Umbrella Academy: Season 2 recap and what’s to come
Emily Im offers a thorough recap of Season 2 of Umbrella Academy before filling readers in with all the essentials revealed in the trailers. A must-read before jumping into Season 3!
Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy is finally arriving on 22 June. Based on the comics by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the show followers the dysfunctional Hargreeves clan, seven adopted siblings with superpowers, attempting to stop the apocalypse while dealing with personal trauma. Before diving into the new season, here’s a refresher to get you excited for what’s coming!
The story so far
After failing to hinder Vanya (Elliot Page) from ending the world, Five (Aiden Gallagher) transports his family back to the 1960s to escape death. Despite holding onto one another, they each land in Dallas, Texas, at different times over three years. With Five being the last to appear and discover, they face yet another Doomsday. Luckily, Hazel (Cameron Britton) shows up and grabs Five, time-travelling back ten days with him so he can have the chance to prevent the apocalypse.
Five tries to find his siblings, who are off doing their own thing: Luther (Tom Hooper) is a bodyguard and underground fighter for Jack Ruby; Diego (David Castañeda) is in a mental institution where he meets Lila (Rita Arya) and believes he can thwart John F. Kennedy’s assassination; Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is a married civil rights activist; ghost Ben (Justin H. Min) remains stuck with Klaus (Robert Sheehan) who is now a cult leader, and Vanya lives with a farm family, failing to remember who she is.
The Hargreeves eventually come together and agree to have another crack at foiling global destruction. While Diego is at the Commission, he not only learns that Lila is The Handler’s adopted daughter but also sees through the Infinite Switchboard that Vanya’s explosion caused the pre-apocalypse war. Given her Russian roots, the FBI hooks her up to a torture machine suspecting she is a spy, only to bring out her powers in full force. Then, on the brink of blowing up the building, Ben enters Vanya’s mind, sacrificing himself to save her. No more Doomsday and no more Ben. RIP.
With JFK assassinated, Reginald Hargreave meets with the Majestic 12 (the secret committee behind JFK’s assassination) to share his dismay over their actions. The 12 then threaten to expose his true identity, at which point Reginald takes off his mask, revealing his alien head before killing them all.
In the season finale, the Hargreeves head to the farm and find Harlan (Justin Paul Kelly), the farm family’s non-verbal autistic son, struggling to control the power he unintentionally absorbed from Vanya when she saved him from drowning. The Handler and the rest of the Commission soon turn up with Lila for an epic showdown with the Hargreeves. Moreover, in an epic reveal, Lila demonstrates her power to imitate another’s. The siblings then realise Lila is among the 43 children born on 1 October 1989.
The Commission is defeated, and although The Handler initially shoots the Hargreaves dead, a barely conscious Five time-travels a few seconds back, killing her instead. Vanya also manages to calm Harlan and take his power away, except she doesn’t quite get all of it, as later on, in the back seat of a car, Harlan is shown levitating a wooden bird.
With the help of a briefcase, the Hargreaves return to 2019 on 2 April, a day after the original Doomsday. They think everything is normal, but it isn’t—their home isn’t theirs. In a shocking double twist, it now belongs to The Sparrow Academy, Ben being alive and a member.
So, what happens next?
The Season 3 trailer offers a glimpse at what The Sparrow Academy can do, and it already seems like they’re a more polished and uniform group. Although not all of their powers have been fully revealed, Number 1, Marcus, is essentially Luther, but better. Ben takes the Number 2 spot with his tentacles and main-character energy. Number 3, Fei, controls birds. Alphonso, Number 4, can take a punch to the face without flinching and use that power to hurt you right back. Number 5, Sloane, is all about anti-gravity. Number 6, Jayme, can see other people’s dreams. And completing the team, the psykronium cube can, according to a tweet by Netflix Geeked, “turn the room freezing cold and induce paralysing fear”. Chilling stuff.
The Sparrows could be The Umbrella Academy‘s enemies, but I predict they’ll work together to address the more pressing kugelblitz. According to Five, the siblings created a time paradox that swallows things and––shock horror––they only have 4 or 5 days to solve the problem before the world ends.
There’s also the issue of potentially meeting another version of themselves. We’ve already witnessed 13-year-old Five v. 58-year-old Five in Season 2, and both almost lost their minds experiencing paradox psychosis. Five strongly advises his siblings to avoid themselves––but can they do it, or will they cross paths and descend into homicidal rage?
Also revealed in the trailer, Lila will reappear, seemingly supporting the Hargreaves as she works with Page’s character, who was reintroduced as Viktor in March. Viktor displays greater confidence in the trailer, boasting rather than conveying guilt that he ended the world twice and claims the Sparrows are simply “meat in Spandex”.
There is no sign of Harlan, but if he does make a comeback, he’ll be significantly older, perhaps even more powerful. The question is: if he returns, will he return as a hero or villain.
Blink, and you’ll miss it, but Euphoria’s Javon Walton (aka. Ashtray) plays an unknown character in the show. We see him hanging out with Klaus, which is probably a fun time, but there’s no other information yet, so we’ll have to wait and see.
And last but not least, Pogo, Reginald’s chimpanzee assistant, is now a tattoo artist. But, again, not much has been said about him, nor does he utter a word in the trailer. He is, however, no longer dressed like a stereotypical librarian and does not seem pleased to see Five.
