Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Manifest’ comes to an end with the second half of its fourth season, which takes the passengers of Flight 828 through many twists and turns before resolving their story. The stakes get high as the entire world is risked with the Death Date inching closer and no solution to this problem in sight. However, Ben Stone and his family and their friends keep at it, holding on to the last straw, hoping they could save their loved ones.
In the show’s final moments, a surprise waits for the passengers and the audience. Characters like Ben’s wife, Grace, and Michaela’s husband, Zeke, who had died previously, are alive and well. If you are wondering how that happened and what it means for them and their loved ones, here’s what you need to know. SPOILERS AHEAD
How Are Grace and Zeke Alive?
The story of ‘Manifest’ begins on April 7, 2013, when Flight 828, returning from Jamaica to New York, disappears, only to return five and a half years later. The 191 passengers on the plane remain the same age they were when they disappeared, but the rest of the world has moved on. The separated twins now have a five-and-a-half-year gap, and someone’s fiancee is married to their best friend. Things are extremely complicated for everyone, and that’s just personal issues. As the passengers start to dive into the mystery that changed their lives, they make some startling discoveries.
For the next five and a half years, the passengers try to solve the Callings and discover that their second life comes with an expiry date. They were gone for five and a half years, and that’s how long they have left. If they don’t balance the scales of their lifeboat, they will all die. Ben Stone emerges as the leader of the 828ers as he and his sister, Michaela, try to find a solution to the Death Date.
Before he disappeared, Ben was married to Grace, and they had two children, one of who was with Ben on the flight. It took some time for them to fall back into the life they’d built for themselves, but Ben and Grace’s marriage remains intact. They even have a daughter together, and for a while, it looks like everything will be fine. But then, Angelina kills Grace.
In the same vein, tragedy strikes Michaela’s husband, Zeke. They met after the return of Flight 828 and bonded over their traumas and the fact they’d both time-traveled. Michaela and Zeke fall in love and get married. Zeke was supposed to die a year after his appearance, but he survived his Death Date. Later, he chose to die in place of Cal, who was in his final moments battling cancer.
Ben and Michaela took the rest of the journey without their spouses, moving forward while still grieving them. Ben never got over Grace, and despite her feelings for Jared, Michaela is still in love with Zeke. On Death Day, Cal connects his sapphire with the Ark, following which the plane appears before the passengers. They board it, and they meet their judgment as the plane takes flight. Those who’d done bad things are punished for it, but those who learned from their mistakes and changed for the better survive.
Once again, the plane finds itself face to face with the white light that had chased it the last time and thrown it more than five years into the future. This time, when the plane goes through the light, it lands in the past. It has been eleven years since they disappeared, reappeared, and went through all the good and bad things in their lives. However, when they emerge from the glow, they find themselves back in 2013. Their survival doesn’t just mean they survived the Death Date. They have been rewarded for all the pain and struggles and striving to do good despite all odds. They are taken back into the past to the day when their lives changed.
All that happened in the eleven years is wiped clean, and everything is restored to how it was on April 7, 2013. This means that all the people who had died, like Grace, Zeke, and Ben and Michaela’s mother, are still alive. The passengers remember everything, but their loved ones have no memory of their ups and downs in those eleven years. None of it has happened yet, which is why Eden, who was born after the return of Flight 828, doesn’t exist yet.
Angelina was punished for her sins and became one of the eleven passengers who never returned. Because she is not there anymore, she will never cross paths with Grace and kill her. Similarly, Zeke hasn’t been on the hike that claimed his life yet and is still alive. Michaela finds him outside the airport in a cab, remembering when he’d told her about the moments when they’d almost met. She seizes this opportunity and gets in the cab with him to reacquaint him with her. This is where Ben and Michaela get a second chance at having a life with Grace and Zeke.
Read More: Are Callings Memories in Manifest, Explained
