“Turbulence” is episode three of season one of Manifest.
In the previous episode, “Reentry”, Kelly Taylor, one of the passengers, had gone public despite being told not to, then was killed at home. This episode opens with her talking on the phone to her husband, as Ben and Michaela are talking to each other. Then back to her home, where the crime scene is being processed.
At Ben’s, the death is reported on the news as a murder investigation. Ben explains to Grace who she was. Grace is worried there’s a connection, but Michaela says not to jump to conclusions; she’ll try and find out. Grace is worried that Kelly was killed because she was on the news. As Ben and Cal were too. Ben says they need to be careful. That night, Cal sees Olive sneaking out through her window. She tells him it’s a secret.
Saanvi calls Ben and, after wondering if they need to be worried because of Kelly, she says she found a protein in Cal’s blood. A marker that wasn’t there before he was on the plane and isn’t produced by the cancer. She’s never seen it before. Ben wonders if it’s from the vitamin boosters and electrolytes they were given. Saanvi kept notes and will run tests.
Michaela gets into the car, but has memories of the crash that killed Evie, and possibly a panic attack. She heads back inside and tells Ben he needs to drive her to Long Island, where Kelly Taylor lived. Ben asks how they let her back on the job. Michaela never mentioned this to them. She knows she will have to drive. But not tonight.
Heading there, Ben refuses to stay in the car. Even though Michaela says she’s 15 miles outside her jurisdiction and with her civilian brother. Ben says her brother helped find those missing kids in “Pilot”. The cops are useless without them. He’s at the centre of this as well, as is Cal, and Grace is scared. Ben needs to find out if someone is coming after them. Ben feels helpless enough; at least Michaela had a job to go back to. Agree, or he turns around.
At the house, a blood-covered man is being detained by the police and there’s a vigil being held. Michaela introduces herself to the detective and says she picked up the chatter; it may connect to a case they’re looking at. The detective says it looks like a robbery gone bad. Kelly was alone, as her husband was at dinner, and there’s a gold necklace missing. She has a burn mark around her neck where it was snatched. Single gunshot wound to the base of her neck. The suspect out the front has been seen around. Then Vance arrives, tells the detective that the NSA is taking charge and did he know he had two acquaintances of the victim on scene?
Michaela and Ben wonder why the NSA is taking over. They head over to speak to Kelly’s husband. He told her not to speak on television but she said she had to do it. She had a calling. Ben wonders if it was the voice in her head. Michaela wonders if it got Kelly killed.
At the precinct, Michaela is watching an interview with Kelly, who was saying she had to own her truth. Michaela had put ‘OWN YOUR TRUTH’ on the fridge. Jared speaks to her; the detective isn’t happy. He tells her she needs to stop. Michaela asks if maybe he could make some calls.
Outside, Michaela mentions the phrase being Kelly’s calling. Because it called her too. They head back to Kelly’s husband, who said she started using the phrase two days ago, decided their house was too fancy and they had too much, as well as going on television when she hated politics. They heard clicking noises on the phones and he gets the housekeeper, Christine, to confirm that there were USV’s outside. Guests arrive for the wake and Christine mentions Kelly had gone to the mall to get her hair done and come back with bruises. Heading out, Michaela has a memory of arriving at Evie’s memorial and being told she wasn’t welcome by her parents.
Michaela goes to see them and Evie’s mother, Beverly, says it’s lovely to see her. Not the expected reaction. Then calls out to Evie that Michaela is there. Her husband, Glen, comes out. He explains to Michaela that he stopped telling his wife that Evie is dead. Back at the precinct, Jared reports that the Taylors own a number of commercial properties. One of them is a mall. Michaela realises that’s where Kelly went.
Grace is feeling bad about ending it with the man she was seeing, and Ben is still struggling on this, as well as feeling paranoia about Kelly’s murder. Saanvi discovers that she, too, has the protein in her blood. They may all do. And yet more coincidences happen. Which means they likely aren’t coincidences.