Manifest - Airplane Bottle

Discussing Ep. 2.9

So now I'm confused!

My initial instincts were correct. Capt. Bowers is involved in something, just not in what I figured she would be. I figured that she'd be with The Major, which she still might be, albeit peripherally. She is in on that whole scheme with Jared and Simon and the Xers. What I don't get though is why Jared has been essentially going at this alone. Why didn't he go to her to get official clearance to get Mick's files? Why did he go down a route that would essentially put his own career on the line? I suppose she needs to protect herself too but aren't they all in this together?

What is Simon's organization? I know he leads the Xers but it's been shown that they are very well organized, a bit too well organized for a mere startup anti-828 group. For him to have that many moles in the police force alone, from Internal Affairs to the Captain to the police union rep....I'd have to believe that he is involved with The Major in some way in order to get that kind of power over them all, much like The Major had those moles in the hospital. But I still don't get why he seems bent on eliminating the 828ers when it seemed like The Major was bent on exploiting them. Their goals don't align UNLESS he's BSing about eliminating them and is looking to exploit them too. Or he is working with The Major but he has his own agenda. A possibility. His discovery about the 828 telepathy....I would have figured that The Major already knew about all of that. Then again, maybe she doesn't and if she finds out about it, such a power could certainly be something she would exploit.

And it seems I was partially right about Jared. He's doing something covert, maybe even with the Captain's help, to perhaps bring down this Xers organization from within. However, I do question some of his motives. He was willing to give Simon the information from Mick's files which he assumed Simon would put on the internet. So Jared was fine with that? If he and Capt. Bowers are working covertly in this, they seem to be willing to give up a lot of sensitive information to Simon for it. Granted, perhaps that's how they gain his trust, but still. Either way, it does seem like Jared isn't a lost cause and he hasn't given up on Mick and her family just yet, essentially saving her life from going with that union rep on the road. I'll be very interested to see how this develops.

And then we have Saanvi Brundle! I had to laugh because she was getting so manic and so jittery that I seriously thought that she was going to turn into The Fly by the end of the episode!

So it seems like the side effects of her cure aren't necessarily chemical as much as it is....spiritual? I'm curious to know if she can reverse what she did, and also how it ties into what Al Zuras wrote in his book. According to TJ, Al Zuras and his crew also tried to rid themselves of the callings. The thing is though, they were on a ship hundred of years ago and didn't have the miracles of modern technology and medicine to change their genetic makeup to rid themselves of the callings. So what did they do? How did they try to get rid of the callings? Whatever they did, it seemed to have had the same effect on them as it does on Saanvi—madness!

But this is where I don't get the nature of the callings once again. The callings gave specific visions to Ben, Cal and the others, including that guy who robbed the bank, about their own Death Date. So of course, they're going to try and find a way to get rid of the callings. But now that Saanvi has essentially done that, they find out that getting rid of the callings is perhaps what brings the Death Date into being. Whoever or whatever is giving these callings has the most horrible sense of timing! Is this what happened to Al Zura and his crew? Like, why give a Death Date calling at all and not give some kind of hint that the Death Date was perhaps tied to them NOT following and accepting the callings? It's one of those too little-too late kind of deals.

It was funny how I mentioned that we hadn't seen Cal in a forever and a day and how he hasn't been getting the callings like the others. Even Grace pointed that out, saying he hasn't had a calling in a long time. But now he was front and center, and I'm wondering if he's back to being more involved than before. If so, I really hope he ditches that whiny, bratty attitude. He's been somewhat intolerable when he does show up, being rather petulant. And though I know he's a kid and in this episode, they were all losing their tempers...still. I have to say, I loved the attention to detail regarding the rain. I noticed that whenever Ben or Grace or TJ or Cal were talking, it was raining and thunder. But when Olive was talking, it was sunny. I thought it was bad editing but it turns out it was intentional. Well done! And so they all shared a similar vision, being on Al Zuras's ship and seeing Flight 828 in the sky. I liked how Ben recalled Capt. Daly and his seeing the dark lightning. What I took away from this was that perhaps what Flight 828 did was essentially accomplish time travel.

While it has yet to be proven, I think it's implied that Capt. Daly essentially time travelled into the future by 5 years when he flew his plane into the dark lightning. So it could be that Flight 828 did the same thing, that they time travelled into the past when Al Zura was on that ship and therefore endured that event that led to Al Zura and his crew getting the callings, and the 828ers doing the same. The fact that Al Zura recorded seeing a silver dragon in the sky means that he did see Flight 828. But what does he mean that "despair and our own demise" rests on the wings of that dragon? The bringing up of Capt. Daly is interesting because I wonder if it means that we will see him again this season or if we will see Ben and Co. try and recreate what he did. If they do, will they go back to Al Zura's time again? Did Capt. Daly travel back to Al Zura's time?

What I found rather funny, if not very considerate on the part of the callings, is that Mick didn't get this particular calling as she was being interrogated by Internal Affairs. I mean, they were leaning on her pretty hard and it would have been a hoot if she started feeling sea sick and suddenly showed up on Al Zuras's boat along with Ben and the others. I'm sure that would have gone over really well for her and the Internal Affairs investigation!

So now the big question is, can they reverse what Saanvi has done and will it affect the rest of them? And what is Zeke's connection with all of that since he isn't an 828er and didn't interact at all with Al Zuras's boat?

Wait and see, I guess.