For all of the mysterious and inexplicable events that have occurred since Flight 828 returned on Manifest, Michaela Stone (Melissa Roxburgh) knew one thing for sure: She had her family to lean on.
But as the series enters Season 4, everything has changed, as the entire Stone family is reeling and splintered — and not at the best time, as they draw closer and closer to their anticipated 2024 death date.
The shift puts more pressure on Michaela, who is trying to shoulder the burden of the ticking clock, while also attempting to keep the family together. There’s also the complicated relationship with her former fiancé Jared (J.R. Ramirez) and her current husband Zeke (Matt Long). So how is she handling it? Roxburgh offers a few teases to Tudum.
Where do we find Michaela when the season kicks off?
Going into Season 4, she’s kind of become the stable one. She’s the one who has to take care of the family. She’s the one who has to go out on the “callings,” because Ben isn’t. She’s put her emotions aside for the sake of her brother, for the sake of everyone around her, because she knows that’s what she has to do.
In previous seasons, Michaela and Ben (Josh Dallas) often worked the callings and the 828 mysteries together. How is she handling losing her partner
They did balance each other. It’s been a long time now of Ben grieving. Eden was taken at the end of Season 3, and that’s also a huge part going into Season 4: Ben is looking for her. Michaela understands [Ben’s grief], but she’s also at a point where she's like, “We don’t have the time. We’re going to die. It’s not just about Grace dying... and I need my brother back to help figure out what’s going to happen to us.” And so there is a frustration there, as well.
With Grace (Athena Karkanis) gone, how is Michaela stepping in to help the family?
Cal has grown up immensely. And with Grace dying, there’s so many complications over who’s to blame and is Olive going to take in her new brother the way he is. And so Michaela’s role is to try her best to hold everyone together, when everyone’s wanting to blame the other person or run off in a different direction. The united aspects of the Stone family, in some ways, are no longer.
How is Michaela and Zeke’s marriage going? And where does she stand with Jared?
She did make a decision about what she was going to do and you do get to see the result of that. It’s obviously very complicated, as TV is, but it does unfold slowly from there.
Michaela and Zeke will always be good, I think, because Zeke went through so much trauma and he’s gone through kind of what Michaela went through. So I don’t think that even if Michaela leaves or if they break up that they would ever hate each other or lose respect for each other. But you do get to see little bits and pieces of their marriage and just how deep their connection really does go.
And it’s so different from what her and Jared have; they were best friends. They were co-workers. They had a whole life together. But Michaela and Zeke also had this supernatural event happen to them. You can’t really compare, because one is just like time spent with a best friend and then the other is, “Holy crap. How did we even meet?”
As they get closer to the death date, what steps are they taking to save the 828 passengers?
Their whole mission is to avoid the death date and to make sure that all of the passengers, not just their family, is safe. But there is a ticking clock — as we get further into the show, we actually do see a literal clock of them trying to race against time to save their lives. So they’re following callings and we still have Vance in the mix. And he’s very much on board with helping that mission. So it’s kind of just like a heightened version of what they were already doing, because now the stakes are a lot higher, the clock is ticking down and they don’t have the time they used to have.
Season 4 of Manifest premieres on Nov. 4.
