“Point of No Return” is episode eight of season one of Manifest.
There’s a brief bit when the plane landed and Cal talking about how he doesn’t want to die, before going to the present where Ben is watching him sleep. Ben leaves the room and finds Michaela; he tells her Cal wants to go back to school to be a normal kid again. Grace is for it and Dr Williams has signed off on it. Ben is worried that Marko’s testing might resume at any moment, and doesn’t think it’s over. Michaela says his family needs to find a new normal. They need to assume they’re being watched and act normal so that when they hit back, it isn’t seen coming.
The tests are going to restart. 48 hours is the planned time, but the man in charge says Vance has taken an unexpected personal day and gone dark. They need to be ready in 18 hours.
Ben tells Grace that Cal can go back to school. On the condition that they get their life back too. Grace wants to drive Cal to school but Olive says he can walk with her. He was the cancer kid and the 828 kid; he just needs his first day to be normal. Michaela says that she’s trying to avoid Jared but the captain is making them work together. Grace wonders if Jared is doing the insisting.
Michaela is at work when a voice tells her not to lose him. Then the captain says ESU needs her. There’s a jumper on top of a college building and he’s one of the Flight 828 passengers.
Ben arrives at work and Ronnie calls him into Ronnie’s office. To show him an 828 fan site. The fire alarm goes off and they head outside. And Vance passes Ben. Ben follows him and Vance tells him to be quiet, then smashes his phone. Ben asks why Vance is here. Because they need each other, Vance tells him, holding the flash drive he took from Ben in the previous episode, “S.N.A.F.U.”.
Michaela and Jared arrive at the jumper’s site. She recognises the man.
Vance tells Ben he went to the farm, but it had been cleaned out. He thinks Ben is on the right track. The data on the flash drive means nothing to him as it’s raw data. But Ben was smart enough to steal it so maybe he’s smart enough to understand it. Ben asks why he should trust Vance. Because Vance understands what Ben is doing; risking himself to protect his loved ones. To find the people behind this they need to work together. Ben wants the flash drive back. Vance has the data on an air gapped laptop and a new, encrypted and untraceable, phone for Ben, with Vance’s number on it. Give him a call when he’s looked at the data.
Michaela has been strapped into a harness before she speaks to Harvey, he is looking distinctly rougher. She says she knows how he’s feeling. He doesn’t think so.
Ben is looking at the data and calls Fiona Clarke. He thinks he’s looking at medical data, but there are voltage levels too. Fiona says they’re trying to artificially replicate the callings through electro-cortical stimulation. She tried it on rats. Most of them died. This is theoretical and dangerous and has to be stopped.
Ben speaks to Ronnie as the latter is getting ready to head out. He convinces Ronnie to send him data on UDS so he can help.
Michaela gets closer to Harvey. He says people are dying and it has to stop. This is the only way. Michaela tries asking him who, but Harvey jumps.
There are some mysterious but apparently natural deaths connected to Harvey. Michaela and Ben are worried as to what this means.