'Manifest' Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Attacks on 828 passengers intensify as Olive's role in mystery grows
Contains spoilers for 'Manifest' Season 2 Episode 5 'Coordinated Flight'
'Manifest' has not slowed down in Season 2 and this is more evident with this week's episode. The one show where more answers mean more questions just complicated the 828 mystery. And though Olive Stone (Luna Blaise) might feel left out, she may be more integral to the 828 mystery than anyone thought.
The episode begins with a flashback in the days after Flight 828 disappeared. Grace Stone (Athena Karkanis) and Olive are both grieving and in a bid to return to normalcy they attend a fair. Young Olive is convinced her brother is okay and tells her mother.
Grace takes this to be Olive's form of grieving and when Olive asks for a tarot reading, Grace agrees. The tarot reader tells a crying Olive that she recently lost something that completed her and goes on to say that things will turn out well.
But here's where it gets complicated. When Ben (Josh Dallas) shows the pocket watch with the peacock engraving (the one Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) acquired from the man who held her hostage at the bank) to Grace, she recognizes the symbol. It is the same drawing that was on one of the tarot reader's cards — the one she incidentally gave to Olive to assure the young girl that everything would be okay.
Ben may be convinced now that 828 is a miracle but he still is not up for giving the Church of the Believers any leeway. He believes their cause is driving those who attack the 828 passengers and his family.
Ben is also upset when he learns that Olive is one of the Believers when she confesses to them that she was at the Church when it was attacked and vandalized. This is a cause that Olive and TJ (Garrett Wareing) believe in, but Ben is willing to go to the lengths of beating up Adrian (Jared Grimes) to warn the latter to stay away from the daughter.
It was not just the Church that was attacked in this week's episode. Grace and Cal (Jack Messina) were targeted as well. Ben and TJ discover that the attacks are related and tip-off Michaela as to where their base is. She plans a raid with her colleagues.
However, when Michaela and the police get there, the area is cleared out. There is a leak in the police department and it is someone no one might have expected. Jared gave the information to the new woman in his life, Tamara, so that she could save her brother Billy.
As we hear in every episode "everything is connected". The person Billy works for is the person who coordinated the attacks on the 828 passengers and also happens to be one of Ben's new colleagues.
Does this complicate things for Ben and the other 828 passengers? It certainly does. Now, in addition to the Major who wants to use the passengers for the government's nefarious schemes, they also have to worry about the extremists who seem intent on destroying their lives.
There was a visible lack of Saanvi (Parveen Kaur) in this week's episode and we would certainly like to know how she is coping in the aftermath of the Major stealing all her research.
With numerous dangers closing in on Ben, Saanvi and the others, we are also interested in knowing how Olive fits into this mystery in light of all the new details we have learned in the episode.
'Manifest' airs on NBC on Monday nights at 10/9c.
