S01.E15: Hard Landing

[shapeshifter]

15 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Would $75 million really fit inside those 2 duffle bags ?

Maybe, if they were stretchy duffles: "While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet..." (pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html)

[jhlipton]

12 hours ago, CCTC said:

I think Zeke and the wolf guy kind of add an interesting wrinkle if they are used correctly. .

"If they are used correctly"??? Have you been watching this show???

10 hours ago, Camera One said:

Notice the last few episodes, we have moved away from the plane to "explore" these two random people.  

None of them also noticed that the time lapse is getting shorter: 5 years to 1 year to 4 days.  Next they'll find someone who skipped forward 8.28 seconds!

[biakbiak]

7 hours ago, MsGwyndylyn said:

nd don't get me wrong, I get it,  it was five years so yes obviously they would move on, but as her friend, to want to be in an intimate relationship with someone you know your best friend was also in an intimate relationship with? And vice versa as her boyfriend/fiance to want to be with the friend? And just because yall thought she was dead?

It’s not that uncommon for people mourning the loss a significant person in their lives to make new connections with the other people who are sharing that loss and that includes developing romantic feelings. It’s the most believable part of this entire show for me. Especially because Lourdes lost her two best friends in a very short period of time.

Edited February 13, 2019 by biakbiak

[dcinmb]

We saw the Major buying/leasing a fancy NYC condo because she was "relocating to New York," so I don't think she's Zeke's mom [who lives in a brownstone in Queens]. I've been a fan of Matt Long's since his Jack & Bobby days so I hope he sticks around and manages to wrest Michaela out of Jared's one-note, cheating arms.

[biakbiak]

1 hour ago, dcinmb said:

We saw the Major buying/leasing a fancy NYC condo because she was "relocating to New York," so I don't think she's Zeke's mom [who lives in a brownstone in Queens]. I've been a fan of Matt Long's since his Jack & Bobby days so I hope he sticks around and manages to wrest Michaela out of Jared's one-note, cheating arms.

Though given his breaking in to the place and the fact that Jared is acting as if there was a missing person case open for him so they have no idea who he is so needs to take prints to identify him he could easily be lying about who owns the brownstone.

[green]

1 hour ago, dcinmb said:

We saw the Major buying/leasing a fancy NYC condo because she was "relocating to New York," so I don't think she's Zeke's mom [who lives in a brownstone in Queens].

Yeah that was what I thought.  I couldn't understand the Major Mom stuff either.  Not that continuity is exactly top rate on this show.  (Writers:  "Damn, why didn't we think of that angle.").

But the fact that we were left with a cliff-hanger scene of the door not opening this episode must mean that maybe the mother or whoever is behind door #1 may be important to the story.  Or not.

I mean the person above that brought up the podcast guy being introduced then disappearing from the story just goes to show how none of these secondary characters make much sense.  And hell I'm still wondering what happened to Romanian Guy and pals back at the expensive beach house now that the English woman who knew the person that owned the place has literally flown off into the wild blue yonder.

[Bazinga]

Speaking of continuity or lack thereof, during the robbery the guards were tased not killed and then Griffin killed his cohorts and rode off with the money taking his mask off seconds after the robbery because there are no such things as traffic cameras in New York city, but later they said Griffin killed the two guards.  I thought the cohorts not the guards were killed, am I wrong? 

The callings have always been unhelpfully vague and misleading for no reason but Griffin's calling was so clear that he knew exactly where the bomb was located.  Nobody questions that. 

What happened to Ben and Saanvi's callings?

I don't trust that doctor who checked on Saanvi.  Up to no good, IMO.

Cal's drawing of the wolf has the wolf attacking Mic in a doorway, which never happened, yet according to Ben, Cal's drawings are always accurate and this was accurate. 

I don't like the constant layering on of new mysteries without solving anything; making big deals about things that end up going nowhere and then being dropped.  That is why I gave up on Lost.  No, show runners, not waiting around five years for an answer that wont be that amazing, wont make sense, wont fit with everything that went before, and wont be worth the wait.  A show of this sort should be given one season of 22-24 episodes to present its mystery and then solve it.  No additional seasons stringing things along, keeping the mystery ball in the air.  The problem is if they want the show to continue over additional seasons, they are unable to answer the overarching mystery but they do need to at least explain some things as they go along, or these mini-mysteries will stop mattering and I, for one, will lose interest.    

