Manifest TV Series Ending Explained

“Manifest” is a supernatural mystery drama about a group of people who are essentially teleported five years into the future as a consequence of some unexplained paranormal phenomenon that occurred during a commercial flight. As they try to reintegrate into a world that has already mourned them — friends and family having aged beyond them during this time (and in some tragic cases having passed away) while lovers found comfort in new partners — they experience “callings” from mysterious voices urging them to do strange things that ultimately save lives.

As the series progresses, these callings lead the passengers to discover other people who have gone through similar time-jumps after near-death experiences, and it’s deduced that all of them slipped into a purgatory-like “divine consciousness” that exists outside space and time. Further, they realize they only have the amount of time from when they disappeared to prove they are morally pure by obeying the callings they hear in their heads. For the airplane passengers specifically, failure means not only death for everyone on board but possibly the end of the world entirely.

To make matters more complicated, the passengers are split on how exactly they should respond to this dilemma. For Ben Stone (Josh Dallas), his sister Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh), and their family, the answer is doing the most amount of good they can before their expiration date; for Angelina Meyer (Holly Taylor) and her followers, the answer lies in embracing mystical, sapphire-infused spiritual powers and following a single savior. It’s truly a tale of biblical proportions, with a finale essentially ripped straight from the pages of the book of Revelation.

With the apocalypse on the way, Cal Stone (Ty Doran) has sacrificed himself to set off a beacon that unites the entire surviving manifest of Flight 828. Once there, subterranean volcanoes emerge, somehow raising the plane itself from the molten lava that surrounds the group. Angelina assumes the vessel is meant to be an ark (similar to Noah’s in the Bible) to preserve her and her followers for whatever comes next. She attempts to use her powers — and, when they fail, a shotgun — to force everyone else off the flight. A tremor in the ground renders her incapacitated, however, and Ben, after briefly considering executing her with the shotgun for murdering his wife,  ultimately decides to forgive Angelina and carry her aboard to save her life — for the time being, at least.

Unfortunately for Angelina and her followers, they are subjected to a pre-judgment before the rest of the group as the plane takes off. Eleven fail, including Angelina, and they are all turned to ash on the plane. Adrian (Jared Grimes) and Eagan (Ali Lopez-Sohaili) nearly combust as well, but their love for one another staves off their fate — the same is true for Saanvi (Parveen Kaur), who finally forgives herself for her transgressions along the way. When true judgment arrives in the form of a literal grim reaper, Ben and Michaela scream at it, insisting that they did the best they could — which seemingly works.

The plane flies once more through the glow and lands back in 2013. All passengers retain their memories of the last five years — save Cal, who has been de-aged (again played by Jack Messina) to live out a normal childhood with twin sister Olive (Luna Blaise). Ben and Grace (Athena Karkanis) reunite, as do Saanvi and her partner; Vance (Daryl Edwards) is called to the scene to investigate the disappearance of the 11 passengers, unaware of his role in the story; Michaela turns down Jared (J.R. Ramirez, best known for his role in “Jessica Jones” season 2), allowing him to meet Drea (Ellen Tamaki) when she arrives to help Vance while Michaela races outside to steal a cab driven by an oblivious Zeke (Matt Long).

When Ben first lands in New York in the series premiere, he insists to his wife Grace that they’ve been given a second chance. After all, not only had he and 190 others been essentially raised from the dead, but the time bought by their suspended flight would seemingly save Cal from certain death as a result of his then-terminal cancer diagnosis. Of course, that ultimately turned out not to be true — the family immediately faced barriers to getting Cal the advanced experimental treatment that had been developed during their disappearance, and Zeke is eventually forced to use his supernatural gifts to absorb the cancer from him in order to keep Cal alive to save the world.

Indeed, Ben’s initial read of the situation was only half true. The passengers had been given a second chance, but only one in the strangest, most difficult circumstances meant to test the moral worthiness of the entire human race. As the scientifically-minded Saanvi points out, the passengers of Flight 828 could be seen as a random sample in an experiment. Within this framing, the group interprets the result of their test to be a reward — an actual second chance (mostly) unburdened by supernatural interference and apocalyptic stakes.

For most of the passengers, this fate would realistically be something of a mixed bag. Though the series clearly chases a sunny, happy ending full of reversed consequences and impossible reunions, everyone on that plane will live the rest of their lives with terrifying and traumatic memories — everyone, that is, except for Cal Stone. Young Cal was arguably forced to carry the heaviest burden throughout the series. In addition to being robbed of a normal childhood with Olive, he is forced to be the center of the biblical war between good and evil where he’s constantly called upon to make sacrifices.

It’s never explained why Cal specifically was chosen in this way. Being the youngest person on the flight, he could be seen as being the purest of heart among those involved in the test. The pilot goes to great lengths to show just how kind and hopeful he is in spite of his cancer diagnosis — perhaps this world’s deity or deities felt he had already passed his own test, and was thus uniquely positioned to bear an extraordinary amount of responsibility.

