The Ending Of Manifest Season 4 Part 1 Explained
There's hardly anything more frustrating in life than becoming invested in a series only to see it end before all of its various plotlines and mysteries can be tied up in a neat little bow. And when it comes to mystery-laden sci-fi, few have more questions that need answering than "Manifest." After the passengers of Montego Air Flight 828 land five years later than expected and seemingly frozen in time during their absence, they return with a seemingly supernatural physic ability to receive visions that compel them to complete various tasks or suffer dire consequences. Who or what is behind that force remains unclear as they face real problems that are both spiritual and corporeal in nature.
When Season 3 of "Manifest" ended and its future was still left up in the air, fans were left wondering if their questions would ever be answered. Thankfully, Netflix picked up the series for a final season, promising to resolve some of the burning questions surrounding the fated Flight 828. To help you keep track of the action so far and get ready for the coming apocalypse, here's everything that happens at the end of Season 4, Part 1.
Obviously, major spoilers are in the immediate future of this article.
Grace is definitely dead
One of the most shocking moments at the end of Season 3 arises as the culmination of Angelina's obsession with baby Eden. The troubled Angelina becomes obsessed with the idea that Eden is her guardian angel, and even tests this theory with fire — a decision that jeopardizes the life of baby Eden and gets Angelina thrown out of the Stone home. Just when it seems like Angelina is safely out of the Stone family's lives, she worms her way back into their home via Cal and his entirely too trusting nature. After Cal tells Angelina how to get into the Stone home, she tries to kidnap Eden and stabs Grace after the Stone mom catches her in the act ("Mayday: Part 1" and "Mayday: Part 2").
At the end of Season 3, it's difficult to tell if Grace will live or die. It only adds to the confusion when an inexplicably aged-up Cal bursts in on his mom at the precise moment of her death, leaving room for the theory that he may have returned to save her. But when Season 4 starts up again about two years down the road, Grace is nowhere to be found and her death looms heavily over the remaining members of the Stone family. Flashbacks showing the events surrounding Eve's death and funeral leave no room for doubt. But this is "Manifest," after all; people on this show tend to not remain dead permanently. Whether Grace stays dead is entirely up to the Divine Consciousness ... aka the writers.
Ben moves on from his grief
In the wake of Grace's death, it's clear right away that Ben is struggling profoundly with all of the events that have befallen his family. After all, his wife has been murdered, his baby daughter is kidnapped with no leads, and his son helped get his wife killed only to disappear and then reappear years older with no clear explanation. It's enough to make anyone want to shut themselves up in an attic and grow a grief beard, which is exactly what Ben does.
The symbolic representation of all that Ben has lost, his grief beard upstages his face for the first few episodes of "Manifest" Season 4, Part 1. Worse, he seems to have almost completely detached from his remaining children, especially poor Cal. Between the cancer, the original time glitch, and literally skipping puberty altogether, Cal has to be traumatized beyond reason at this point. By "Squawk," it's beginning to feel like Ben is permanently trapped in a chasm of grief — perhaps the most believable thing to ever happen in the 828verse. But thankfully for Cal and everyone else in the Stone circle, Ben finally begins to move past his grief after reuniting with the now-preschool age Eden, even shaving off his cumbersome "mountain man look" in time for a brief, if pretend, kiss with Saanvi ("Relative Bearing" and "Romeo").
Jared and Mikami are an item
The worst romances in "Manifest" can get pretty soapy, while the best romances on the show tend to go in a more chaotic direction. But as the 828ers inch ever so slowly closer to understanding the mystery of the Callings, a pattern begins to emerge in one of the characters' love lives — a pattern that indicates this guy is something of a loverboy.
As Flight 828 first disappears, Detective Michaela Stone is in the process of accepting a proposal from her work partner, the hunky but hot-headed Jared Vasquez. Along with Evie and Lourdes, the two grew up together as good friends, and their relationship blossoms into more while they're working together. At first reluctant to accept, Michaela is more than ready by the time she disembarks in New York City. The only problem? For Jared, it's been five years. Not only has he moved on and married the next in line in their friend circle, Lourdes, but they're actively working on making a little Vasquez.
