Manifest: What Episode Does Zeke Die?
The supernatural drama "Manifest" ended earlier this month, wrapping up the saga of the passengers of Flight 828 with an emotional and action-packed finale. The series was canceled by NBC after Season 3 but brought back to life by Netflix, and at least one character has a similar arc of death and resurrection, although his is much more complicated than the show's single cancellation and single revival.
Zeke Landon (Matt Long) was not on Flight 828 but receives the same callings the passengers do. He is first introduced in Season 1, Episode 12, "Vanishing Point." In the episode, viewers get some backstory on Zeke. We learn that during a family camping trip when he was 15, his younger sister Chloe fell to her death while he was supposed to be watching her. Wracked with guilt, Zeke turns to alcohol and drugs for comfort. Years later, he returns to the area where she died to find closure and gets trapped in a cave during a winter storm. In the show's original timeline, he freezes to death in that cave, but in an alternate reality, he makes his way to safety.
Zeke has a magical connection to two members of the Stone family: cancer-stricken 12-year-old Cal (Jack Messina/Ty Doran) and his aunt Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh). Zeke brings a magazine photo of Michaela to the cave with him, and in his resurrection timeline, he meets and eventually marries her. But in the finale of Season 4, Part 1, Zeke absorbs Cal's cancer, sacrificing himself to save Cal.
Both Zeke and Matt Long had a roller-coaster ride on Manifest
When "Manifest" was canceled after Season 3, Matt Long booked a role on a pilot for another show but kept in touch with "Manifest" creator Jeff Rake in case the series could be kept alive.
"I desperately wanted to finish telling the story," Long told Tudum in November 2022. "I love my character so much, and to miss a moment of playing him would have broken my heart." The other show was not picked up, and "Manfest" was rescued by Netflix, but Rake had to then break the news to Long that Zeke would be killed off in the midseason finale. "He sat me down and told me everything," Long said. "That was hard to hear, but also I loved the way it was going to go down."
But timelines are twisted on "Manifest," and the rules of life and death are not simple or straightforward; the final frames of the series show Zeke alive and well, driving an airport taxi and talking with Michaela. Despite his character's penchant for resurrection, Long made sure to perform his Season 4 death scene with a sense of finality.
"I did not play it in a way that he had held out hope [for a revival]," he says. Because that takes away from the sacrifice of it. And, to me, it cheapens the moment if he thinks, 'Oh, it's not gonna be real.'"