Now that Ben and Grace know that Olive’s a Believer, will that change anything? And if so, how much? Olive and TJ are also getting closer together while figuring out the meaning of the tarot card, and Saanvi is getting closer to cracking the Death Date. A new Calling could also reveal what really happened with Flight 828.
Find out what happened in the newest episode of Manifest, “Return Trip.”
It's time! A new #Manifest is landing right now on NBC. pic.twitter.com/TfncpzTAHK
— Manifest (@ManifestNFLX) February 11, 2020
TJ and Olive are walking to the Church of the Believers to help with a soup kitchen, and TJ tells Olive his mom used to volunteer at a soup kitchen. There was a Buddhist Temple that had one in it, and sometimes he’d go. When he came back, and his mom was gone, TJ says he had his own mini Buddhist memorial rite for her. He could feel her. Isaiah walks up to them and tells them it’s an honor to have them there. Olive asks where they start, but Adrian comes up to them, telling them they have to go. Adrian tells Olive her dad was clear; because she’s a minor, he has to comply, and he’s sorry. After they leave, Isaiah tells him if they’re turning away the very people who experienced the miracle firsthand, how are they going to get the rest of the world to believe? Adrian says there’ll be another miracle, “an even bigger one.”
When Ben gets home, Grace plays him a voicemail of a woman from a magazine, saying that they’re doing a cover feature of Grace’s pregnancy, “the first 828 baby is a big story,” and they’d love to interview her for the article. How did she find out? Ben tells Grace so many people have seen them coming and going from the hospital, they can’t hide it anymore. Grace says she doesn’t want anyone else to know, not the Xers, not the Believers. Ben says it’s none of their business; it’s just two people having a baby; there’s no story. It’s not like a plane coming back from the past. Suddenly, Ben gets a Calling, and he’s back on 828. However, he also sees Saanvi and gets up. Saanvi asks Ben for help before disappearing. After coming back from the Calling, he tells Grace he thinks Saanvi’s in trouble.
Ben gets to Saanvi’s lab, trying to open the door and calling out to her, but she’s not answering, even when he tries calling her phone. He can hear it ringing, but it’s no use. Michaela comes up to him, and Ben tells her he thinks she’s in there since her phone is. Michaela flashes her badge at a security guard so they can get the door open, and once inside, they find Saanvi on the ground, unconscious.
What has Saanvi gotten herself into? #Manifest pic.twitter.com/4eA6luWs4f
— Manifest (@ManifestNFLX) February 11, 2020
At the hospital, Michaela tells Ben with the hours Saanvi’s been keeping; she most likely collapsed from exhaustion. Ben tells her he’s not so sure, showing Michaela a recording device he took from the floor next to Saanvi, playing back a recording of her saying she’s going to start Phase One of the Human Trials. She’s been experimenting on herself. Why would she do that? It’s so dangerous. Ben says Saanvi blames herself for the Major getting her research, and now she feels she has to catch up. “Well, she can’t catch up if she’s dead.” A doctor comes up to them, telling them Saanvi is going to be fine, but she’s very lucky they found her when they did.
TJ and Olive are in Ben’s office. Olive tells TJ that most Star Cards show a woman at a river, but their card has a peacock. TJ says a peacock is what helped Olive figure out the Death Date. Why would the tarot reader give Olive and Grace the card in the first place? Wouldn’t that make the deck incomplete? Olive says he would have to ask the reader who gave it to them, but she doesn’t know anything about her. Just a stand on the sidewalk. TJ suggests they go look for her.
When Ben visits Saanvi in her hospital room, he tells her she was the one who said that testing on people is unethical and it would never be considered unless the patient was terminal. Saanvi says they are terminal; that’s what she’s working on. Figuring out the Death Date is on her. Ben tells her she has to promise him she’s not going to test on herself again. If they hadn’t had that Calling and asked him to help her … Saanvi tells Ben she wasn’t asking for help in the Calling. In Saanvi’s Calling, she saw a frightened little boy asking for help. Ben says he saw the kid only for a few seconds, but Cal was the youngest on 828. Ben says Finn Nowak had the seat the kid was in. Saanvi says they have to talk to him; the kid desperately needs their help. Ben tells Saanvi he’ll talk to him while she rests, and he leaves to go find him.
Ben is talking to Finn, who says he hasn’t had any vision of being back on the plane. So he wouldn’t know why Ben and Saanvi saw a kid in his seat? Finn says he has no idea; no wife, no kids, and definitely didn’t bring one to Jamaica. Finn says he wasn’t supposed to be on the plane, but a one-night stand made him miss his flight when he went looking for her the morning after. Ben sees a picture of the kid who was in Finn’s seat on the plane, but Finn says that’s impossible; it’s a childhood photo of himself.
Olive and TJ walk up to a tarot card reader and ask her about the peacock card. The reader says the deck the card came from, Alzeraz, has been out of print for decades, but she knows a few places in the city that sell rare and out-of-print things if they have some time to dig around.
