter the tone of everything that our heroes are currently battling. It seems that perhaps Pete and Kory really are better men than they might have initially seemed, and that perhaps there is even a chance of redemption for Jace as well, if only he can be made to see it in time…

Ending on a cliffhanger, it feels clear that this was always intended to be part of a double bill broadcast, because it’s an explosive one, and literally cuts to credits right in the middle of all the action. If you can watch this and the next one back to back, you should, if only for the sake of your own stress levels.

Verdict: Nice to see the show finally back on track and having some direction for this new season. 8/10

Greg D. Smith