| “ | I warned you, now you're gonna pay. | „ |
| ~ Jace taunting Michaela. |
| “ | TRAITORS! Traitors... | „ |
| ~ Jace's final words to Kory and Pete. |
Jace Baylor is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside The Major) of the drama television series Manifest, serving as the main antagonist of season two and the secondary antagonist of season three.
He is a drug dealer who is the leader of a group called Tri-Three, with his brother Pete Baylor and associate Kory Jephers. Despite all being drug dealers, Pete and Kory all had morals and did not want to hurt anyone, while Jace was a violent psychopath who would kill anyone who he felt had wronged him.
He was portrayed by James McMenamin, who also portrayed Charlie Coates in Orange is the New Black.
Biography[]
Growing up, Jace was a generally kind kid who cared about his brother Pete and friend Kory, he would even save money to buy them all new shoes and would look out for everyone in their neighborhood. However, after the three of them join their local high school's football team, they are abused and forced to sell drugs by the coach. When Pete tries to leave, the coach beats him brutally and frames him for the overdose of one of their teammates. After Pete is sent to juvenile hall, the coach kicks Jace and Kory off the team. After Pete gets out of juvie, the three of them eventually go on to form the drug dealing group Tri-Three.
Throughout the years, Jace is arrested several times for different reasons, and becomes more violent overtime. He first meets Michaela when she goes to his meth lab to arrest him along with Pete and Kory. She holds him at gunpoint, but then gets a calling telling her to "let him go," which she does not listen to. He begins taunting her while he is in custody, about how he will get revenge on her and find out how to hurt her in the worst way possible.
Jace, Pete, and Kory are then loaded onto a bus to be taken to prison, at which point Kory fakes a seizure and Jace attacks both of the officers on the bus, The three of them then stalk the Stone family and kidnap Cal Stone, Jace then calls Michaela and tells her that she had to go and get their meth stash or he would kill Cal. He tries to set up a hostage exchange for the meth stash in a public plaza but it goes sideways and they take Cal to an abandoned cabin. He then gets into a fight with Kory and Pete since neither of them wanted to kidnap Cal in the first place.
Michaela and Ben manage to track down their location, at which point Jace orders Kory or Pete to slit Cal's throat. Pete refuses, and sets Cal free without Jace noticing. Jace then runs into the woods after Cal, with Kory and Pete following, until they catch him on a frozen lake. Michaela and Ben reach the lake as well and demand Jace to let Cal go, but Jace refuses and holds Cal at gunpoint. A lightning bolt then strikes the lake and causes Jace, Kory, and Pete to fall inside, at which point they all drown in the freezing water. Later when the police go to the area, they have divers go into the lake to find the bodies, but despite hours of searching, they are unable to find anything.
Months later, Jace, Pete, and Kory all come back to life. Jace starts going on a rampage, attacking an innocent man with a rock and even trying to kill Michaela with explosives. Kory and Pete try to talk him out of his rampage by reminding him of how he used to be a good person when they were all teenagers, but he doesn't listen and the three of them ultimately become separated after Pete is arrested and Kory leaves to find his family. Jace then begins hiding out in a stolen motor home and begins to experience callings that he shares with Pete and Kory. It is discovered by Olive Stone that Jace, Pete, and Kory are reincarnations of three individuals from an ancient legend known as the Three Trials, and that in order to survive, the three of them must find redemption and face their past.
Nearly three months later, Jace's death date is getting closer. He, Pete, and Kory all begin puking water as a sign of them dying once again, and then begin to get a calling that involves them running on their old high school football track. Jace takes this as a sign to confront his past, and tracks down his old coach with the intention to kill him. However, Kory intercepts him and tries to convince him not to follow their old violent path, citing the fact that they had both been puking water and that if they were going to survive they needed to change course. Jace does not listen and enters their coaches home, and almost kills him, but Kory stops him which leads to Jace shooting Kory in the leg and fleeing the scene.
Jace eventually gets a calling of him attacking Michaela, with this calling being a test in which he is meant to not follow the vision and choose a different path. However, Jace does not believe this and instead thinks he must kill Michaela and Cal in order to save himself from dying. Michaela eventually tracks Jace into the woods at which point a fight ensues and Jace knocks her off a cliff. He then steals her police car and uses it to find Cal's location, and discovers that Cal is hiding at his uncle Tarik's cabin. Upon arriving his intercepts Ben Stone, Angelina Meyer, his brother Pete, and an NSA officer. He kills the officer and opens fire on the others until he runs out of ammo, and then escapes into the woods in order to find Cal.
He eventually runs into Tarik, and demands that he tell him where Cal is hiding, but Tarik refuses. Pete manages to find Jace and begs him to stop, but Jace won't listen and fatally stabs Tarik. He then tells Pete that because Cal nearly drowned in the lake with them, and was on Flight 828 when it returned, it means that killing Cal will prevent them from dying. Pete tells him that this isn't true, and that Jace still has one last chance to make the right choice. Jace claims he has no choice, and he and Pete enter a fight, which ends with Jace knocking Pete out. He claims that he has nothing left to live for, and that Cal is his insurance policy. He begins having callings of Cal singing a nursery rhyme to his sister Eden and it allows him to track Cal's location.
He ultimately does find Cal but is held at gunpoint by Cal's mother Grace, who wants revenge for him killing her brother Tarik. Despite wanting so desperately to kill him, Ben arrives and begs Grace not to, as Jace's death date is only seconds away, and that Grace does not need blood on her hands. Pete wakes up from being knocked out, and Kory, who was also able to hear Cal's nursery rhyme, arrives to protect Cal. Jace angrily calls them both traitors and then begins to vomit water and collapses, dying at last. Pete and Kory do not vomit water, seemingly beating their death date because they found redemption. But then Olive discovers that the three of them were resurrected together, and therefore are being judged together. Just as she calls Ben to tell him this, Jace's soul emerges from his body and grabs Pete and Kory. He then appears to literally tear their souls out of their bodies and kills both of them as well.
Personality[]
Jace is shown to be violent lunatic, who would kill anyone who got in the way of his criminal operations. He had a strong level of vengeance, as he specifically went after Michaela for being the one who arrested him, even going as far as threatening to kill her nephew just to hurt her. Unlike Kory and Pete, he was extremely impulsive and would kill people even though the three of them were in hiding. He was abused by his coach while in high school, leading to his violent nature, but despite multiple chances to change his ways, he never takes them and continues on his rampage to try and kill the Stone family.
Despite all of this, he did show concern over his brother Pete, being willing to kill other people but not him. He would hit his brother if he angered him, but never kill him. Pete was also shown to be the only person who could appeal to Jace's humanity, by talking about their childhood together and how Jace used to care about other people before being turned into a monster. He also did show some level of care over Kory, as he shot him the leg rather than killing him outright, which was extremely rare for Jace who would almost always murder anyone who he felt stood in his way.
Trivia[]
- While being arrested, he says to Michaela that he will bring down a "holy vengeance" down on her. Michaela theorizes that Jace is somehow aware of the calling telling her to let him go, but she isn't sure. Jace later does start experiencing callings, but it is never revealed if he actually knew of the original calling that Michaela received.