Who Plays Cal Stone in ‘Manifest’ Season 4? Is Ty Doran Here To Stay or Will Jack Messina Return?

Warning: Spoilers for Manifest Season 4, Part 1 ahead.

For three seasons of Manifest, one of Flight 828’s most important passengers, Cal Stone, was played by Jack Messina. But in the final minutes of the Season 3 finale, fans witnessed a major twist.

As a refresher, Season 3 saw Messina’s Cal disappear after touching the plane’s tailfin in Eureka. Once fellow 828 passengers Saanvi (Parveen Kaur) and Cal’s dad Ben (Josh Dallas) returned the mysterious hunk of material to the water where it was found, Cal came home, but he had aged five! years! Before the Season 3 finale concluded, viewers watched Cal connect with his mother Grace (Athena Karkanis), who Angelina (Holly Taylor) had just stabbed. But instead of Messina, the older version of Cal staring down at Grace was played by actor Ty Doran.

As the series hits Netflix with Part 1 of its fourth and final season on November 4, Doran will return to screens as Cal. So who is Ty Doran? And is Jack Messina returning in Manifest Season 4? Here’s everything you need to know about Doran and Messina ahead of Season 4, Part 1.

Who Plays Older Cal on Manifest? Meet Ty Doran

As noted, older Cal is played by 25-year-old actor Ty Doran. He kickstarted his acting career in 2015, starring in a short called Brushstrokes before appearing as Peter Tanner in Season 2 of American Crime in 2016. Per Doran’s IMDb page, he’s appeared in several popular series since 2018, including All Night, Queen Sugar, Chicago Fire, The Blacklist, and more. Then, he landed the role of Cal Stone in the final episode of Manifest Season 3.

Doran currently has 11,700 Instagram followers, but those numbers are sure to grow as more people watch him become part of the Stone family in Manifest Season 4, Part 1.

Is Jack Messina Returning to Manifest as Cal in Season 4?

Manifest is known for unexpected twists, time travel, and bringing characters back from the dead (we see you, Grace) so I suppose there’s always a chance Messina could come back as Cal before the series ends. But aside from appearances in flashbacks, we haven’t spotted new Messina scenes in the first 10 episodes of Manifest Season 4, Part 1. It looks as if Ty Doran could play Cal for the remainder of the series, and that theory is supported by past tweets from Messina and Manifest creator Jeff Rake.

After Season 3 of Manifest aired, Rake posted a touching tribute to Messina, writing, “A huge thank you to my great friend and colleague…You started your journey with us as a boy and ended a young man. And I’m not talking about what happened last night. I’m so grateful for your professionalism, your excellence, and your friendship.”

The tweet had a sense of finality to it, as did Messina’s reply, which read, “I will always be grateful to
@jeff_rake for letting me be part of this amazing show. #Manifest brought together a group of people, both cast and crew, who became a family. I learned so much and will always be ‘connected’ to them. Thank you to the amazing fans too. You rock.”

Ahead of Season 4 filming, Messina also tweeted to wish Rake and his former castmates good luck, which implied that he would not be returning as “young Cal” for the show’s final episodes.

We’ll have to wait for Part 2 of Manifest Season 4 to drop to know for sure if Messina’s run on the show truly ended in Season 3. But until then, we’re enjoying watching Doran’s portrayal of Cal.