Manifest – Season 4 Episode 8 “Full Upright and Locked Positions” Recap & Review

Full Upright and Locked Positions

Now aware that Noelle is the 828 killer, Episode 8 of Manifest Season 4 starts with all our characters scrambling to try and find Violet. Given she mentioned helping Angelina with baby stuff last episode, she’s the target. The Registry show up and immediately arrest Cal for his connection to all this, throwing a major spanner in the works.

Ben appears at the station, angry and flustered, but he’s quickly reminded that if Cal is as innocent as he says he is, he has nothing to worry about.

While Drea manages to get rid of Cal’s fingerprints from file, Ben is downbeat as he realizes they can’t get do anything about his DNA. Given Cal is going under the alias of Gabriel, all of this will be for nothing if they figure out who he really is.

Just like that, Ben receives another Calling thanks to a phone ringtone he recognizes, which leads him to a passenger , who happens to be a musician. His name is Radd. This Calling reveals Dr Bates’ phone number through some piano playing, which in turn leads him to realize Cal’s cancer has returned. Just before the DNA sample is taken, Ben uses both Radd and Bates to help get Cal out. The pair hug and Ben reminds his son he can always talk to him, apologizing for the unpleasant words they exchanged the night before.

While this is going on, Jared, Michaela and Zeke work together to try and find proof that Noelle is the killer. All they gave to go on right now is last episode’s Calling, so there isn’t a lot of clues! Still, they realize that Adrian is connected to all of this and race off to track him down. However, Noelle has got to him first and kidnapped him.

When Jared, Michaela and Zeke show up, Eagan is there and he ends up having a Calling, complete with horrific black smoke and Adrian’s voice echoing through the air, calling for help. Eagan manages to convince Michaela that he needs protection. I mean, after all he is also a passenger and could be next. Unbeknownst to them all though, Noelle also has Angelina held captive, who realizes she’s being kept prisoner too.

Caught with Adrian, Angelina realizes her mum is the killer and deduces that she’s working to get rid of all the sinners. Not only that but she intends to make Angelina watch as Adrian is killed in front of her.

Naturally, Eagan tags along to the Stones’ household where Saanvi rings, confirming she’s making good progress with her sapphire research and has realized that everything is connected. She also learns that the sapphire is a crucial component here. Saanvi decides that, since Eagan had a Calling about Adrian, they should test him and try to regenerate and enhance the Calling in order to save Adrian’s life. Eagan begrudgingly agrees and he shows up at the lab, where Vance gives him a rather frosty reception. The experiment is a failure, although Eagan does claim to see a bright light momentarily.

Olive’s sapphire research continues too, where she stumbles upon a Reddit post with all the answers, apparently. This discusses the Omega Sapphires, and how all have been lost to the annals of time – except for one. The last place that it was recorded to be was Agri Dagi in 2013. This is what the Turkish renamed Mount Ararat, which is where they found the fragments of Noah’s Arc and the sapphire. And of course, this is precisely the sapphire that Saanvi got rid of.

Police race in and manage to save Adrian before Noelle drowns him in front of Angelina, spewing lines about sinning and saving him. That night, Zeke has a strange feeling that the killer is nearby and encourages Olive to lock the doors. She does this just in time, and decides to open it up for a random police officer whom she lets in, claiming there’s an intruder lurking around.

And of course, the officer is Angelina’s dad in disguise; the other half of this killer duo. Angelina’s dad has a very different motive to Noelle though, he wants to kill Eden to show Angelina that the child is no guardian angel. Thankfully they manage to thwart his threat, with Zeke taking a bullet for his troubles and Olive pushing Angelina’s father out the window.

While TJ returns to Olive after a long absence, Eagan shows up and decides to go on the hunt for this Omega Sapphire, deciding to volunteer at a soup kitchen. As the camera pans up, we see that the building has “Masonic Temple of the Omega Order” written in capitals across the top.

The Episode Review

So this season has thrown a number of different subplots our way, and none of them have really gone further to explain the true root cause of the disappearances. Sure, we get some drama involving Angelina, some telepathic Calling and even a serial killer subplot, but the real crux of the issue comes from the plane disappearance. There’s an artform to doing a mystery box right and we’re now 4 seasons into this show and beyond knowing that sapphire is a key ingredient and that all the clues are connected, there’s not much more to go on.

With the promise of another 10 episodes to go after this first part, so far this season has been pretty light on answers and very big on melodramatic set pieces. Hopefully the final two episodes can pick things up and really double down on the drama.