The Manifest season 3 finale is here! Following Cal going to Eureka at the end of last week’s episode, in the first part of the two-part finale, Ben and Grace try to get the testing on the Tailfin to stop in order to help Cal, and thanks to a drawing and a new Calling, Ben figures they have to do something else. Meanwhile, a bloody Calling leads Michaela on a hunt to figure out what passenger to save and asking two familiar and unfriendly faces for help.
Keep reading to find out what happens in the first part of the Manifest season 3 finale, “Mayday.”
Back on Flight 828, the plane is experiencing the turbulence. Michaela asks Ben and Cal if they’re okay, but neither of them answer. Michaela tries to get stewardess Bethany’s attention, but she runs away. She gets up and notices blood dripping onto her hands. When she looks up, blood is seeping through the ceiling. Michaela tries to get her brother to tell her what’s happening, but he doesn’t listen. As more blood is seeping through the walls of the plane, she tries to get Saanvi’s attention, but she keeps typing away at her laptop. Michaela and Bethany get up and look around them as the plane is consumed with blood. In her head, Zeke is calling out to her. Michaela wakes up in a sweat, frightened, with Zeke right next to her. She gets up and tries to catch her breath as she tells Zeke that was terrifying. He mentions she couldn’t stop shaking, and he’s never seen her have a Calling that powerful before. Michaela tells him about the blood and she sits down, still trying to catch her breath. Zeke wonders if she thinks a passenger is going to get hurt. “Not if I can help it.”
After getting a call from Vance about Cal, Ben (who is no longer wearing his ankle bracelet, thanks to Olive) and Grace get to Eureka and run right to Cal. Cal says he had a Calling. He had to come. Grace tries to get him to leave, but Cal tries to bring up the Calling again. Grace tells him she heard him, they can discuss it at home. Cal says he needs to stay, and he shows them a new drawing of the Tailfin and blackness around it. Something bad is going to happen if they don’t stop them, Cal tells his parents. Dr. Gupta comes up and wonders how dangerous it is. Cal says he doesn’t know, but he knows that it can’t be there anymore. Dr. Gupta tries to get more information, but Grace says he is not talking to anyone there. She tells Cal they will go home and figure this out together. Cal starts wincing and holds his shoulder, revealing his burnt stomach. He told them he got a Calling.
Ben gets off the phone with Michaela and tells Grace, Cal, and Saanvi that her Calling didn’t have any flames and she doesn’t have any burns. This seems completely separate. When Cal mentions that his wounds were smaller at first, Saanvi realizes that the Callings are shifting and they have been since the Tailfin resurfaced. Ben wonders if this is their way of telling them to stop testing on the Tailfin, and Cal just mentions this is what he’s been saying this whole time. Troy comes back with Cal’s results and says that his skin tissue is covered in the same sapphire compound they found on the Tailfin. And on Ben’s hand. Ben says that’s not possible as Cal hasn’t touched the Tailfin. Not yet, Cal says. Something’s not right. He has to stop them.
Ben tries to get the testing to stop on the Tailfin as that is what’s causing Cal’s burns. Saanvi tells Dr. Gupta that Cal’s burns are like the earthquake. It is a warning that they need to listen. There’s not a shred of evidence that supports that theory, Gupta mentions. Saanvi of all people should know better. Ben says they have to trust him. It is all connected. They are messing with the divine and it needs to stop. Ben tells Vance he is a father, too. “Would you jeopardize your own son’s life?” Vance tells Dr. Gupta they’ll pause the testing temporarily. It could potentially prove that the testing had anything to do with Cal’s burns, he points out.
Michaela and Zeke visit Bethany, and after some convincing, Bethany tells them what she saw. They were all back on 828, normal as always, then there was blood everywhere. “It was as if the plane itself was bleeding.” Michaela says she saw that, too, and saw her running toward the back. Bethany says she heard screaming, she knew someone needed her help. She saw someone trying to open the Emergency door, and it turns out to be Eagan whom she saw. Bethany admits she felt like he was going to kill them all. Eagan gets the Emergency door open, and Bethany stands there, horrified.
Despite the testing stopping hours ago, Cal is not getting any better. Maybe they need to do more, Ben tells Saanvi. Like put their plan into play now. Saanvi wonders if he really thinks destroying the Tailfin is going to make Cal better, and Ben says maybe. But Gupta is itching to get back to testing, and Ben doesn’t know how much longer Vance can hold her off. Saanvi says she can’t be in two places at once. If the only way to save Cal is to destroy the Tailfin, that’s what Ben will do.
At the precinct, Jared reluctantly gets Michaela into holding, and she walks over to Eagan’s cell. She notices Adrian, and all Eagan says is that it’s “an 828 reunion.” Michaela tells Eagan she needs to talk, and Eagan tells her that unlike her, he has no choice in being there, but he doesn’t have to talk. She tells the three passengers about the Calling and asks if any of them had it, too. Adrian says no, as he’s been ignoring the Callings, in a way. Michaela tells him ignoring the Callings is a choice. He doesn’t get the Callings anymore since he’s just been silencing them. Eagan adds on that if he got the Callings, it’s not like he can do much sitting in there. She tells Eagan that in the Calling, he was the one putting them all in danger, not her brother. Eagan gets up and tells Michaela he was trying to save them. Maybe the Calling didn’t bother with Ben because he’s a loose cannon, Eagan figures. Maybe they should be in charge and take things in a different direction. “If you’re such a leader, then lead.”