But Michaela's resurfacing throws a wrench into their plans when the torn Jared can't commit to either and his marriage falls apart. When Michaela moves on with Zeke, though, Jared isn't lonely for long and quickly moves onto and through his next two dropped plot lines — the X-er-adjacent barkeep Tamara ("False Horizon") and the Major's daughter ("Mayday: Part 2"). When Season 4 rolls around, he's got a new gal, and it looks like he's finally met his match in the sassy, smart cop Drea Mikami. It's just too bad he hasn't learned his lesson about dating in the workplace.
Angelina's parents were the 828 killer
The survivors of Flight 828 have enough on their plates with all of those pesky Callings, the whole anti-828er hate group thing, and a literal looming death date hanging over each of them. And that's when they're not getting harassed by law enforcement or experimented on by super-secret organizations. Oh, and did we mention 828ers sometimes cry tears of blood? Because that happens. The last thing they need is an 828-hating serial killer on the loose, and yet that's exactly what they get when bodies start piling up toward the midpoint of the half-season.
Any good investigator would be convinced that Angelina is the killer, seeing as she is obviously more than capable of arson and kidnapping. But it's hard to imagine she could manage all of those serial killings with a baby in tow. The idea that Angelina could get away with all of those murders for so long just doesn't track with her general incompetence at life, and the forensic evidence doesn't track with Angelina's body type. Like every good "Dateline" episode, there's a surprise twist in the story — it turns out that Angelina's devout parents have been working together to take out all of the people they believe are a bad influence on their kid ("Full Upright and Locked Position"). Apparently, the apple doesn't fall far from the deranged homicidal religious zealot tree.
Cal's cancer has returned
Even before the passengers of Flight 828 have to endure picking up and carrying on their lives long after their loved ones have mourned their deaths, the Stone family faces challenges most families could never imagine with their son Cal's cancer. At only 12 years old, Cal suffers from an incurable leukemia that steals his childhood and stretches his parents' marriage to its limits. Fortunately, during the missing five years of his life, a cure is developed based on the work of fellow passenger Saanvi Bahl ("Pilot"). After beginning the treatment program, Cal's cancer goes into remission and he's able to resume a completely normal life — or at least as normal as anyone's life can be after they spend five years glitching somewhere in the ether.
But whether he's experiencing two alternate universes or there's another force at work, something happens to Cal when he's zapped out of his timeline a second time after touching the tailfin ("Mayday: Part 1"). When Cal reappears, he seems to be in the body he would have been in if his plane had originally arrived on time. He's five and a half years older physically, and it doesn't take long before the telltale signs of his cancer return. This time it hits him hard and fast, with Cal coughing up blood and rapidly declining within a shockingly short time frame ("Squawk" and "Romeo"). Saanvi's ex confirms that his cancer has returned, leaving the family reeling with yet another blow to contend with.
Angelina is more powerful than ever
From the moment Michaela and Zeke pull Angelina out of the basement crawlspace her parents have stashed her in, it starts to become clear that she's something of a complete mess ("Tailfin"). Although it takes a while for the depth of that mess to truly sink in, between the bizarre romance she strikes up with one of the methheads or the "Single White Female" treatment she gives Olive, the ornate tapestry of Angelina's dysfunction gradually comes into focus. And it seems the more chaotic Angelina's distinctive flavor of seemingly innocent evil is, the more apparent it is that her parents probably weren't wrong to stash her in the basement hole like so much refuse and pray nothing bad ever comes of it.
Up until Season 4 of "Manifest," her abilities aren't any stronger than any of the other passengers. But Angelina has a unique connection with Cal that other passengers don't seem to share. Since Cal is stronger than anyone else in his ability to connect with the Callings and the other passengers, his abilities make her indirectly dangerous. But once Angelina gets her sticky fingers on the Omega Sapphire, she seems to have a direct line into the Callings that gives her the power to literally rip up the earth around her ("Inversion Illusion"). With the intensity of Angelina's Callings and her parents' fundie extremist brainwashing, Angelina is more of a nuclear warhead than a ticking time bomb, making her the most powerful and terrifying villain in the series.
