Manifest series finale ending explained: Did Flight 828 passengers survive?

For four seasons, we’ve watched the mystery of Flight 828 unfold. What happened in the Manifest series finale? Did the passengers survive?

At one point, we feared that we wouldn’t get to see how Manifest would actually end. We feared that we wouldn’t find out how “it’s all connected.” Fortunately, Netflix saved the show and now we’ve got the ending.

Would the Flight 828 passengers survive? Would they figure out why they were brought from the past to save the world? We didn’t get all the answers to our questions, but we got enough of them.

Who dies in the Manifest series finale?

In the end, we got to the Death Date when everyone was judged. Before, we’d seen that groups who traveled together were judged together, but that wasn’t quite the case for the Flight 828 passengers. They were all judged on their own actions.

Some of them did burn to ash because of their bad deeds. Saanvi, Adrian, and Eagan were able to survive despite initially starting to burn. Their good deeds outweighed the bad.

All of this was only possible because of Cal’s sacrifice. He sacrificed his life to save the others, and the Flight 828 passengers got on their plane and flew into the glow to fight against the Shadow Monsters that were taking over thanks to some of the bad passengers crumbling into ash.

Did Cal actually die in the Manifest series finale?

It turns out that yes, Cal did die. It looks like he was always meant to. This was why Zeke was sent back to save Cal from drowning and then Zeke was the one who had to use his empathy power to take Cal’s leukemia.

However, Cal did return in the end.

After saving the world, all the surviving Flight 828 passengers were sent back to Nov. 7, 2013. That was the date the flight took off five and a half years ago. They were all the ages they would have been back then, including young Cal. The passengers except Cal (presumably because he sacrificed himself and didn’t go into the glow?) remembered the events.

Michaela was the one to deliver the monologue at the end. None of them understood why they were chosen to save the world. They didn’t understand how they got back, and they didn’t understand why nobody else remembered the events that had happened. All they knew was that they had another chance to live their lives.

Who did Michaela end up with, by the way? Well, during Manifest Season 4, Part 2, Michaela and Jared did get together but it didn’t last. Drea’s pregnancy changed everything and Jared and Drea ended up together. After the Glow, Zeke didn’t remember anything about Michaela, but Michaela remembered about near-misses between the two. So, Michaela rushed out of the airport to find Zeke, and the two of them are together in the end.

Manifest is available to stream on Netflix.