I finished watching Manifest a few weeks ago, so my opinions are probably old but here it is. It’s not a bad ending by any means — but if the original idea was for them to go back to the day the plane was supoosed to land but make the right choices then why develop all of those relationships if it wasn’t going to mean much of anything in the finale. It’s like they wanted to give the audience everything and nothing for the last season at the same time. And outdid so much growth. It sucks.
The first thing, if they wanted Zeke x Mick to be endgame since the start, why not actually make Jared fall in love with Drea like genuinely instead of relinking his relationship with Mick and making them be happy all of Season 4 but then forcing a Drea pregnancy and ultimately get Michaela to send him away to her? I feel like Drea deserved for Jared to choose her on his own and not because Michaela push him to it. It was lame to give them a one episode endgame that didn’t feel earned when they could’ve build to that on Season 3/Season 4. I get Mick needed to be with Jared to give herself the chance but could’ve been better.
I never cared about TJ and Olive. It was weird that TJ was 18 and Olive was 12 when they first saw each other. I know they managed to make their relationship less creepy after the time jump since Olive was a little older and TJ was “mentally still 18” but it didn’t make it less inappropriate. I didn’t care when he left and didn’t care when he came back but I get it since he was an OG passenger but the writers were obsessed with giving Olive a love interest when most of it didn’t add anything to the plot. Can't forget that one college dude they made her date for not reason. And at the finale, it was clear that her relationship with TJ isn’t even happening (at least for a long time) since Olive needs to be a child, as it was meant to be and in the finale they made it seem like TJ and Violet (Adult Cal!first date) might be a future thing. So, was their romance on Season 4 even necessary?
And then there’s the Saanvi and Ben thing.
Since the very start of the series they had a lot of chemistry. And I don’t know if that was the idea or it was just the actors but they got in each other’s personal space real quick. And then they hinted at Saanvi’s romantic feelings for Ben in one of her therapy sessions — but I was still okay with them never crossing that line and keeping it platonic. Then, Grace dies and they still didn’t go there so at that point I thought they were going to keep it platonic but then they did made it canon and emphasized on how strong their connection is to the point they don’t feel it with anyone else — and a strong physical attraction they themselves are very aware of. And not just them but Mick’s made aware of it too. And they act on that attraction. Saanvi is Ben’s intellectual soulmate and best friend in canon. He’d trust her with his life in a heartbeat and vice versa. For about 6 years, they were each other’s confidants and were willing to risk each other’s life for the other. And so, the show makes it canon but then backtracks and goes “but they still love their other partners and would go back to them” and that would be fine since it’s fair but here’s the thing with all that:
In the finale, they landed the day they were all supposed to land but now with some different perspective and experiences to make certain choices about their lives. They [the passengers] got to have and remember those experiences, not the people in their life. Ben, Saanvi and Mick are canonically different people from what they were — which is not true for the people in their life. Ben and Grace were at the verge of divorce before the plane went missing — so magically that’s gonna be resolved now since Ben got to live a life where he loses her but she doesn’t even remember? The issues in Grace and Ben’s marriage won’t exist now that Ben knows Cal will be cured? Okay. Will Alex truly leave her husband and committ to an exclusive relationship with Saanvi? Because that was their issue as well prior to the plane situation.
And you want to tell me neither of those women will notice that there’s this connection between Ben and Saanvi that seems way too deep for two people that just met on a 4 hour flight? I don’t know about Alex but will Grace not feel threatened by this inexplicable bond and would they ever be able to fully be happy with their partners if they aren’t honest about all the experiences they shared together and some that would even count as emotional cheating? Like, we saw during the finale how Ben was so not ready to lose Saanvi. And it’s not like Saanvi will be away from their new life, she will be Cal’s doctor and will be in their life the same way she was in their old life. Grace and Ben were able to fix their relationship before because the callings were affecting Cal but now Cal doesn’t remember it. Then, she got pregnant and that gave their relationship a new propose but now nothing guarantees that their relationship will turn out the same way without those circumstances. I’d like to think both Saanvi and Ben needed the chance to be with them the way it was supposed to be and see if it’s actually going to work out but I don’t think it will because Grace and Alex are still their 2018 selves while Ben and Saanvi are not.
The situation is different for Mick because neither Jared or Zeke have memories of what went down — she’s the only one that got to have a future with both of them and decide which one she wanted. Jared and Zeke are not affected, only Mick. That whole journey allowed her to understand that Jared and her might want different things from life and they’d only get marry to fill a void — and she knows there’s other people that will align more with what they’d want for the future. It makes sense that she didn’t went back to what she was going to do before the plane dissapear. So, it doesn’t make sense for Ben or Saanvi to go back to their old life without thinking there won’t be any changes with their entire dynamic.
