Ben’s hunt for the missing passengers from 828 takes him into a new job that might help with some answers. Cal continues to experience anxiety that Marko is in danger. Michaela experiences a new form of calling that will lead her down an unexpected path. The spectre of Danny and Grace’s former relationship continues to hang over the Stone household.

Manifest right now sort of teeters on a precipice for me, narratively speaking. Thus far it’s done a really good job of gently ignoring/keeping in the background the actual cause behind the disappearance of Flight 828 and focused instead on the odd things happening to the passengers since they returned and the struggles they face to rebuild their lives after a five and a half year gap. That’s worked well in its favour, but at this point it seems to be steering itself a little course change that wants to start explaining exactly what happened and who might have been behind it.

Picking up where it left off last time out, Cal is ‘better’ but still very much connected to the mysterious Marko, constantly terrified about the fate of both the man and himself as he evidently continues to be experimented on somewhere by someone. Ben sees an opportunity in a low-level accounting job at a firm who count Unified Dynamic Systems (UDS – straight from the big ACME bag of bland villainous organisation names) among their clients. Maybe if he follows the money he can try to establish where they have moved all the missing passengers to and be one step closer to saving them and Cal.

Meanwhile Michaela is starting to hear a heartbeat which isn’t her own and seems to be acting as a new kind of calling. This is rather inconvenient as she’s also trying to do her actual day job of being a cop and convince partner and ex-lover Jared that she isn’t completely bonkers. Making matters worse, Jared and Lourdes invite her round for dinner, which starts off about as uncomfortably weird as you might expect, thaws out and then takes an unexpected turn. Saying anything further might get into spoiler territory so suffice it to say that this is a clever and unexpected twist on the formula and much more interesting (to me) than the bit that Ben’s up to.

Then there’s Danny – the ghost at the feast. The show is really committing here – there’s a genuine sense of dilemma which is interestingly focused more on Olive than Grace. For all that it was obviously difficult for Grace to end her relationship, she seems to have solidly done so, whereas Olive is finding it tough to let go of the man who was effectively her father for a while. Ben clearly isn’t happy about it, but can he accept it?

Tied on the end is the meeting of Ben and Saanvi with another fellow passenger who seems – from Ben’s snooping into UDS – to be heavily involved in whatever UDS are up to. Her own peculiar and radical psychological philosophies may offer an insight into what UDS are looking for, but Ben also thinks that maybe it points to them being behind whatever happened. And that’s your precipice right there – if this turns out to be a ‘The big bad corporation made the plane disappear as part of an experiment’ deal then it will all become rather mundane. I much prefer the idea of the reasons behind the disappearance itself being left a mystery, and just sticking with exploring the aftermath. Time will tell, I suppose.

Verdict: Compelling, dealing with some interesting themes, but with a worrying hint that it might be about to embark on a mundane path with its extended episode run. I only hope this one goes the right way. 8/10

Greg D. Smith