The Umbrella Academy

The first season was a surprisingly nuanced and novel take on the whole "superhero misfits" trope, backed up by some incredible acting and solid storytelling. Season two pretty much sticks all the same landings, whilst building on the original dynamics nicely, giving each character a little more time to shine, and concluding a lot of the plot threads that were still left open. For those reasons alone it would be an instant must-watch and a great second outing, but it also manages to expand the world-building nicely and – once again – somehow manages to do time travel in a way that feels really fun.

Straight away, we discover that 5's portal didn't quite work as expected, teleporting the team to the same location but separating them over about four or five years in the early 60s. It's a great period to have picked and a fun initial set up, allowing us to see how each sibling adapts to the new timeline they find themselves in, unaware of the fates of each other. Allison probably has the roughest ride, suddenly finding herself square in the middle of segregation America and embroiled in the Civil Rights movement, though Klaus' cult was an equally brilliant stroke and a lot of fun to watch unfold. I was less sold on Diego's slow descent into a comedy idiot and don't quite feel that his unending desire to stop JFK's assassination made a huge amount of sense, but the way it wove in and out of their father's history was a useful method for plot exposition and allowed us a much greater insight into his character and purpose.

Of course, it also led directly to the new cliffhanger ending, which I feel could be a huge amount of fun. I'm glad that we get more Ben in season three (please be greenlit!) too, even if his "death" (can ghosts die?) was a really fitting end to his arc this season and felt like a really solid moment for the series as a whole.

I'm also glad that it looks like we're moving away from the whole "Vanya is the problem" plotline. Once again, TUA got me with a story that felt like it was blindly following stale tropes and then inverted them, making them sort of the issue for this season but ultimately then leaning on that plot element to instead progress them past that point and prove that they are now a solid member of the family. I was a little disappointed that Luthor wasn't the first person to get in the car, given that he was the only one not shown in close up turning their request for help down, and he probably has the most reason to want that redemption in the first place considering the whole locking them in a cell thing from season one, but I also like that it gave Klaus the moment to hear Ben's final words.

Speaking of Vanya, I also really like that they got to have another, better, romantic plotline, particularly one which allowed them to equally shine a light on homophobia (something Klaus got to touch on as well). I feel like season two helped humanise the character a lot and let Elliot Page show a bit more emotional range, whilst also allowing Vanya to be the solution to both Harlan's power overload and the attack by the Commission. I'm also a fan of the way they wrapped up the Commission, putting Herb in charge, giving us a little more insight into how they work, and putting a full stop on the story of the Handler.

On the other hand, I'm annoyed they killed off Hazel immediately as he had become a firm favourite character (though I guess that now the timeline has been changed Cha-Cha might still be around?). I also hope that we return to the Commission at some point to discover why they exist in the first place. Right now, with the exception of 5, they appear to be the only people capable of time travel, which suggests that they inadvertently cause all of the time anomalies that they then fix. My personal pet theory is that we'll discover 5 actually created the Commission in the future to try and set the timeline right after the Umbrella Academy (and possibly other powered individuals, now that they're confirmed to exist) have screwed it up so much. There would be a neat circularity to that.

Still, these are extremely minor quibbles. Sure, we don't get all the answers, and yes Diego's character development feels a little strange. There are also a few parts where the characters seem to ignore bits from the first season. Overall though, it's a solid second outing, a huge amount of fun, and an absolute rollercoaster ride to watch. I still reckon it's one of the best superhero TV shows and probably the most refreshing entry to the genre for some time. Long may it continue!

Kept me guessing throughout, yet once again they have managed to weave an intricate and entertaining story together. It's utterly ridiculous and yet sublimely good.

First of all, can I just say: called it! Five set up the Commission; you can't slip that past me 😁 And relatedly, I'm really glad that we're getting a lot more Lila this season ‒ she's fun! ‒ but I'm not entirely certain about the whole "Diego is a dad" thing. Don't get me wrong, it works well, and the fact that it turns out to be a big bluff on Lila's part is kind of hilarious (there goes the "messing with tropes" angle again!), but it leaves us with a lot of questions about next season. And was it necessary? Eh, it works I guess.

Still, these are just two subtle ways they managed to interlink season two and three. I thought the Harlan subplot was equally excellent, and liked how they wove everything together between his power outburst, the death of their mothers, and the subsequent created of the Sparrows and kugelblitz. It slots together neatly, in a completely madcap, TUA-specific kind of way.

One way which felt a little mean was that Allison, once again, gets the roughest plot line. I enjoy where it takes us, but come on! She loses her family in the past and her daughter in the present. Then they turn her into a villain, having her kill Harlan just as they manage to get his life sorted out. Harsh, man!

