The Ending of 'Manifest' Season 4 Part 1, Explained

If you thought Jeff Rake couldn't beat the nail-biting ending to season 3 of Manifest—well, then you haven't yet seen the final episode of Manifest season 4, part 1. And if you haven't, maybe come back later, because we're going ham on spoilers for the ending of Manifest part 1 in this story. And, whew, we've got a lot to unpack—from another tragic and unexpected death (I still haven't recovered from the loss of Grace!) to the future of the Alpha Sapphire and the characters who have absorbed its powers—literally, in Angelina's case. Oh, and did I mention that the fate of the whole world is at stake now, not just those who were aboard Flight 828? Let's dig in.

Zeke dies.

Zeke, who has been suffering all through this season with the burden of feeling, well, everything, learns that the only person who can save everyone—not just 828-ers, but the whole freaking world—from their death date is Cal. Unfortunately, Cal's cancer has returned, and he's been told he has just days to live. This puts Zeke in an impossible situation—he escaped his own Death Date (and he and Michaela just celebrated their anniversary, for God's sake!), but he's also the only person who can save Cal. So he absorbs Cal's cancer through his powers of empathy (yes, I just wrote that sentence), and he dies in Michaela's arms, next to Cal's bed.

But this show is increasingly blurring the lines between life and death, and Michaela and Zeke still have that going for them. "Hopefully, divine consciousness will help [Michaela and Zeke] have an opportunity to communicate with each other," creator Rake told The Wrap.

Angelina and Cal are now extremely powerful.

With Cal now free of his cancer, and revealed to be the Dragon—aka. the only person who can save the whole world from the Death Date—the season 4, part 1 ending sets up an enormous showdown between him and Angelina, the Big Bad of the fourth season. While Cal ultimately succeeded in shattering the Omega Sapphire and seemingly destroying Angelina, proving himself to be the Dragon who can, hopefully, save the entire world, Angelina herself emerges from the church with a fraction of the Omega Sapphire embedded in her hand, making her more powerful than ever.

Speaking to Variety, Rake noted: "[Angelina] now is more powerful than ever, that whatever dark power or dark force exists in the universe of this television show, she now is that personified. And to whatever extent one needs [Omega] Sapphire in order to save the passengers, one is going to need Angelina in order to find salvation for the passengers—or so it seems. It’s gonna be a hell of a surprise when our heroes discovered that she’s out there and, when they do discover that, it will be a more formidable force of darkness than they can even imagine."

Basically, both Angelina and Cal are channeling the enormous powers of the Omega Sapphire, the Callings, and the divine consciousness for different purposes—Angelina, a self-described archangel, to "bring vengeance upon the evil and lead the righteous to salvation," and Cal to, well, save everybody. Whatever's in store for season four, part 2 when Manifest returns, we can bet on there being an apocalyptic showdown between the two.

All the 828-ers are detained.

Meanwhile, things are going from bad to worse for the remaining 828 passengers. (As if it wasn't bad enough to disappear mid-flight for five years without realizing, and then become enemy number one upon landing.) When Angelina loses Eden for the second time—this time by Eden's choice, when Eden chooses to be with her father instead of with Angelina—Angelina starts screaming, a scream that reverberates through the minds of every living Flight 828 passenger. 

People are, understandably, pretty freaked out by hundreds of people randomly screaming at once—so much so that by the end of the episode, all of the 828-ers are being detained. Which, you know, isn't going to make saving the world any easier.