“S.N.A.F.U.” is episode seven of season one of Manifest.
Briefly, a woman is seen speaking to Kelly Taylor on Flight 828.
Cal wakes up in the hospital. He tells Ben he can still feel Marko. He things something bad will happen to him and Marko. Ben has a plan.
Saanvi speaks to Cal on the way out. Grace takes Cal, leaving Saanvi with Michaela and Ben. Ben says he knows how to find the people behind this. He’s going to take a job at the accounting firm used by UDS. It’s an entry level job and Michaela says Ben is overqualified. As does the interviewer, but Ben convinces her. Ben is going to follow the money trail for the farm found in the previous episode, “Off Radar”.
Grace thinks the job will be great for them all. Olive wants to go rock climbing. Ben wishes he could go. Afterwards, Grace tells him Olive is going with Danny. She was going to talk to Ben about it first. Rock climbing helped Olive when she was coming off the antidepressants.
Outside, Michaela says she’s going to swing by Evie’s. She’s also concerned about Ben’s job. He says if anyone was suspicious, he wouldn’t have got it. He’s going to blend in. Immediately proved wrong when it seems his superior, Ronnie Wilcox, is an 828 fanboy. Ronnie tells Ben that only supervisors handle tier 1 clients like UDS and invites him to a poker game whilst showing Ben his cubicle. Ben tries accessing details on UDS, but lacks the clearance.
He calls Saanvi and explains how he got it. He microwaved his ID and Ronnie let Ben borrow his. Ben found something called ‘S.P.’ but access was denied. And something about a woman called Fiona Clarke. She might be working with whoever took the missing passengers.
Ben meets Saanvi, who says that Fiona Clarke, the woman who was seen at the beginning, started in neuropsychology but was blackballed for her fringe beliefs. She believes all their brains can be synced up. Like Cal and Marko. Maybe she sold out; maybe she’s the mastermind behind the disappearance. Maybe she’s responsible for what happened to the plane. Ben can ask her himself; she has an appearance tonight.
Vance asks Powell about Ben taking a low-level job. He doesn’t think it’s just money. Nor does he think Ben’s theories are paranoid. Powell says that everyone they’ve reached out to has zero information on the missing passengers. Vance thinks that’s the point. He thinks someone off the books is running the whole thing. And wants to see what Ben might dig up.
Jared invites Michaela for dinner with him and Lourdes. And if she’s still hearing voices. She promises she won’t mess up in a way that affects him again. Jared tells Michaela it’s her he’s worried about. And tells her the NSA is watching and how they approached him. They then get a call about shots fired locally at a barber’s shop. They head there and Michaela tries to revive the victim. She’s hearing a heartbeat but not getting a pulse.
At the precinct, she speaks to Carlos, the nephew of the dead man, Enrique. Enrique wouldn’t give the money up because he was going to use it to polish the shop up to give to Carlos. Michaela knows how Carlos feels. Carlos is shown a line-up, and though it looks like he recognises the person who did it, he claims he doesn’t.
Michaela is positive Carlos is keeping something back. And, this time, she isn’t hearing voices; she’s hearing a heartbeat. Ben and Saanvi attend Fiona Clarke’s lecture. Olive seems to be trying to deal with her changing relationship with Danny.