Just as Michaela begins to walk away, Eagan tells her there was blood everywhere. He felt danger, so he went to open the door. They had to get out. Then he saw a small-beaked black bird. A crow, or raven. That was it. The Calling was a crime scene, Michaela says. Someone is going to die, and they’re just witnesses, but they’re all seeing it from a different vantage point. Eagan says she should talk to anyone else not seated. No one seated was reacting to this. People out of their seats are the only ones who had the Calling. Eagan says he didn’t see anyone else walking around, but he counted 17 empty seats. There were only 14 unoccupied seats on 828, Michaela says. The flight crew use the jump seats. If Michaela is right, someone besides the two of them must have been up. If she finds that person, she finds her eye-witness. Eagan tells her which seats were unoccupied.
As Troy activates the simulator and Ben touches the device, he gets a Calling. It’s a new one: he’s underwater, and he sees the Tailfin. A hand starts reaching toward him and it’s Cal, who is drowning fast. Ben swims to him, and he comes out of the Calling with his hand glowing.
Meanwhile, Cal wakes up, sweating. He says it was just a Calling. Grace and Saanvi keep looking at him, as his burns are turning bright. He tells them that he and Ben were underwater, they couldn’t see the surface. Ben comes in with his still-glowing hand and says they saw the Tailfin. And he thinks he knows why. He takes out Cal’s drawing and says it’s underwater. At the bottom of the ocean. Vance comes in with security, and Ben tells him they don’t need to destroy the Tailfin. They need to return it.
Vance asks Ben if Cal’s burns have changed in the slightest. Ben says not yet because they haven’t completed the Calling. Why would the Callings want them to find the Tailfin and not study it? That’s the thing, Ben says. It was never supposed to be found. Cal’s drawing was a clue for them to return it to where those fishermen found it. The Callings still want that. Vance tells Ben he risked his life for the Tailfin because of him. While Ben’s made his fair share of mistakes lately, he is more sure of this than he has been of anything in a long time. Vance says if he so much as suggest tossing the Tailfin into the ocean, he’ll get tossed out of there. He won’t help them or any of the passengers again. Then they don’t tell them, Ben suggests. They’ve done it before. They do this Vance’s way, or not at all.
As Michaela and Zeke look through the passenger manifest, Olive comes into the garage with something she found. She brings up that a lot of the texts mention Noah as the savior of the world. Others see him as the destroyer. In one version, Noah is disgusted with the evil of the world, and after he convinced people to do good, he asked God to bring on the flood. He was an agent of the apocalypse, Michaela says. Olive tells Michaela she’s starting to sound like Adrian. He was obsessed with the passengers bringing on the apocalypse. Adrian told Michaela he can’t get Callings anymore. Zeke finds the missing passenger’s seat, and it turns out to be none other than Adrian. He was lying. He was out of his seat.
Michaela and Zeke get to the precinct, and Michaela tells Zeke that Adrian was lying. She thinks he can help with the Calling. Jared admits they released all the passengers.
At home, Michaela tells Zeke that without Jared, they have no way of finding Adrian. Zeke says it’s hard to believe he didn’t come forward if he knew he could save a life. Michaela wonders if Jared thought the life didn’t deserve to be saved, like her brother, like her. Michaela gets a Calling, and she’s shaking, back on the plane. She finds Eagan and tells him that Adrian is somewhere on the plane, they have to find him. Michaela sees Adrian walking towards the back of the plane, and Zeke grabs Michaela’s hand in real time, feeling what she’s feeling. On the plane, Michaela asks Adrian who is going to die, and Adrian turns around, revealing his bloodied eyes.
Meanwhile, out of the Calling, Michaela tells Zeke that Adrian’s eyes were bleeding. He lied to her, but she doesn’t know what about. Zeke says he felt something. Adrian was filled with guilt and shame, something terrible. What if it’s not about a passenger dying, Michaela wonders. What if it’s about a passenger killing?
Testing on the Tailfin has resumed, but Dr. Gupta still won’t listen to anyone about it. Grace asks if she sees what she is doing to her son, and Dr. Gupta says everyone there wants her son to get well. But they also have a mission to complete. If they continue, perhaps they’ll find a way to help Cal and all of the passengers. “Save your sanctimonious garbage for someone else.” Grace tells Dr. Gupta she doesn’t give a “rat’s ass” about her son or the other passengers. This is about her and her research and nothing more. As Ben and Grace try to reason with Dr. Gupta, Cal walks away and toward the Tailfin. Grace notices him, and Cal says they don’t understand. He has to show them. Cal hugs his mother, tightly, and tells her he loves her. “I’ll see you soon.” Cal runs towards the Tailfin, and Grace, Ben, Vance and Saanvi run toward him. Cal puts his hand on the Tailfin and disappears.
What happens next? Stay tuned for the recap of the conclusion to the season 3 finale of Manifest!
