'Manifest' Season 3: Why the makers need to STOP copying 'Lost' and dragging the mystery?
Spoilers for 'Manifest' Season 2 Episode 13 'Icing Conditions'
A bittersweet finale marks the end of 'Manifest' Season 2 and the suspenseful ending seems to have left fans in a double whammy. In the end, Ben Stone (Josh Dallas) has a calling where the plane explodes into flames.
In the final scene, a ship comes into the picture with a new set of faces. Birds circle around in the sky as the men look at something strange. Moreover, the ship has a broken wing from the flight that reads, "Montego Airways," and a man says, "Are those 828 passengers?" After that bizarre end, viewers can't stop wondering if the story will go back into the past and explore where the passengers were for five years?
Talking about the Montego Air tail fin, showrunner Jeff Rake said in a Den of Geek interview, "I will say that this tail fin is going to end up in the hands of others than just these two fishermen that we saw out there in the water, and soon enough, quite early in a hypothetical Season 3, the entire globe is going to be focused on the nature of this tail fin. Is it replicated? Is it somehow the same tail fin?"
He added, "That will introduce a season-long investigation and also re-trigger the global paranoia about the passengers themselves because obviously if we do the math and we conclude that the tail fin that has been lifted out of the water somehow seems to be the identical tail fin as the plane that we saw land quite safely in New York in the series premiere and then explode right there on the tarmac, it’s a metaphysical impossibility. And as a result, what does that make our passengers?"
For most fans, it may be an exciting end but the constant drag seems to have taken a toll on the storyline. Take, for instance, since Season 1, the Stone family has been trying to find out the real meaning of the callings. Throughout Season 2, Ben, Saanvi Bahl (Parveen Kaur) and Michaela Stone (Melissa Roxburgh) try to figure out a way but in the end, the mystery remains as it was back in season one.
Instead, a bunch of romantic connections — from Olive Stone (Luna Blaise) and TJ Morrison's (Garrett Wareing) teen love to Michaela, Jared Vasquez (JR Ramirez) and Zeke Landon's (Matt Long) love triangle — and emotional drama creep in. And if that wasn't enough, the NBC show also seems to be borrowing from the ABC drama series 'Lost'. Not only do both series have elements of supernatural and science fiction, 'Lost' circles around survivors of a plane that crash on a mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean.
The biggest mystery for Season 3 is: How did 828 passengers land five years later if the plane exploded over the ocean? Isn't that extremely similar to the plot of 'Lost'? One fan posted on Twitter, "Just finished #Manifest S2 finale. If flight 828 exploded in the ocean then who are these people? I got Lost vibe. Jared’s ‘damn! Zeke is still alive’ look. Can’t wait for S3 @NBCManifest," and another wrote, "Is this going to be like LOST?!?! Are they all dead but think they’re alive?!"
In another interview with TVLine, Rake hinted on the fact whether the passengers could be "fake". "That’s going to be a season-long, science-based, science meets mythology investigation. For those who have been feeling that the episodes have become a little science-light or investigation-light, they have a lot of good material coming down the pike," he said.
As the season gets renewed for Season 3, we can only hope that all the loose ends are tied into one. And the mystery of the callings is unlocked to take the plot forward instead of roaming around in circles.