Warning: This article contains spoilers for Manifest season 3.
Manifest season 4 will see Ben struggling emotionally, reveals actor Josh Dallas. The science fiction drama series will conclude its run during a two-part final season due to be released on Netflix on November 4. Originally premiering on NBC in 2018, Manifest was acquired by Netflix after a fan campaign saved it from cancelation on the broadcast network. Featuring an ensemble cast led by Melissa Roxburgh, Dallas and Athena Karkanis, the supernatural series also stars Holly Taylor, J.R. Ramirez, Jack Messina, Luna Blaise, Matt Long and Parveen Kaur.
Created by Jeff Rake, Manifest follows a group of plane-crash survivors who mysteriously return home five and a half years after their aircraft vanished, exactly the same age as before. After settling into their old lives, the passengers realize their nightmare is far from over when they begin to see visions and hear voices, which some believe to be divine 'Callings', discovering they may be a part of something much deeper than they originally thought. Manifest season 3 left viewers devastated, with a major cliffhanger in the final minutes seeing Ben's (Dallas) wife, Grace (Karkanis), murdered, and his daughter, Eden, kidnaped. With new episodes set to take place after a two-year time jump, Dallas is giving audiences a sneak peek at what they can expect from his character going into Manifest season 4.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Josh Dallas reveals Ben will be in a dark place for much of Manifest season 4. The actor shares that his character, although two years has passed, is still in the thick of mourning his wife, and has built up rage and distrust over time, to the point where he is questioning everything. Read on for a glimpse at what Ben will be tackling emotionally in season 4:
It’s difficult. Ben’s road ahead is very difficult. We start part one of season four two years after where we left season three. So he has had a lot of time to throw anchor in this profound depth of anger and grief, and he’s questioning everything. He’s questioning everything about the callings, because as far as he’s concerned, they’ve given him nothing. They’ve only taken from him. So he wants nothing to do with them anymore, and he’s also questioning everything about God and the universe and his own goodness, versus evil, and maybe perhaps wondering if Adrian [Jared Grimes] was right all along about Ben and the passengers being agents of the apocalypse and actually bringing on this flood.
So he’s in a tough spot where he’s holding on to that anger and grief, and he can’t really see a way out of it. That’s the thing about anger. It begs to stick around, and it makes you mistreat the ones that love you the most. And he still has a family around him. He still has other children, he has his sister, but he is so stuck in that void of Grace [Athena Karkanis] and his daughter that he can only concentrate on one thing. And that’s finding Eden. The one reason he doesn’t want to give up his grief is because if he gives it up, I think he feels that he’ll lose Grace forever in some kind of way. But I also think in finding Eden, he feels like he’ll get Grace back as well. So that’s what he focuses on, and unfortunately, he leaves his very strong and smart and capable sister [Melissa Roxburgh’s Michaela] alone in leading the Lifeboat.
How Will Manifest End For Ben?
As Dallas reveals, the heart-wrenching events of the season 3 finale are still fresh in Ben's mind in Manifest season 4, even two years later. It's clear he will be at his lowest point when Manifest returns, and that his behavior will have serious implications for how he treats others in the Lifeboat. Ben's reluctance to obey the Callings is justified, considering all they have done is taken from him, however, his lifeboat theory requires all the survivors to work together and please the Callings. With Ben in a dark, scary, place, his behavior could be unpredictable, and while Dallas reveals Ben is still determined to find Eden, new photos have shown his daughter to now be a teenager in season Manifest 4. It's clear that if Ben has abandoned the lifeboat theory, and may only want to serve himself, it will come at a price, but if the lifeboat theory is true, he will have a lot of work a head of him to get back into the Calling's good graces.
With the dreaded Death Date, Manifest's final day for its passengers, approaching at the end of season 4, it's apparent that Ben will need to make sense of what happened to him to move on and help the group alongside his sister Michaela (Roxburgh). On the other hand, it's possible that Ben will end up sacrificing himself for the greater good of everyone, playing into the fan theory that saving the lifeboat comes from making a personal sacrifice, known as the sacrifice theory. Hopefully, that won't come to be, as Ben has already been through enough personal turmoil. Nevertheless, viewers will have the answers they have been waiting for when Manifest returns to Netflix this Friday, November 4.
Source: THR