Manifest S1 Ep5- Connecting Flights Promo [Updated with Videos]

The end of episode promo is the only one out so far for next week’s episode of Manifest. If/when more sneak peeks are released, I’ll gather them in this post.

In the meantime, here’s a photo with Jared brooding over his map and Lourdes looking on. It’s good to see that Lourdes hasn’t been completely forgotten by Jared or the writers.

Episode description from NBC:

10/22/2018 (10:00PM – 11:00PM) (Monday) : Stories unfold for those left behind in the aftermath of Flight 828’s disappearance. Meanwhile in the present, Cal (Jack Messina) takes Ben (Josh Dallas) on a mysterious adventure that awakens Ben to his son’s perplexing abilities. Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) tries to protect Jared (J.R. Ramirez) from consequences at work, while keeping her romantic feelings at bay. Also starring Athena Karkanis and Luna Blaise.

Promo after the jump.

Cal probably wasn’t in episode 4 so that Jack Messina, the child actor who plays him, could spend extra hours filming episode 5 instead. Connecting Flights is a Cal-centered episode, so maybe we’ll get to find out about the changes happening to him since the flight. He’s already shown advanced reasoning skills, and he popped awake when the plane exploded, suggesting some connection to the entity that’s controlling things and/or a transfer of information in the moment. Next week’s promo suggests this will be an important episode. We’re gearing up for November sweeps, which start 10/26, so expect the pace of the reveals and the drama to heat up for the next several episodes.

There are more photos at SpoilerTV.com. The photos and description suggest that we’re going to learn more details about what the cast members who weren’t on Flight 828 went through while 828 was missing, starting with their alternate flight home. Grandpa Steve and Danny are both back this week.

I’m really excited for the sweeps episodes and some larger reveals!

 

 

The episode clips are out! The first clip is a flashback, with the family still at the airport after being told that Flight 828 has gone missing. An official tells the family that the search for the flight has begun. Grace is already angry at Ben and blaming him and herself for letting him take Cal on a different flight. Jared interprets Michaela’s choice of flight as a rejection, correctly assuming she was putting off her return. He knows her well. Lourdes moves Olive away from the emotionally fraught discussion, hoping to protect her. Olive cries for her dad. Was she a daddy’s girl before Ben was lost? Is that why she’s grown so close to Danny and can’t forgive Ben? Mick and Ben’s mom, Karen, makes the heartbreaking realization that she’s lost both of her babies.

Kelly Taylor’s husband is there as well. He’s already questioning what really happened and the government’s involvement. Has there been a conspiracy theory group related to the flight all along? Ben should definitely get in touch with them, if he can get past his overly rational bias. Once you’ve disappeared into thin air for 5 years, you need to maybe open up your mind to new ideas a bit.

In the second clip, Ben continues to stubbornly resist accepting that the passengers have been changed. He tells Michaela that he’s putting his own nuclear family first in order to protect them. Then he accuses Michaela of ruining Jared’s career and being on the road to sabotaging her own life. He doesn’t believe that anything connects the Flight 828 passengers, and he thinks the callings have evil intentions.

This all conveniently plays into Ben’s desire to keep his head down and pretend that the flight never happened. He seriously believes that if he minimizes the fact that he was missing for 5 years long enough, everything will work itself out. But his arguments are becoming desperate, because he keeps admonishing Michaela to lie to everyone, and he’s lying to himself and his family, even as he blames her for Jared’s problems. He wouldn’t let her come clean to the Captain, so Jared is in trouble. He isn’t honest with Grace and Olive, so they’ll never truly be close again.

Even as Ben is arguing with Mick, he hears the calling of the week, “It’s all connected.” Michaela picks up on it, and asks what the voice said. Ben still refuses to play along, and accuses Michaela of trying to blackmail him when she reminds him of the lives that have been saved because of the callings. That’s some twisted thinking, right there, when you get to the point of saying that asking someone to think about other people instead of making the selfish choice is emotional manipulation.

Ben and his family are involved whether he likes it or not. Ignoring the problem won’t make them safer. It will make them ignorant of the dangers they face, and more vulnerable to making bad choices. The middle class white guy may think he’s immune to the government’s plans for the passengers, but that’s a delusion he’s feeding himself. His own son has the blood marker, and his sister is at the center of the callings. He’s hearing the callings himself, and Cal has abilities that aren’t fully defined yet.

The government will be very interested in them, and in comparing the twin who was changed with the twin who wasn’t. Researchers love twin studies.

I still wonder if Ben knows something he’s not telling us, or if he just strongly suspects things because he’s essentially a spy.

Michaela is recklessly forming her Resistance cell, but I’m not sure what choice she has. We’ve seen that the callings become insistent if ignored. They’d probably cause some mental lapse if completely ignored, which a cop can’t afford. Plus, as she told Ben, there are people in need. Besides the Pyler girls, there was Radd’s son and Thomas, plus justice for Kelly and bringing Bev home.

And Cal’s cancer treatments, though I don’t think Ben realizes that Saanvi intervened on Cal’s behalf to get him in the trial, as a way of following her own calling. Ben has the perfect skills to help the group work quietly while still expanding their circle. They all need to communicate with each other more regularly, that much is clear.

Does Ben think Saanvi and Mick should have ignored the Weeping Angel getting in their faces in episode 4?

 

Link to a third clip, released just a few hours before the episode: Grace and Danny meet-cute. They are at some type of support group meeting, possibly one for widowed spouses, and Grace talks about putting on a brave face for the public, while feeling terrible inside. She says she wishes someone would acknowledge how much she’s really hurting. During the social hour after the meeting, Danny acknowledges Grace’s pain in the way she asked for.

Media courtesy of NBC.