As much as the above explanations square with the show’s vague (and in our view shaky) internal logic based on simplistic definitions of “good” and “bad” morals, it just doesn’t sit right with us. Among other questions left unanswered by the finale, why were Ben and the rest of the passengers allowed to scream their way through an impartial divine judgment meant to assess the very essence of human morality?

One answer could be that whatever god presides over this universe does not actually understand human morality, perhaps creating the need for this sort of test in the first place. Perhaps they underestimated the complexity of the human experience and found themselves genuinely unable to judge people collectively when the time came. As a result, sending them back to 2013 may not have been a reward at all, but a cleaning of the slate that allows for a revised test to take place — maybe this time focused on the moral decisions of Cal, the only passenger not to have his memory restored.

This theory would at the very least keep certain plot holes open and allow them to be filled in (either by the audience’s imagination or in a subsequent story) with more satisfying answers. That said, not even a second, fairer test would seemingly undo the judgments that have already taken place.

One of the more confusing parts of the “Manifest” finale is the fate of the dead. While some are brought back and given what is arguably the ultimate second chance, others are definitely still gone.

Dead passengers like Harvey (a man who was driven mad by the callings and died by suicide, played by Richard Topol), Kelly (​killed by her housekeeper, played by Julienne Hanzelka Kim), and Sam (Josh Sauerman) are all brought back to life and let out into the airport with the rest of the flight. It’s unclear, though, if they remember the circumstances leading to their deaths — perhaps not being present on the flight reset them in the same way it did Cal. Others who died but were not passengers like Karen Stone (Ben and Michaela’s mother who died while they were gone, played by Geraldine Leer) and Zeke are returned as well, though the latter seemingly has no memory of his own experience with the divine consciousness.

On the other hand, those who were judged by this god apparently remain damned. Though Angelina and the other 10 raptured passengers are considered to have “disappeared” by Vance and the NYPD, the reality is that they burned to ash — this is confirmed to still be the case post-reset in a wild deleted scene we’ll discuss further down. This also likely means that armored car burglar James Griffin (Marc Menchaca) and the three other criminals judged over the course of the series remain judged, likely having vanished from this version of 2013 in the same mysterious way as Angelina. However, this raises further questions about whether or not any of them should be punished for crimes they haven’t committed in this new timeline, as they were influenced greatly by the harsh conditions of the test. Lastly, children born post-2013 like Eden and Hope no longer exist, though Ben at least seems entirely unconcerned with that.

Of the many relationships of “Manifest,” fans were most invested in the love triangle between Michaela Stone, her on-again, off-again ex-fiance Jared, and supernaturally empathetic Zeke. In the pilot, Michaela is ready to say yes to Jared’s proposal, seemingly to please her parents and grant herself a level of emotional security after the tragic death of her friend. In the finale, after a memory-wiped Jared admits he may have rushed the proposal, Michaela selflessly chooses to let him go for good — after everything they’ve been through, she accepts they can both do better and needs to let him find Drea and “have Hope” (literally). Fortunately for her, Zeke is also outside, obliviously waiting for his future wife in a taxi cab.

Speaking about this conclusion — sure to be controversial among the “Jachaela” portion of the “Manifest” fandom — actors Melissa Roxburgh, J. R. Ramirez, and Matt Long felt it wrapped things up perfectly. “We have these two factions of really passionate people, which is so fun,” Long shared in an interview with Netflix on YouTube. “I think the finale really does service both groups.”

Ramirez described the resolution as “beautiful,” and noted how the series managed to sustain the tension surrounding her feelings right through to the end. “They took us every way possible. One of the things I loved the most about [season 4] was that [Jared] wants the best for her. In the midst of all that, he realizes how good [Zeke] has been to her.” For her part, Roxburgh echoed that the resolution allowed all three of them to be truly “selfless” — though Michaela gets a little reward for her efforts. “The way that Michaela gets to re-meet Zeke is fun because she has all the answers, and he knows nothing,” Roxburgh said. “She kind of gets to take him on a new journey.”

As we’ve admittedly been talking around for most of this article, there is indeed a god that guides the universe of “Manifest” — a spiritual entity of some kind that exacts judgment on humanity. Though the series does pay some limp lip service to various cultures and religions, it’s fairly blatantly built on the fundamentals of a modern, mostly apolitical understanding of what is broadly referred to as “Judeo-Christian values” — whether or not such values can be so clearly defined and attributed to Judaism and Christianity is a discussion for another site.

