Manifest: Melissa Roxburgh Explains Why Ending With Season 4 'Felt Good'
"Manifest" has come to an end. Netflix released the series' final episode in early June, nearly five years after the show made its premiere on NBC in September 2018. "Manifest" didn't go out without a bang, either. Not only do the series' final episodes see the surviving passengers of Flight 828 all board the same plane again in order to face a final round of divine judgment, but they also manage to save the world. The group suffers some casualties along the way — in specific, 11 of the plane's passengers die during the show's climactic judgment — but the good ultimately outweighs the bad in the series finale of "Manifest."
In response to the show's final episode, "Manifest" fans have been just as willing to share their genuinely emotional reactions to its conclusion as they have been eager to poke fun at some of the series' admittedly absurd plot details. Regardless of what one specific fan's opinion about the "Manifest" finale might be, though, the show's cast members all seem happy with how everything turned out. In an interview with TV Line, "Manifest" star Melissa Roxburgh even explained why she thinks the NBC-turned-Netflix series ended exactly the way it was supposed to.
"I feel good about it. I think everything was supposed to end the way it was," Roxburgh told the outlet. "Things don't always work out the way we thought they'd work out, but sometimes they're better. I think they really did a good job of showing that. Some of it's not what we expected, but some of it's better."
Manifest's cast had a 'severely emotional' time filming its series finale
Everything turns out pretty well for Melissa Roxburgh's Michaela Stone in the "Manifest" finale. In the episode's final act, Michaela finds herself transported along with the rest of the show's final survivors back in time to the day that they all went missing on Flight 828. However, instead of going missing for five years, the flight lands safely and everyone onboard is given a second chance. In the wake of that discovery, Michaela tracks down her previously dead husband, Zeke (Matt Long), hops in his cab, and begins what viewers are led to believe will be a very happy, hopefully long life with him.
Michaela isn't the only character in "Manifest" who gets to reunite with a lost loved one, either. Her brother, Ben (Matt Dallas), also gets to be with his once-dead wife, Grace (Athena Karkanis), again. With that in mind, it's not hard to see why Dallas sees the ending of "Manifest" as an ultimately optimistic one. "With Ben, and with a lot of the other characters, I don't see it as an ending, but a new beginning," the actor told TV Line.
In an interview with Netflix about the "Manifest" finale, Dallas similarly remarked, "I think it's the right ending for these characters. And I cried a lot." Meanwhile, in the same Netflix interview, Roxburgh said, "It's a big episode. I don't think fans will be disappointed at all, but for us as actors, it was severely emotional."
As personally affected by it as she was, though, Roxburgh says she still thinks the "Manifest" finale brings the show's story to a satisfying conclusion. "It just felt right, like a proper goodbye," the star observed.