I can't stand that everything is about saving the cheerleader, oh, I mean the Chosen One, Cal.  No, Grace, Griffin wasn't threatening to hurt your family.  Everything isn't about Cal, there was an actual bomb that would hurt others besides your most important of families.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Bazinga

[jhlipton]

4 hours ago, Bazinga said:

I don't trust that doctor who checked on Saanvi.  Up to no good, IMO.

Actually, I got the opposite feeling.  Now that Ben and Grace are together, the Ben-Saanvi "ship" has sailed; so they're pairing her up with Considerate Doctor Guy.

[shapeshifter]

19 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

5 hours ago, Bazinga said:

I don't trust that doctor who checked on Saanvi.  Up to no good, IMO.

Actually, I got the opposite feeling.  Now that Ben and Grace are together, the Ben-Saanvi "ship" has sailed; so they're pairing her up with Considerate Doctor Guy.

I considered both of those options, as well as a third possibility, that this was Concerned Doctor's screen test, and we may or may not see him again.

But now I'm thinking I'll go with all of the above: Concerned Doctor is a spy for the general, which will include him romancing Saanvi, and, if he and Saanvi look good together on screen, he'll become a double agent for the good guys. 

Edited February 13, 2019 by shapeshifter

[Aryanna]

I don't think I can last for 5 seasons. And I don't think the story has enough to make it last that long without a lot of filler. Which we've already had filler episodes in the first season. This episode didn't really move the story forward.

They pull us in with an interesting concept but the creator and the writers need to know that they're gonna have to give us little payoffs every now and then to keep us interested.

[Biggie B]

1 hour ago, Aryanna said:

I don't think I can last for 5 seasons. And I don't think the story has enough to make it last that long without a lot of filler.

Agreed. And what hubris for the show's creators to assume they'll last at least five years on the air. Seriously? I mean, good for them for being optimistic, but come on - it's still sort of ballsy to think that the show will last long enough so that they don't need to give us some solid footing. I'm all for a good, fleshed-out, detailed story line, but it has to be compelling enough and smart enough to keep me on the edge of my seat. This show is definitely not doing that, unfortunately. 

[jhlipton]

Especially since the time-jumps have become meaningless: a flight full of people jumping ahead 5 years is intriguing; one person jumping ahead a year less so; a murderer jumping 4 days: whoop.   

[jay741982]

On 2/12/2019 at 8:53 AM, icemiser69 said:

That is the one development in this series that I do not like.  Well, actually there is a lot going on in this series that I hate.

I just don't like the entire family getting involved in all that is going on. 

Yeah cause Ben continually hiding what was going on from Grace and Olive was so much fun. Oh wait....

[fauntleroy]

The original basis of the show as I recall was that the ability of passengers to receive 'callings' resulted in danger to them from forces that would like to exploit this ability for nefarious reasons ("weaponize"!). But this is not a fair fight - our heroes do not have the resources to protect themselves from eeevil black ops govt whatever who could snatch them up at any time, especially Cal The Chosen One, if they wanted to and that would be that.

That the Major backed off and disappeared seems like evidence the writers realized this. Ben's continued justification to barge half-cocked into dangerous situations because 'protect family' notwithstanding. He is not in a position to protect jack shit.

But then if they are not in immediate peril, what 'standing' do they have to continue their investigation? What can they do that a blue-ribbon panel of the world's top physicists, with the help of cooperative passengers, could not do? Where is the blue-ribbon panel and why has Ben not got in touch with them? (There was such a panel wasn't there? Shown briefly on TV in like Ep 2.)

To procrastinate this conundrum of their own making, until cancellation saves them, writers meanwhile spin out endless tiresome variants of romantic folly. When they get stale throw in a couple more characters to romance about, because they can write pointless soap relationships for years. Include some chase scenes which together with the longing/angry triangles eat up episode time so they don't have to deal with the fundamental problem with the premise.

And make network happy by showing scenes of famileee working together, financial worries forgotten, doing google searches, preparing school projects, and galumphing around the house in big chunky shoes (looking at you Grace).

Introducing others affected by the same phenomenon, more or less, dilutes the concept still further because it means there was nothing unique about the flight, or the duration of their absence, or if there was anything special about the passengers themselves, other than just wrong place wrong time.

Secret govt program to weaponize electrical storms has surprising side effects of random time-jumping and giving varying degrees of poorly-understood clairvoyance to affected individuals. Govt follows up, affected persons organize and...well there is little they could do, really.

Am reminded of old George Clooney movie The Men who Stare at Goats for some reason, will have to take another look at that.

[jhlipton]

43 minutes ago, fauntleroy said:

The original basis of the show as I recall was that the ability of passengers to receive 'callings' resulted in danger to them from forces that would like to exploit this ability for nefarious reasons ("weaponize"!).