The 828 tapped into the Divine Consciousness
From almost the beginning of the passengers' first Calling, it's hard to understand whether the Callings are good or bad or what their purpose is — that is, if there is even a purpose to them at all. Through visual, auditory, and olfactory hallucinations, the Callings compel the passengers to do all sorts of things. While most of the Callings' requests seem to be benevolent, they also lead the methheads to kidnap Cal and Angelina to abduct Eden and kill her mother. The Callings seem to punish Saanvi by destroying her body over a lie while letting actual killers like Angelina and Jace to go free. They also seem wreck the personal and professional lives of their recipients with complete disregard for their safety or happiness. Worse still, the Callings appear to be bringing about the End of Days by the end of Season 4.
And yet despite all of the many organizations and people who investigate them for answers — from the NSA to the Major — very little progress has been made to that end by the events of "Mayday." During Season 4, Olive and Cal put their twin hive mind together to decipher the symbols from the Callings — including a star, a peacock, and a dragon — which lead them to a compass engraved with the phrase "Divina Conscientia" ("Full Upright and Locked Position"). Cal realizes that the passengers somehow flew into the "glow" of the Divine Consciousness, which imbued them with a lasting connection even if its purpose and intention remain a mystery.
The Omega Sapphire is a supernatural signal booster
Every passenger of Flight 828 seems to have his or her own way of trying to understand the Callings. For Ben, it's analysis, investigation, and a super-sweet wall of clues. For Michaela, it's the tools available to her as a police detective. And for Saanvi, it's the reassurance provided by scientific inquiry and hard data accumulation. It's through that scientific inquiry that she learns about a secret component hidden somewhere in the items that interact with the Divine Consciousness — sapphire ("Precious Cargo"). An important mythological element across many faith and mythological traditions, sapphire has served as a conduit through the ages, connecting humanity with the Divine.
What Saanvi stumbles onto is not just any sapphire — it's the legendary Omega Sapphire, a type of sapphire that's uniquely refined to communicate directly with the Divine. Think of it as a supernatural signal booster. And as luck would have it, there's some hidden right under their noses in New York City. Thanks to Cal and Olive's book-smart sleuthing, the Stones and company manage to trace the sapphire to a masonic building where it's been hidden "Indiana Jones" style. It promptly falls into the wrong hands, promising plenty of disastrous Calling-related shenanigans in Season 4, Part 2.
Most of the 828ers are now jailed
From the moment Flight 828 blips back onto the radar fresh from their five-year lunch date with the Divine Consciousness, U.S. and local law enforcement struggle with what to do with the passengers. They obviously pose some kind of a threat since they could potentially be alien replicants or some kind of re-programmed spies, but since no one really knows what they were doing for all of that time and the passengers are mostly regular, law-abiding citizens, keeping an eye on them is more than a little complicated. And since trouble seems to follow the passengers even despite their best efforts to keep their noses clean, most agree that something needs to be done. Thus, the Registry is born.
Those unfortunates whose names are on the 828 Registry are required to check in regularly so their vital signs can be recorded and the Powers That Be can keep tabs on the Callings. Although the reason is not clear at the midseason point, beginning with Eagan and Adrian, the Registry passengers are inexplicably arrested and held behind bars by the end of "Inversion Illusion."
The apocalypse is nigh
As the Stones and Eureka investigate the Callings, they find themselves puzzling over increasingly more enigmatic revelations hidden within the Callings. One of the most shocking is the realization that each person to commune with the Divine Consciousness returns with a death date on their head, indicating they're doomed to perish at a predetermined time based on how long they spent within the light of the ol' DC. But as they find themselves getting closer to completing the puzzle in Season 4, the Stones become convinced of a horrifying revelation — that the final death date is for everyone, and the apocalypse is imminent. Hidden within the compass, the dragon, the tarot card, and Olive's other clues is an ominous date in the not-too-distant future — June 2, 2024.
Although the idea that the date's revelation is a harbinger of the apocalypse might seem like a bit of a leap at first, the volcano and molten lava in their visions sends a pretty clear message. And once actual, corporeal world lava begins popping up through the pavement around the showdown with Angelina, it's hard to deny that there's a hellfire-and-brimstone party waiting in the near future.
Cal nearly dies fighting Angelina
It's apparent almost immediately after the 828s' late landing that Cal has a special gift. Unlike the other passengers who get their visions and Callings in pieces here and there, Cal seems to have surprisingly clear visions that he can render in crayon or other art media for his dad to decipher. He also has the ability to psychically connect with the other passengers, connecting so strongly with Marko Valeriev that he speaks Bulgarian and suffers seizures. At one point, Cal tunes into Zeke to the degree that Cal becomes almost hypothermic. He even develops a sapphire-infused dragon tattoo that psychically appears on his arm.
