Manifest season 4 part 1 ending explained: How it sets up final episodes

The streaming service has split the season in half, with the first 10 episodes available to stream on Netflix now, and part 2 set to land at a later date.

Of course, these upcoming episodes should finally wrap up some of Manifest’s most pressing enigmas, and tell us exactly what happened to Flight 828 and its passengers.

If you just want a quick recap to bring you up to speed, here it is: the show follows the passengers of commercial Flight 828, which goes missing on April 7th 2013.

Five years later, on November 4th 2018, the flight re-emerges, with its passengers not having aged a day since the flight first left the runway. Stranger still, the passengers are under the impression that the flight simply took off and landed as normal. To them, no extra time has passed.

As the passengers return to society, many of them begin experiencing hallucinations and visions of the future, which they dub "callings". These callings help them to rescue people in need, but often bring them into conflict with law enforcement and government agencies like the NSA.

Over time, the passengers realise that there is more to the callings than meets the eye, and that as well as being helpful, they may also provide clues as to the day that each of them will die.

The show primarily follows the Stone family, only some of whom were on Flight 282. Siblings Ben (Josh Dallas) and Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh), and Ben’s cancer-stricken son Cal (Jack Messina) all disappeared for five years, leaving behind Ben’s wife Grace (Athena Karkanis) and Cal’s twin sister Olive (Luna Blaise).

Along the way, we also meet Michaela’s fiancé Jared Vasquez (JR Ramirez), fellow 828-er and cancer researcher Dr Saanvi Bahl (Parveen Kaur), several people who experienced similar disappearances under entirely different circumstances such as Zeke Landon (Matt Long), and a host of other characters who provide clues and help deepen the mystery of Flight 828.

But before we look at what happened in season 4, let’s take a look at how season 3 left things.

How Did Manifest season 3 end?

While Angelina was welcomed into the Stone household initially, friction soon started to develop as Angelina became fixated in the idea that Ben and Grace’s new baby Eden was her "guardian angel" and that the two belonged together.

Meanwhile, Ben and NSA director Robert Vance (Daryl Edwards) discovered the tailfin from what appeared to be an alternate version of Flight 828 that had crashed into the ocean instead of returning home. Ben’s son Cal – whose callings had grown in intensity throughout the series – was manipulated by Angelina into touching the tailfin, causing him to disappear.

These stories tragically converged in the season 3 finale, when Angelina snuck into the Stone household with a knife, stabbing Grace and departing with baby Eden. As Grace lay dying, she was joined by an older version of Cal (played by Ty Doran), who had aged from a pubescent boy to a young man in the hours since his disappearance.

Season 3 also saw the passengers begin to piece together clues about the calling, finding that people and items that had disappeared throughout history contained traces of the precious gemstone sapphire (or its constituent elements). One such item was a piece of driftwood believed to have been taken from Noah’s Ark, which Dr Saanvi destroyed to help quell a series of earthquakes that had hit New York, and seemed to have been caused by the passengers’ investigations into their disappearance.

If you aren’t familiar with the show some of this may seem a little random and confusing. If that’s the case, you only need to know one thing: it’s all connected.

Where does Manifest season 4 pick up?

Perhaps the biggest change at the beginning of season 4 is that it picks up two years in to the future, when passengers are forced to register with the government and check in once a month to avoid being arrested.

Cal and Ben’s relationship is fraught, as Ben holds his son partly responsible for the death of Grace and the kidnapping of Eden, due to Cal’s former relationship with Angelina. Ben spends the majority of his time obsessively hunting for his daughter, often with the assistance of a guilt-stricken Cal.

Is Eden rescued?

One of the most pressing questions at the end of season 3 was: what happened to baby Eden? Well, there’s good news and bad news on that front. The bad news is that Angelina kept hold of baby Stone during that entire period, raising Eden to believe that she was her mother. She also taught Eden to fear her own father, training her to call him "the bad man".

The good news is that Ben finally gets his little girl back; albeit at a cost. In episode 5, Angelina takes several people hostage at her cult compound. Angelina threatens to blow the compound up if the Stones take Eden from her, but she is overpowered and seemingly killed in the explosion as our heroes escape.

In the episode it is also revealed that Cal’s cancer has returned, and we later learn that he has only days to live.

What do we learn about the calling?

The most important piece of new information about the mystery surrounding Flight 828 concerns the ""death date" the passengers discover in the season 1 finale. The date appears to be different for each person, and is determined by the length of time the person has been missing.

However, in episode 9 it is revealed that the death date of the passengers doesn’t just correspond to their own deaths; it corresponds to the apocalypse, and the death of every person on Earth.

The season also reveals the existence of "Omega Sapphires", which the passengers believe may the key to averting their death dates, and the potential apocalypse. It is revealed that the Major – the antagonist from the first two seasons of the show – managed to track down the only remaining Omega Sapphire in existence before her death at the hands of Dr Saanvi.

Manifest season 4, part 1 ending explained

The final episode of the half-season sees the Stones racing to find the Omega Sapphire before it can fall into the wrong hands, as Cal inches closer to death in the family home. Unbeknownst to them, Angelina has already stolen the sapphire.

Ben has a vision of Grace, who tells him to "bring Eden to her". Ben interprets this as an instruction to bring Eden to Grace’s grave, which he dutifully obliges.

When he arrives at Grace’s grave, he is confronted by Angelina, who reveals that not only did she survive the explosion, but the sapphire has enhanced her abilities and she is now able to generate false callings. Ben and Angelina allow Eden an opportunity to choose between her fake "mother" and her real father, and Eden ultimately chooses Ben.

Angelina then flees to a church, where she opens a lava fissure similar to those opened towards the end of season 3, endangering the parishioners inside.

Meanwhile Olive works with TJ (returned from his trip to Egypt in season 2) to discover more about the sapphire. They find evidence that Cal may be the key to tipping the scales of destiny back in their favour.

Upon learning this, Zeke uses his empathic abilities to take Cal’s cancer from him, dying in his place and allowing him an opportunity to fulfil his destiny as saviour of the passengers.

Cal faces Angelina in a vision set on Flight 828, eventually managing to overpower her and shatter the Omega Sapphire.

Angelina is seen at the episode’s conclusion, emerging from the rubble with a piece of the Omega Sapphire embedded in her hand.

What will happen in Manifest season 4, part 2?

It seems clear at this stage that the part 2 of season 4 will see Angelina and Cal battle for the fate of humanity: Cal trying to avoid the world’s final death date, and Angelina facilitating it.

However, there are still a few things we don’t fully understand about the calling, like where it came from, and who or what controls it. These mysteries will likely be solved in the show’s very final episodes.

While Zeke’s death was certainly a shock for long-time viewers of the show, for a show which has death as one of its central themes it was surprising that he was the only notable character to be offed. Expect the body count to rise dramatically as the series draws to its final close.

With a strong start to its final season, Manifest is a show that certainly seems ready to ready to stick the landing – let’s just hope it doesn’t disappear again before it gets there.

Manifest season 4, part 1 is streaming now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix now. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

For more to watch, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page. Alternatively, visit our full TV Guide or Streaming Guide.

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