Ben meets up with Saanvi, tells her what happened, and shows her the picture of Finn. Ben brings up how Finn said he had a one-night stand the night before he left Jamaica. The kid would be five, around the same age as the kid in the Calling. After going through the data, Saanvi finds the woman, Orlena, who gave birth approximately 40 weeks after April 7, 2013 to a boy named Theo.
"Surprised?"
"Impressed." #Manifest pic.twitter.com/tONGjcEElQ— Manifest (@ManifestNFLX) February 11, 2020
Ben and Saanvi visit Orlena, telling her they want to talk to her son, Theo, hoping they can help in some way. They bring up Finn, but Orlena tells them to leave. Her husband of 10 years is the father of her three children. Ben says he doesn’t get the Calling; Theo looks fine. Saanvi tells Ben she saw terror in Theo’s eyes on the plane, and they have to help him.
After getting the Alzeraz deck, TJ and Olive look up the guy who created it. According to legend, he was lost at sea for 10 years and then mysteriously returned. Does this mean it’s happened before? TJ couldn’t find anything about when he died, but it could be 10 years after he returned. TJ says the Calling led them to Al-Zuras to show that the Death Date was real. Olive says maybe the Calling led them to the guy because he survived the Death Date.
Ben and Saanvi meet up with Finn again and tell him about Theo. Ben tells Finn when he met Orlena that she was married, and it seems the guy has no idea that Theo isn’t his. He says Orlena made it clear that her husband is a very involved and loving father. Although Finn could insist on visits, Ben tells him he’d be risking blowing up a happy family. Finn asks Ben and Saanvi if they can try to help him see Theo just once. Ben says as a father, he thinks it’d be harder to walk away than he thinks. Saanvi tells Finn they have to try; the Calling said Theo needs help; maybe that means he needs Finn’s help, too.
Later, Ben asks Saanvi if any of this has to do with the Death Date; it’s better than thinking the Calling is just toying with them. Saanvi thinks they’re just supposed to help Theo, but they don’t know how. Orlena introduces Theo to Ben, Saanvi, and Finn, saying they’re friends. Saanvi notices Theo’s eyes are different than they were in the Calling. In the Calling, his eyes had distinctive yellow rings, and he’s having motor issues — a sign of liver disease. And you don’t get that until you’re crashing. “That’s what the Calling wanted us to figure out.” Saanvi tells Orlena they need to get Theo to a hospital now. At the hospital, Finn is a perfect match for Theo for a liver transplant, and Orlena says he saved her son’s life; he should be a part of it.
That night, Olive finds Ben in his office after Ben has been looking over everything about the peacock tarot card and Al-Zuras. “This changes everything.” Ben says the possibility that all of this has happened before, it’s huge. He’s impressed Olive and TJ managed to track it all down. Olive tells Ben that TJ figured something else out about the tarot and asks to meet him. If he’s worried she’s going to go to the church and poison her impressionable mind; she’s not. Ben tells Olive she knows them, but other people don’t. They listen to Adrian calling them immortals, that they’re miracles. What they hear is they’re not human. “And that’s incredibly dangerous for all of us.” Olive says he’s made that very clear.
Ben and Olive finally found some common ground. #Manifest pic.twitter.com/3NytEXdkwu
— Manifest (@ManifestNFLX) February 11, 2020
Grace tells Ben maybe they should do the cover story. Although she’s been thinking about the Xers and Believers finding out, after what Ben told her about Orlena and how for five years, she convinced people that Theo was her husband’s and not a passenger’s, it got her thinking. Maybe they could convince people that their baby girl is not an 828 baby but rather Danny’s baby. Grace says she’s sure Danny would go along with it. Two different Callings have warned them that the baby might be in danger. Grace tells Ben she’s scared, and Ben says he is too; he’s terrified. He will protect their baby, and they both will. Together.
We don't envy Grace's position right now. #Manifest pic.twitter.com/NmLFaDvwU1
— Manifest (@ManifestNFLX) February 11, 2020
Saanvi is in her lab and starts to record herself, saying theoretically, the genetic anomaly could transfer to Finn’s son by way of the organ transplant, meaning they may have just saved this kid and cursed him at the same time. She makes a memo to Ben, saying if he finds this, she knows she promised, but she also knows there was no other way. She has to test on herself. “I have to save the passengers.” Saanvi starts experimenting on herself again.
Michaela is in her bathroom when suddenly, ashes are falling. Saanvi is still in her lab, and the same thing is happening to her. It’s also happening to Ben in his office. The three of them are at the sight of a plane crash, 828. Everyone is dead. Is this what happened to them? Did they crash? Ben says these people weren’t on the plane. Saanvi tells them some of them were, Finn. “What the hell’s happening?” Off to the side of the plane, Adrian watches on.
Is this what actually happened to Flight 828? #Manifest pic.twitter.com/AWgHzMDtSz
— Manifest (@ManifestNFLX) February 11, 2020
Manifest airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.