Aside from the mythology it mines in uneven measure throughout the series, the moral code of this is as vague and oversimplified as a Sunday school lesson. Good people are defined as those who “do their best” to do the righteous, selfless thing, while “bad” people break the law, use spiritual miracles for their own benefit (which leads to some perhaps unintentional anti-scientific messaging), and present themselves as false prophets (conveniently ignoring in Angelina’s case the psychological illness brought about by her abusive upbringing). The series does notably feature a positive gay character, breaking from certain religious traditions.

Series creator Jeff Rake practices Judaism, and some Jewish entertainment writers have argued the series’ theology can be pretty explicitly connected to Jewish teachings (though we aren’t qualified to weigh in here). When “Manifest” was canceled in 2021, Rake curiously shared and seemingly endorsed an article from the “Media Research Center,” a conservative entertainment watchdog group that spends most of its time spreading misinformation and propagandizing on behalf of Republican politicians. The article in question took aim at critics of “Manifest,” painting them as being against Christian values specifically as well as racist against white people.

Before they read the script for the finale of “Manifest,” the cast was operating entirely on faith. Nobody knew what was coming. “I didn’t know, and I didn’t bother to ask, and I don’t think Jeff [Rake] would’ve told me anyways,” Parveen Kaur told Netflix. Though Rake might have told star Josh Dallas, the actor was entirely uninterested. “I had a deal with Jeff from the very beginning that I didn’t want to know how it was going to end,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, “so when we did the final table read, I was in tears the whole time.”

Dallas wasn’t the only one who got weepy. “When I read [season 4], and when Jeff told me about it, I was moved to tears,” Matt Long explained to Netflix. The entire cast seems to endorse how the series went out, even if it wound up being divisive. “They tied it up in a way that maybe some people will be mad, but I think a lot of people will be happy,” Melissa Roxburgh told Netflix in a separate interview. “A show with so many loose ends and bits, it’s hard to put the final stamp on and I think they did a great job.” Much of the cast was grateful for how the final scene allowed the series’ ensemble to say goodbye to the show together. Daryl Edwards described it as “weird” and “surreal” to have to pretend like he didn’t know the cast he had spent so much time with.

Dallas said that when it came to Ben, he might as well have been walking into heaven. As for the rest of the passengers, he’s hopeful about their future. “Hopefully they learn from their mistakes, and they get this amazing thing that we would all love to have as a second chance, and they get a second chance at their life and a second chance of living differently, better, kinder, and knowing what they know now, that it’s all connected, and that we’re all in this together, which I think is the ultimate message that the show is putting across,” he related.

Josh Dallas may feel like Ben Stone essentially got to go to heaven at the end of the series, but Jeff Rake has stated the finale takes place in the real world. The decision to let the majority of the passengers keep their memory was part of giving the audience a sense of closure that validated the series as a whole. “We bend over backwards to try to make clear that everything you’ve watched happened,” Rake told Netflix. “This is real. We’re not trying to mess with people’s minds. It’s all real. This all happened.”

Though Rake has had this finale vaguely in his head since the show began, he doesn’t want to explain it now. “Whatever explanation has been working for you, that’s the explanation I want you to live with and to take away,” he said in an interview at San Diego Comic-Con. “I’ll just say remember the very beginning. Remember Romans 8:28 … ‘All things work together for good, for those who are the called [according to his purpose].’ And I think our heroes found that that journey ended up coming true for them.”

While it may have taken various, yet unknown shapes over the years, the ending of “Manifest” has always been broadly the same since the series began, according to Jeff Rake. “I’ve always had a broad idea of what the ending was going to be, but it wasn’t until I was riffing long and hard with my excellent staff of writers that it all came together,” he told Netflix.

That said, we haven’t seen the complete ending. Originally, the finale included a scene in which Vance investigates the plane’s cockpit to find that Captain Daly (Frank Deal) has been revived — only to then be immediately turned to ash, judged just as Angelina and her unrepentant followers. The scene may have been omitted because it slightly confuses the restorative logic of the finale’s other resurrected survivors, though Rake has since said that Daly was judged for failing as a father and husband.

During his appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, Jeff Rake revealed that he’s hopeful about “Manifest” getting a sequel or spin-off series, and that he’s actively trying to make one happen. Unfortunately, he offered no further details about what that means or what a spin-off of “Manifest” would look like.

On the other hand, in his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Josh Dallas shared his own ideas for where he’d like to see a follow-up to “Manifest” go. “I think there’s major sequel or [spin-off] potential here,” he said. “Maybe we go into the future and see Eden at 21 or so as she’s navigating the world, or we follow the younger passengers. Maybe we go back to 2013 and deep dive into the investigation with [NSA director] Vance.”

For now, Rake is at least content to have stuck the landing on a show that was unabashedly earnest, optimistic, and emotional. As he said at Comic-Con, “I’d like [‘Manifest’] to be remembered as a show that took people on a journey, touched people’s hearts, gave people a lot to think about, and left people feeling hopeful.”