Of course, you can't really talk about season three without mentioning Victor, but then, the show did such a great job of incorporating the character's transition that there's also not much to say. I think they handled it beyond admirably and created a fantastic blueprint that other shows or series could follow in the future. In particular, it helped flesh out the relationship between Victor and Harlan in ways which would otherwise have been less interesting or nuanced, which was great.

I enjoyed Sloane and Luthor's whole relationship/marriage; I thought the Sparrows, in general, were an interesting set of characters; Grace's whole descent into religious fervour was kind of brilliant (albeit a little odd at times); and Klaus finally learning about his powers ‒ fantastic!

I'm not entirely sure about the ending ‒ it's fun, but also a lot ‒ and quite where this leaves us for any possible future seasons, but I'm interested to see how everything can go wrong again 😉

Two years is quite a long time to try and keep the many strands of narrative that comprise The Umbrella Academy in your head, so I think it's a pretty good sign that I was able to remember quite a lot of context within the run time of the first episode. Still, I imagine season four did suffer a little from missed callbacks and some general confusion. Going back and re-reading the synopsis for the last season, I'm also left wondering a little: what happened to Ray and Sloane? We get single line explanations, but that feels a little harsh.

That said, it's still a brilliant season. In only six episodes it has a lot to wrap up but, for the most part, it handles this well. I will say that Ben's character is a little confusing, and I slightly wish they'd made him be an amalgam of the past Ben's or something, but I also thoroughly enjoyed how central of a role he had, and how nicely they tied it all together with his, shall we say, more unique power 😅

We also finally find out a lot more about Hargreaves, his lost wife, and what his ultimate plans were. And, of course, there's now a multiverse, but one done in a very Umbrella Academy style ‒ even if it is quite reminiscent of the whole "Council of Ricks" idea from Rick & Morty.

But most of all, the ending somehow works (minus one minor niggle). It was always going to be hard to end this season in a genuinely upbeat way, because at the core of every plot line has been this duality between the people and their powers. Season three set us up to see how life would go if they just got to live it, no powers, no special team, nothing weird. And the result is... not great. Besides Five, none of them do particularly well in the "real world". Luther does at least seem happy, albeit deluded, as an ageing stripper, and Victor seems to be trying, but the others all basically have to live knowing that they were special and now, distinctly, aren't. Interestingly, a large part of the story arc for this season is having each of them realise that they probably had more to live for in this version of reality than any of the others, but in the end that doesn't matter.

Five discovers the truth: they are the source of all of the issues. By bringing the Academy into the world, Hargreaves has created a chain of events that time itself is fighting against. The apocalypse will never end. Not until they sacrifice themselves and revert the timeline back to a point before they began meddling in it. It's certainly bittersweet, but it makes the kind of twisted sense that the show does so well.

I will say, I don't fully understand why their families actually get to live in the Prime Timeline (though I thoroughly enjoyed the one-take park scene filled with cameos), but it does add a very poignant capstone to Lila's story, so I'm okay with it.

But yeah, about that minor niggle: the final sacrifice works because the Marigold that brought them into existence is finally fused with the Durango, resetting the timeline and preventing them ever being born. Which is fine, except the whole premise is that the Umbrellas are only a subset of the people that were born as a result of Hargreaves' little Marigold experiment. So doesn't the Durango also need to fuse with all of that Marigold as well? And if so, where is it? I'm sure there's probably some trans-dimensional, timey-wimey explanation that because this group of the Family get absorbed at this moment in history, it works (after all, when Hargreaves reset the universe in season three, he wiped out all of the Marigold, and they were only able to get some more when it fell through from another timeline), but it still feels like they kinda forgot about that.

Perhaps, given that this was a short season, the second half of the season was meant to be them rounding up other people? Or perhaps they cut things short by just having a future Five explain everything to the "first" Five, thereby having to cut out a bunch of exposition. Still...

As I say, though, this is a minor niggle, and one I don't really care about. A slightly bigger one is that we never really got the long-telegraphed pay off about Klaus' powers. I mean, we did a little bit in season three, but even still, this season he's unable to cope without them, then goes straight back to trying to destroy himself when they return. It feels a little like maybe, just maybe, his whole "power/control over death" thing could have meant that the Family would have been able to both die in the future and get resurrected (as normal people) in the past. Maybe?

Either way, I enjoyed his arc. I thought Lila and Five's time trapped in the interdimensional tube was actually completely brilliant (and a high point of the entire season). Gene and Jean were phenomenal ‒ Nick Offerman was a particularly perfect casting ‒ and I even thought the slightly hacky reveal that Abigail (the mum) was orchestrating everything actually worked really well, once they'd explained her reasoning. Jessica was a fun character; the "town" she was forced to live in was an epic battle scene; and the banality of the family birthday party was exactly the quirky, comedy-rich idea that The Umbrella Academy does so well. It was a solid ending, a solid season, and cements the legacy of a truly brilliant show.

But why was it so heavily Christmas themed, when it aired in summer? 😂