Manifest Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: “False Horizon”

Manifest Season 2 Episode 3
Melissa Roxburgh as Michaela Stone and J.R. Ramirez as Jared Vasquez in ‘Manifest’ season 2 episode 3 (Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC)

“Give this to Zeke when you see him,” says Cal (Jack Messina) to Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) as he hands her a drawing he made of Zeke about to be pulled out of Flight 828 in season two episode three of NBC’s mystery drama, Manifest.

As the episode begins, Dr. Saanvi Bahl (Parveen Kaur) is talking to her therapist aka The Major (Elizabeth Marvel) about still being upset the man she was in love with didn’t show up on the plane to fly with her to Jamaica. After telling Saanvi she should send him the email she has written explaining how she feels, The Major maneuvers the conversation on to Saanvi’s work. Her goal: to get her talking more about her theory the passengers of Flight 828 were all genetically altered.

Meanwhile, Ben (Joss Dallas), Vance (Daryl Edwards), and Michaela know someone is spying on Saanvi and her work. Vance comes up with the idea for Ben to give Saanvi a fake file on a passenger of 828 so that she might pass it on, unknowingly, to the spy. Ben doesn’t like lying to Saanvi and is even less thrilled to use her as bait but he reluctantly agrees.

Michaela reaches out to a public defender friend of hers and gets her to agree to take Zeke’s case.

Olive (Luna Blaise) attends another “Believers” meeting and is starting to feel like it’s a place she belongs. She has also cut her hair and streaked it. Ben’s taken a little aback by her appearance, but with nudging from Michaela he – awkwardly – supports his daughter.

Michaela wants to see Zeke (Matt Long) after having a calling showing him getting sucked out of the plane but discovers he’s been transferred. The police log doesn’t show where to.

Michaela calls Ben, worried that it might be The Major’s doing. He tries to calm her down, assuring her if The Major does have Zeke they will find him when they find The Major. As she gets off the phone, Jared (J.R. Ramirez) confronts her about helping get Zeke a public defender. They quietly talk and she asks him to do the right thing and say the shooting was an accident. He refuses. Michaela warns him to be prepared then. He asks if that’s a threat and she says it didn’t have to be.

Grace (Athena Karkanis) meets a pregnant mom at an exercise class and gets to talking. As the woman gets in her car and starts to leave, Grace has a calling telling her to open her eyes. She then has a vision of a gargoyle on her SUV.

When she gets home, Grace tells Ben about the calling and she and Cal try to find look up the woman’s identity so Grace can help her. Olive, sitting nearby doing her homework, pouts feeling left out.

Ben visits Saanvi and gives her the fake file on the passenger. She gets excited and wants to go to him in Philadelphia, but Ben says he has a lecture in the hopes of securing a new job.

There’s a montage of Michaela making calls to every place she can think of to try to find Zeke. Finally, she finds where he’s being kept. She goes to see him and uses her badge to charge past the guard. Michaela tells a strapped-down Zeke he needs to call the public defender and get released. He apologizes, saying he was wrong and he knows now he’s supposed to be with her.

Grace and Cal track the pregnant lady to a soccer field where her kids are playing. The woman’s bothered seeing Grace and quickly blows her off. Grace has the same calling again.

Ben delivers his lecture to a full auditorium of students. At first a few try to ask questions about his experience on Flight 828 and what he thinks happened. Luckily, TJ (Garrett Wareing) – who Ben helped in last week’s episode – asks him a mathematical question to quiet the crowd and get Ben back on track.

Manifest Season 2 Episode 3
Parveen Kaur as Saanvi Bahl and Josh Dallas as Ben Stone in ‘Manifest’ season 2 episode 3 (Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC)

Later, Ben goes to see Saanvi and warns her The Major has a mole in her lab. He also admits he and Vance gave her a dummy file as bait to try to lure out the spy. Saanvi’s justifiably very upset, feeling betrayed by Ben and demands he leave.

A short while later, Saanvi sees her overly eager assistant and suspects he might be the spy. She tells him their work has been a waste of time and she doesn’t need him anymore. Saanvi calls her therapist and confesses she’s had a very bad day, asking if she’ll make time for her.

Grace tries again to talk to the pregnant woman who’s the subject of her callings, but this time the woman becomes verbally abusive. The stranger believes she and her “abomination” of a son from Flight 828 need to stay away from her. Grace is shocked by her venomous attack.

Zeke’s trial gets underway and his attorney convinces the judge to throw out the plea of guilty, explaining he didn’t have proper representation and was not in a place mentally to make that judgment. She then calls up Michaela to testify.

Michaela tells the court the shooting was an accident and she won’t let an innocent man go to prison. She goes on to say Jared abused his badge and illegally hunted and harassed Zeke, and that if he wasn’t at her apartment the shooting wouldn’t have happened. The judge changes the charge to a misdemeanor of handling an illegal firearm. Zeke pleads guilty to that lesser charge and the judge declares time served. Zeke’s free to go.

Michaela’s there to pick up Zeke when he’s released and takes him to Ben’s house for dinner.

Saanvi talks to her therapist about Ben and feeling betrayed. She also tells her about a discovery she made and that it’s locked in her fridge in her lab.

Olive attends another meeting of the Believers and decides to share with the large group that her dad, brother, and aunt were all passengers on Flight 828.

Ben’s offered a job at the college. One of the professors congratulates Ben before getting into a car with his wife – the pregnant woman Grace has been trying to help. When sits in the passenger seat, the woman asks what he did. He tells her, “I hired him. Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly.”

Saanvi shows Ben and Vance footage of a camera she set up to secretly record anyone who might try to get into her fridge. Sure enough, her tech assistant is on the footage. She tells Ben and Vance she only told one person about her breakthrough being in her fridge and that person was her therapist. Vance shows her photos of high-ranking female DOD employees and she spots her therapist and points her out. The therapist is actually Major Fritz.