Whether it's the genetic marker in Cal's blood that imbues him with the extra-special connection to the Divine or some other force, one thing is for sure — Cal is the best and perhaps only weapon the world has to stop the dark angel Angelina from bringing about Doomsday. Despite his rapid deterioration after his leukemia returns, it's Cal who intervenes when Angelina absconds with the Omega Sapphire and begins tormenting a group of kids in a church, psychically projecting himself and meeting her in an airplane-based vision. In that strange, timeless realm of the Divine Consciousness, Angelina tricks Cal with a vision of his late mother. But Cal's abilities overpower her, causing the Sapphire to explode in the real world and draining what little life the young man had left in him when their fight began ("Inversion Illusion").
Zeke sacrifices himself for Cal
Zeke is no stranger to suffering and sacrifice. By the time Season 4 rolls around, he has already sacrificed himself once for his young nephew Cal, jumping into a frozen pond to save the boy and in the process, saving himself from his own death date. With this second resurrection, Zeke is gifted a powerful empathic ability and stripped of the burdensome Callings. Caring soul that he is, Zeke can't help but use his abilities to help others, often at a cost to his own mental health. By the midpoint of Season 4, Zeke has forsaken self-care almost entirely, and is suffering profoundly after giving so much of himself to help others. This makes it that much more shocking when Zeke sacrifices himself to save his nephew once more after Cal drains the last of his own battery fighting Angelina in the ethereal realm of the Divine Consciousness.
His body wrecked by leukemia, Cal is barely able to move as the others go off to stop Angelina, but dear ol' Uncle Zeke is right there at his nephew's side going through Cal's bucket list with him. Understanding how important Cal is to the Lifeboat, Zeke knows what he has to do as he watches Cal drawing his last breaths, and after a heartbreaking goodbye via phone to his wife, Zeke sacrifices himself a second time — this time, for the good of all humanity ("Inversion Illusion").
Angelina is on the loose with the Omega Sapphire
Everything about Angelina is volatile and dangerous, but her sense that she has to find a purpose in someone or something outside of herself is at the heart of every bad and potentially deadly decision she makes. After abducting Eden, Angelina turns to the 828 cultists for support, and they unfortunately give her far more attention and resources than she deserves. When her plans to raise Eden as her own personal guardian angel fall through after the compound is raided, the deranged Angelina blows the place up and somehow escapes with barely a scratch on her.
So it's hardly a surprise when the fanatic gets her hands on the Omega Sapphire and begins to usher in the actual apocalypse under the delusion that she is herself an archangel. Before Cal manages to knock her down a few notches, Angelina proclaims, "God has chosen me. I'm an archangel sent to bring vengeance upon the evil and to lead the righteous to salvation." With the Sapphire gone, it would seem like her plans for vengeance have been thwarted. But because Angelina keeps coming back like a bad rash, it can't be that easy. After dipping her hand into actual lava to grab a still-intact shard of the Sapphire which fuses to her hand, Angelina runs away from the scene, ushering in the End Times and what will surely be an apocalyptic showdown with the Divine Consciousness in Season 4, Part 2.
Eden gets returned to her family
Although the Stone family is plagued with horrors during the first half of Season 4 — there's Cal's cancer and existentially unsettling age-up, the death of Grace, the illegal internment, and the serial killings plaguing the 828 community, for a few of the most significant examples — one of the most distressing is the abduction of Eden. Not only has this poor baby had to watch her mother get knifed in front of her, but now she's been raised by the woman who did it and poisoned against her own father. While it's hard to believe Angelina would harm a hair on Eden's head, there doesn't seem to be a violent act that would be decidedly off-brand for the mercurial psychopath if she felt pushed to it. And as Season 4 begins to wear on with Angelina dragging the girl around libraries and safehouses, it starts to look a whole lot like the Stones will never be reunited with their girl. But thankfully for all, their paths converge at the 828 compound, and after a little Calling-related mayhem, Eden is finally placed back into the waiting arms of her dad ("Squawk").