Out Of Every Theory For Manifest, This One Stands Above The Rest
Ever since "Lost" went off the air, a slew of mind-bending science-fiction dramas have vied to become the next TV show that has people scouring forums to figure out what precisely is going on. Many series have tried, but we feel like only one can truly claim the top spot — "Manifest."
The dedication to uncovering the truth was on full display when NBC canceled the show after its third season. It came as a major shock to fans, especially when looking at Season 3's cliffhanger ending. Every answer the show provided raised three more questions, and, understandably, fans had to become genuine detectives to figure out what happened to the people on Flight 828.
Plenty of confusing plot points rose concerning the 191 passengers who hopped on board a flight, and when they touched down in New York, five and a half years passed. They try to pick up their lives where they left off, but nothing is as it seems. It's pretty much a TV show exploring what regular life would be like after Thanos' snap.
So what exactly is going on here? Hopefully, the show's revived in some manner in the future to wrap up all of the loose ends, but for the time being, we can't help but go back to one theory that stands out above all the others.
Theory: The government used the 828 plane as a time travel experiment
That title may sound a bit farfetched but stick with us for a little bit. Throughout Manifest, the Major (Elizabeth Marvel) seeks someone referred to as "The Holy Grail." In Christian ideology, this is the cup Jesus Christ drank from during the Last Supper. According to traditional Arthurian legend, the grail has the power to grant eternal life to whoever drinks from it. What if the term "Holy Grail" has a greater significance than just a rare entity?
That's the theory initially posited by Redditor u/KellyKeybored. The user writes, "I think the Holy Grail may be the ability to travel in time. In a way it would be like having the ability to resurrect people, and that's why there are so many religious undertones." They go on to state, "What if everyone on the plane had already died, but the experiment was to go back in time and put them on a plane that would disappear before their date of death. Then they would basically miss the accident or event that caused their death and come back at some point in the future."
The ability to time travel would undoubtedly be of interest to the government, who could use the technology to take out dictators and other evil people before they rise to power. They could also save good people's lives. On top of that, it would help explain Zeke's (Matt Long) situation. He was a hiker who got trapped in a blizzard and returned one year into the future in a scenario similar to the flight passengers. He could very well be part of an alternate experiment. Perhaps he was involved in a smaller test drive for the time travel tech, and Flight 828 was designed to see if many people could time travel at once. One thing's clear: We need answers, and a "Manifest" movie better be on the horizon.