Why didn't the Major grab up Griffin, who would be happy to weaponize his calling, given his complete lack of morals and ethics?  

So many threads dropped -- the "danger to those who know" vanished without a trace within 2 episodes.  

And the family is confusing the callings with the actions taken by the called: Griffin's calling was a Good Thing -- it saved a hot dog stand and the few people around it from going boom.  It's just that the callers can't control who gets called, so sometimes it's Bad Hombres.

[Camera One]

Meanwhile, are the experimented-on catatonic passengers still at the beach house?  Saanvi seems preoccupied and Fiona is MIA, so do they have someone else looking after them?   What happened to the sudden head-splitting connections all the passengers had?  

What happened to Vance's partner who was helping Ben?  Did we see what happened to him after the Major's people got him?

Why did the Major send her people to chase Cal with such urgency when now she just wants to "watch" to see what they do next?  Huh?  Her explanation made no sense.

Why did the hate group stop trying to attack the Stones' house?  Does the house still have a 24/7 police guard?  

As many have said, what happened to the radio station guy?  

[ottoDbusdriver]

5 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Especially since the time-jumps have become meaningless: a flight full of people jumping ahead 5 years is intriguing; one person jumping ahead a year less so; a murderer jumping 4 days: whoop.   

Next episode, people will starting showing up from the future -- first 4 days in the future, then 1 year in the future, then 5 years in the future. </sarcasm>

[green]

5 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Next episode, people will starting showing up from the future -- first 4 days in the future, then 1 year in the future, then 5 years in the future. </sarcasm>

You forgot the 828 days in the future one.

[cathmed]

On 2/12/2019 at 10:26 AM, Superclam said:

The show has decent ratings, so I'm pretty sure they'll be back next season. 

Since I agree with your post, I don't know if I'll be back next season. 

Yeah, that's probably what I should have said!   We know TV, as long as the ratings are decent (and that's relative), the show will soldier on.   

[Morrigan2575]

Watched this one last week but, haven't had time to add my thoughts.

For a penultimate episode this was kind of boring but, I guess it's point was to setup the finale or story for next season.

I really, really don't like Jared anymore. First it was the cheating on Lourdes, coupled with lying to her but, the way he keeps pressuring Michaela is just awful. She's asked for space, asked for time to get her thoughts/emotions together and he's all let's get together now that my wife is gone! At this point I want Lourdes and Michaela to get together and dump him (sisters before misters!)

I like Zeke although I'm worried I'm not supposed to. The mystery of who is Zeke's mom is pretty pronounced. I know the spec is that she's The Major but, that Brownstone looks nothing like the High Rise Apartment she bought in the other episode.

If they really want to blow people's minds they should have Zeke's mom be someone from the cast or flight 828 be Zeke's mom (implying at some point in the future one of them gets jumped back in time). 😳

What happened to Saanvi's parents? They've pretty much isolated her, I get that the Stones are the main characters so they get a ton of family/characters to support them. However, would it kill the show to give Saanvi someone to talk to, other than random Doctors/Nurses?  

I actually like all the little time jumps and, how it's not just this Plane incident. I keep thinking it's a man made experiment that went haywire and the black lightning/time jumps are just side effects. However, that doesn't explain "the callings" which seem to have a divine bent. I'll settle for the time jumps expand awareness/prescience (like The Spice from Dune).

I don't mind the wolf because I'm assuming it's not supposed to look like a real wolf. I just assume it's supposed to be a sort of demonic wolf, kind of like a hell hound. 

I did LMAO at that bomb in the hot dog cart. The whole situation was ridiculous. First they'd push the people back way further, second I don't even think they disarm bombs anymore I think they do those controlled detonations.

Edited February 17, 2019 by Morrigan2575

[ottoDbusdriver]

3 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

However, that doesn't explain "the callings" which seem to have a divine bent. I'll settle for the time jumps expand awareness/prescience (like The Spice from Dune).

The Callings Must Flow -- doesn't really work as a catch phrase.

And another show (God Friended Me) already monopolizes the divine take on the callings.

[828er]

On 2/13/2019 at 5:44 AM, green said:

I mean the person above that brought up the podcast guy being introduced then disappearing from the story just goes to show how none of these secondary characters make much sense.  And hell I'm still wondering what happened to Romanian Guy and pals back at the expensive beach house now that the English woman who knew the person that owned the place has literally flown off into the wild blue yonder. 

