Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Season 4 Part 1 of Manifest.The passengers onManifesthave had more than their fair share of enemies and battles to fight since their mysterious plane touched down after being missing for five and a half years. The biggest of all being the looming death date — the exact amount of time after their return that they were missing, which promises to either end their lives or seemingly allow them to move forward with a relatively normal existence afterthe excitement of the divine Callings. However, now knowing that the passengers will live or die forever based on equal judgment from their actions, especially those regarding the Callings, that complicates matters for Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh), Ben (Josh Dallas), Cal (Ty Doran), and Saanvi (Parveen Kaur).
As the only passengers that are fully committed to the Callings and defending the infamous “lifeboat” that is constantly sinking due to the actions of passengers like Eagan (Ali Sohaili) and Adrian (Jared Grimes), among others, the Stones and Saanvi are getting completely screwed over more than anyone else in this dire situation. Wrangling the other passengers into behaving and following the Callings is the only way forward, at least to their knowledge, but that’s proving nearly impossible. This is especially true with Angelina (Holly Taylor),Manifest’s well-developed and unhinged Big Bad that was on flight 828 and has taken her ownuniqueapproach with the Callings since we met her.
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How Did We Get Here With Angelina?
Angelina has shown everyone her true colors, only beginning with killing Ben’s wife Grace (Athena Karkanis) and kidnapping their daughter Edenin the third season’s finale. As we left her after the first half of the final season, Angelina is now completely unstable, lost completely in her trauma and misguided thoughts of God and the Callings. She is about to take all the other passengers — and the entire world — down in flames with her, made worse by the shard of the omega sapphire that gives her untold abilities being melted into her hand after a quick dip into molten lava. This makes her the biggest threat the passengers have ever had to face, including the entire government with the creation of the 828 registry and the vicious anti-828 X-ers group. That said, it’s rather interesting to look back intoManifesthistory and see exactly how we got here with Angelina and what has made her such an intriguing and compelling villain.
When we first meet Angelina in the premiere of the third season, it’s impossible to not be completely heartbroken for her. Since the plane returned and she went back to live with her parents, they had kept her locked away, imprisoned from the world. As two religious extremists, they saw her Callings as evil messages from the devil, further traumatizing Angelina who had just been through something that, as seen through the other passengers, was incredibly difficult to cope with. Callings led Michaela, while on her honeymoon with Zeke (Matt Long), to Angelina at her parents’ vacation house in Costa Rica, where she is rescued and immediately goes to stay with the Stone family in New York.
Angelina’s Trauma Changes Her Significantly
With her connection to Cal from the Callings and Olive (Luna Blaise) going out of her way to show Angelina kindness and friendship as they’re close to the same age, Angelina just kind of spirals from here. The trauma she’s endured leaves a severe mark on Angelina’s soul. Because of her religious upbringing, Angelina attempts to find comfort in God’s word, which she can recite from memory. She finds some comfort in reconnecting and establishing a relationship with Pete (Devin Harjes), one of the Meth Heads about to meet their own death date. But, when they don’t survive, that just drives Angelina further off the cliff toward almost total insanity. She doesn’t know how or have the skills to cope with everything she’s experienced, so it’s all just piling up and pushing her to the breaking point.
She’s desperate to fit into and become a member of the Stone family after never having experienced true, unconditional love. She even dyes her hair like Olive’s and starts to act like Olive, which is clearly just her misguided and bizarre way of doing so. She begins to connect with baby Eden — someone who can offer her unconditional love — after Olive and Grace become weary of her, showing Angelina that she’ll never truly be accepted as part of their family. Then, upon becoming convinced that Eden was her guardian angel and could forever keep her safe, Angelina kills Grace and takes Eden with her, beginning Ben’s descent into misery and grief when we pick up with the fourth season two years later.
Season 4 Reveals Angelina Is the Biggest Threat to Everyone
The fourth season proves that Angelina is clever, resourceful, and scrappy. While being on the run for two years, Angelina somehow manages to convince multiple people to help her and Eden out, despite their knowledge that Angelina killed Grace and kidnapped the baby, as they bounce from place to place. She stays hidden, away from Ben and the police, and it’s only a lucky break that eventually brings Ben and his daughter back together in the latter half of the season. Then, Angelina escapes death more times than should be possible (does this girl have nine lives?) and, by the midseason finale, has asserted herself as the biggest threat imaginable.
She’s no longer just a scared young woman in over her head; she’s somewhat deranged, believing herself to be an archangel sent to spread vengeance on the world. She bashes Eagan’s head in, leaving him unconscious on the floor, and takes the omega sapphire that he stole from the others. She uses the sapphire to horribly manipulate Ben with a fake Calling of his dead wife Grace, telling him to bring Eden to her grave where Angelina waits to steal Eden back. (Thankfully, things work out and Eden goes home with Ben.) She then does the same thing with Cal, the only person capable of stopping her, as she uses her version of Grace to tell Cal to stop fighting his cancer and give up.
Angelina will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and she has no qualms about what that means for her moral character. Upon learning that Grace had died, Angelina simply has no real reaction. She doesn’t care that she has just killed someone that had taken care of her and shown her nothing but maternal kindness for months. When she discovers that her parents were serial killers after the passengers that had helped Angelina and Eden over the last couple of years, she leaves Adrian with her mother to die after breaking free. She doesn’t want to watch him die, but she doesn’t care if he dies. She’s glad, in fact, that he’s being punished for turning against her while she and Eden were hiding at his compound.
Over the last two seasons, we’ve seen Angelina grow into a true nightmare. She’s been tormented and completely twisted by her traumatic life, becoming a sociopath intent on causing harm to all those around her. Even with Eden, her affection didn’t seem real. Her obsession with Eden felt like a lame attempt to protect herself from ever enduring anything bad again, and she loved the feeling of turning Eden against Ben. Heading into the final episodes, there’s nothing Angelina won’t do, which is thrilling. She is convinced she’s a fallen angel — à la Lucifer from the Bible, though Angelina hasn’t made that connection — and the result of her behavior with the omega sapphire in hand (literally) is sure to be catastrophic.
Angelina is presumably the volcano from the passengers’ Callings that will destroy the world (given her actions have already opened lava-filled fissures in New York), but could there be a twist in store? With the development Angelina has gone through since we first met her and the person she’s become, is there a chance for her to see the error of her ways? That’s another thing that makes her such a compelling villain: She doesn’t believe she is one. If someone shows Angelina where she’s gone wrong, can she be saved? Whatever the case, watching Angelina’s unstable, unhinged behavior has been a joy, especially with such a talented actor in the role.
Every episode ofManifestis now streaming on Netflix, with Part 2 of Season 4 set to premiere at a date yet to be announced.
