Manifest: Everything You Need to Know Ahead of Season 4

Netflix is about to get a new Calling. After being cancelled by NBC following Season 3, Manifest has been saved by Netflix to deliver a fourth and final season. These last 20 episodes are being split in half, with the first batch arriving this week. While this is the first time a new season of Manifest has debuted on Netflix, the streaming service has had the show in its catalog for over a year now. That said, the show’s complex narrative and dozen-plus subplots make for an overall storyline that could get too complex if not appropriately retraced beforehand.

As seen in the Season 4 official trailer, there are multiple variables at play that only make sense based on where Manifest was before. Volcanoes. Death dates. Black boxes. Divine consciousness. Oh my.

With that in mind, here is everything you need to know before watching Manifest Season 4.

Status of the Stones

No, this does not concern the infinity gauntlet.

While there were 191 passengers on Flight 828, Manifest particularly revolves around the Stone family: Ben (Josh Dallas), Mick (Melissa Roxburgh), Grace (Athena Karkanis), Olive (Luna Blaise), Eden, and Cal (Jack Messina and Ty Doran). Don’t expect to see Messina’s iteration of Cal in Season 4, as Ben’s youngest son has aged up to his teenage years, which are brought to life by Doran. Cal’s age jump was seemingly caused by a connection that he had with Flight 828’s tailfin, as when he touched it in Season 3 he and the fin disappeared altogether, before Cal returned in the final moments to say goodbye to his mom.

That goodbye is a permanent one, because Grace is killed in the Season 3 finale. Despite being rescued by Mick earlier in that season and given refuge by the Stones, Flight 828 passenger Angelina Meyer stabs Grace in the Season 3 finale and kidnaps baby Eden.

As if this family couldn’t be in more disarray, Mick is out of a job. While she previously worked with the police force, she quit after Saanvi confessed to killing The Major, a high-level governmental player that was attempting to weaponize 828 passengers and their newfound abilities.

To recap: Grace is dead, Eden is MIA, Cal is older, Mick is unemployed, and the rest of the Stones are still in somewhat stable condition.

Angelina’s Motives

In order to even begin to understand Angelina’s head is to start from the beginning of her story.

Introduced in the Season 3 premiere, Angelina is situated in Costa Rica with her family when she begins to experience Callings. Her über-religious parents believe these outer-body experiences to be demonic possessions, which leads them to locking Angelina in the basement. Thanks to a well-timed honeymoon in Costa Rica, Mick hears Angelina’s Callings and is able to track her down and save her before she makes a fatal decision.

Even though the Stones welcome her in with open arms and give her an escape from a recognizably abusive situation, the apple does not fall too far from the tree in the Meyer family. When baby Eden cries ahead of an earthquake, Angelina interprets it as an example of divine intervention, seeing Eden as a guardian angel. This newfound obsession is what leads Angelina to kidnapping Eden and killing her mother in the process.

Where is Flight 828?

The big Season 3 cliffhanger comes when the original Flight 828 pilot returning to the aircraft in Eureka, screamed for help, and disappeared along with the plane moments after.

Introduced earlier that season, Eureka is a government project that is focused on all things Flight 828. They have obtained chunks of the aircraft’s wreckage as well as other artifacts from ancient history that might play a role in piecing together this puzzle. 

One of those artifacts in a piece of driftwood that is believed to be from Noah’s Ark, due to the fact that it was found near Mount Aratat, which is supposedly where the famed biblical ship lays. This driftwood also surfaced on the same day that Flight 828 disappeared in 2013, leading those at Eureka to believe that they are connected.

The significance of these connections lies in the prospect of what is to come. With Mount Aratat hosting a sleeping volcano and a lava-spewing mountain being prevalent in multiple Callings, and the Season 4 trailer, signs seem to be pointing to some sort of apocalyptic event being on the horizon, one that bears similar destruction to the flood that Noah’s Ark had to endure.

As for when that doomsday could come…

Death Date

Flight-828’s passengers got a second lease on life, but rent is almost due.

As established earlier in Manifest, characters have a “death date.” After seemingly dying, characters have that amount of time that they were gone left to live. This is exemplified by Season 1 character James, who drowned after robbing an armored car. His body was discovered three days later, seemingly still alive. Despite his resurrection, James dies suddenly 82 hours later, the exact amount of time that he was underwater for.

With Flight-828 disappearing in 2013 and resurfacing five and a half years later in 2018, this leaves all 191 passengers with an expiration date of June 2nd, 2024.

It is possible to avoid a death date, as evident by Zeke’s survival. As his death date approached, Zeke followed a Calling that led him to save Cal. From there, Zeke’s growing frostbite, the cause of his original death, disappeared.

On the flip side, Season 3 saw Jace, Kory, and Pete return to life after drowning. When their death date approaches, Kory and Pete answer their Callings, but Jace did not, leading to the death of all three men. Ben interprets this moment as death dates being an “all or nothing” situation, as everyone who was killed in the same incident has to answer their Callings or else no one will make it out alive. This means that by the end of the final season, Ben needs to get all remaining hundred-plus Flight-828 passengers on the same page, or else no one will live to tell the Flight-828 tale.

Manifest Season 4 Part 1 streams on Netflix this Friday, November 4th.