My theory is that season two will revisit all these characters and loose ends because in episode 16 all our main characters are going to find themselves starting over.   You can read about it in several articles I wrote on my blog:

Speculating on Manifest's "Pretzel Twist" at the End of Season 1

At the end of the article are links to related articles if you care to read them. 

[828er]

12 hours ago, Morrigan2575 said:

I don't mind the wolf because I'm assuming it's not supposed to look like a real wolf. I just assume it's supposed to be a sort of demonic wolf, kind of like a hell hound.

This is a good point!  A lot of people are complaining, but its suppose to be unnatural, not lifelike. I think you are spot on saying it is demonic.

Baby M at Doux Reviews addressed this by looking at THE UNCANNY VALLEY effect.  Here is what he wrote: "If they’d simply rented a trained wolf and had it look menacing and growl in front of the camera, it would have looked like . . . a trained wolf growling. Your mileage may vary, of course, but for me the Uncanny Valley effect makes the CGI wolf more unsettling than a live wolf would be." You can read more about the 'Uncanny Valley Effect" in his recap at  https://www.douxreviews.com/2019/02/manifest-upgrade.html

[Camera One]

On 2/17/2019 at 4:22 AM, Morrigan2575 said:

What happened to Saanvi's parents? They've pretty much isolated her, I get that the Stones are the main characters so they get a ton of family/characters to support them. However, would it kill the show to give Saanvi someone to talk to, other than random Doctors/Nurses?  

Yeah, I've wondered that too.  They're not really treating her as a full character.  Even Zeke has had his backstory told, but 15 episodes later, we don't even know who Saanvi was supposedly travelling with (a "mystery" they finally brought up 2-3 episodes ago).

[Tachi Rocinante]

On 2/11/2019 at 11:49 PM, slothgirl said:

TV showrunners and writers need to take lessons from the team from The West Wing. That show could make the tedious process of passing legislation "must-see tv". Meanwhile these people can't make me care about something truly extraordinary.

Except the West Wing was populated with some of the most unbelievable political characters on any Washington drama.  It was Mayberry DC.

[cameron]

Can't stand it when the actress that plays Grace shows her bit toothy smile.

[Moose135]

On 2/12/2019 at 6:03 AM, biakbiak said:

I realize I can’t apply real life principles but literally in what world ever would they try to diffuse a bomb without clearling a larger perimeter even before the approached it!!!!

In real life, they wouldn't even try to defuse there.  First, they would have cleared a much larger area, probably a block or two, they wouldn't have let a couple of clueless detectives stand 20 feet away watching, and then the NYPD Bomb Squad would send in their robot to check the device and carry it to their "bomb truck" which can be used to safely transport it through the city to their facility in the Bronx, where it would be detonated.

On 2/12/2019 at 7:21 AM, ottoDbusdriver said:

That couldn't have been a real bomb because there was no blue wire.  There's always a red wire and a blue wire.

TV and movie bombs always have a red and a blue wire, and as noted, a timer!  That's how you know this one wasn't real.  The bomb squad guy always agonized over which wire to cut, snipping the correct one just as the timer gets to 1 second...this was clearly a phony bomb!

On 2/13/2019 at 6:07 AM, Bazinga said:

Speaking of continuity or lack thereof, during the robbery the guards were tased not killed and then Griffin killed his cohorts and rode off with the money taking his mask off seconds after the robbery because there are no such things as traffic cameras in New York city, but later they said Griffin killed the two guards.  I thought the cohorts not the guards were killed, am I wrong?

No, you are correct - he killed his two accomplices after tazing the guards - both the detective captain and Ben got it wrong.

[Friendly kitty]

All this is very, very strange ... And it seems that we are hinted that all strange things happen to people who are especially strongly attached to someone. Either it is fraternal bonds, or this feeling of guilt, or it is love ... Still, everything is connected with empathy and those experiments on people, as a result of which scientists wanted to connect two brains.
And yes, the wolf in the end growls and runs. I hope our brave police will run after him. He is calling her! He says that nothing is over yet ...😱

[Mercolleen]

On 2/12/2019 at 7:21 AM, ottoDbusdriver said:

And the driver takes off his mask before driving away -- but that was ok since nearly all the pedestrians on the street had disappeared.  And then the van slows down and turns on its right-turn signal in the middle of the block for some reason.  Because criminals escaping a crime scene are very observant of traffic laws. ...

 

Angela Graham has pictures on her smartphone from 14 years ago.  Before smartphones even existed.  Seriously ?  Now, that's a miracle. ...

Had these exact thoughts!