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manifest-season-4.jpg

The 'Manifest' Final Season Trailer Illustrates the Power of the Sunk-Cost Fallacy

By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 26, 2022 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 26, 2022 |


manifest-season-4.jpg

This might be difficult to believe, but one of the most popular articles on our entire site for the years of 2020 and 2021 was, “Why Viewers Should Stop Watching NBC’s ‘Manifest’ Immediately.” Visitors kept finding it via Google, and I’ll tell you exactly why: They searched, “Should I stop watching Manifest” because they all secretly wanted to and needed an excuse to stop going. It didn’t work.

That article didn’t stop any of us — including Stephen King? We have all continued to watch this terrible, terrible show because we want to see what happens, even though nothing that has happened through the first three seasons has made a lick of damn sense. A plane flew into a time hole and came out five-and-a-half years later, someone found a piece of Noah’s Ark, and a character touched the wing of the plane and aged five-and-a-half years.

The weirdest thing about Manifest is that the sunk-cost fallacy basically began after the second or third episode. It was obvious then that Manifest was irredeemable. And yet, we trudged on. People who watched on Netflix kept binging long past the point of absurdity. Fans were so invested that they campaigned for Netflix to save it after NBC canceled it.

For a lot of people — especially those Netflix viewers — I genuinely think it’s a religious thing, and I think that Manifest started to lean into it, which is why — in the new trailer — the series teases “a direct link to divine consciousness.” What a ridiculous idea. IT’S AN AIRPLANE.

It’s been a hard couple of years … six years. We’re all looking for answers. Y’all: You won’t find them on Manifest, but that won’t stop us from trying, will it?

The first half of the 20-episode final season will premiere on Netflix on November 4th. I’ll be right there with you, sinking my cost. My biggest wish is, at the end of Manifest, the entire Stone family walks out of a giant hole and winds up in Outer Range. Make it happen, Bezos!