The Umbrella Academy is a popular Netflix show whose first season was released on Netflix in 2019. The first six issues were released between September 2007 and February 2008. Soon after a second series was released in 2008 and then there was a hiatus until 2018. In 2020, Way informed us that the title of volume four of the series would be Sparrow Academy. This has not been released yet but the main plot of season three is the main storyline.
Now I don’t know about you but I certainly need to remind myself of what has happened in past seasons before the final season is released! In this article, I will review the series by recapping different plot lines and side characters you may have forgotten about! The last season was released in June 2022 (and I binged it) so a recap is long overdue!
Season 1: Episodes 1 to 5
The first season of the Umbrella Academy opens on a random day in 1989, forty-three women give birth at the same time even though none of them showed previous signs of pregnancy. We’re then introduced to Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a billionaire who makes it his mission to adopt as many of the forty-three children as possible. He only succeeds in adopting seven of them. He proceeds to assign them each a number and raises them as a superhero team called The Umbrella Academy. Each child has a unique power that Sir Hargreeves works on with each of them:
- Number One: Luther -Superstrength
- Number Two: Diego -Trajectory Manipulation
- Number Three: Allison – Influence people by saying “I heard a rumor…”
- Number Four: Klaus -Communicate and summon the dead
- Number Five: Five -Teleport and time travel
- Number Six: Ben -Monstrous tentacles from his torso
- Number Seven: Vanya (later Viktor) -Control sound waves
These once close siblings are scattered across the globe as grown adults when we meet them in season one of The Umbrella Academy. The only thing that reunites the siblings is the funeral of their adopted father where tensions rise. We learn that their sibling Ben passed away years ago. Vanya wrote a book about her childhood as someone who was left out as her powers do not anppear until towards the middle of season one. Five has returned after seventeen years and has announced that the world will end in eight days.
Season 1: Episodes 6 to 10
Vanya’s powers caused the end of the world because of several people she trusted betraying her. The first is her father who she discovers has been giving her pills since she was a child to stabilise her emotions and restrict her powers. The second is her sister who reveals that she used her powers to make her believe that she’s ordinary. Upon hearing this, Vanya lashes out with her powers and slashes Allison’s throat. She survives but is unable to speak. Another is Pogo, the chimpanzee butler who can talk and has been with them for as long as they can remember. He also knew of her father’s deception and in a rage, Vanya kills him.
Upon the siblings discovering Vanya’s powers, Luther locks her in an isolation chamber. Vanya, furious and heartbroken, lets her powers loose and destroys the house. The siblings become trapped in her energy. Five at the last moment, time travels everyone back in time to try and ‘fix Vanya’ while their timeline burns.
Season 2: Episodes 1 to 5
Season two of The Umbrella Academy opens back where we left off. The Hargreeves are scattered across the years 1960 through to 1963 in Dallas Texas. Five arrives on November 25th, 1963 minutes before a nuclear doomsday. This is later revealed as the end of the world which the siblings have ten days to prevent.
Then the lives that the other Umbrella Academy siblings are living are revealed. Luther is a bodyguard. Diego is in a mental asylum and is fixated upon stopping the JFK assassination. Allison’s voice has healed and she has married a Civil Rights Activist called Ray. Klaus started a cult. Vanya who has no memory of anything is living with a couple called Sissy and Carl and nannies their son Harlan. We are introduced to Lila, who is Diego’s asylum partner and friend and three Swedish killers Axel, Otto, and Oscar determinedly trying to kill the siblings.
The Handler, a higher up in the Temos Commision and the villian of season two, is demoted by her boss, a talking fish called AJ. The Commision is an organization that ensures everything is running smoothly in the timelines. Allison participates in a sit-in in a white only diner organized by Ray. The police begin beating him which only stops when Allison uses her powers on them. This results in her husband running away from her. It is revealed that Lila’s adopted mother is the Handler.
Vanya, about to leave the safety of the Cooper household, saves Harlan from drowning. Scared for his safety, she decides to stay. Upon staying, Vanya begins an intimate relationship with Sissy. But she leaves once she learns that Sissy is still sleeping with Carl. Five kicks Lila out of the group. She and her mother come up with a plan to lure Five into meeting them at an abandoned warehouse. He attends and is told that his family will be sent back to 2019 if he kills the Commision’s board, which he agrees to.
Season 2: Episodes 6 to 10
The siblings are given ninety minutes to gather together and return to 2019. The Handler is now in charge of the Commission. Five had to throw away the briefcase that had the new timeline as the group didn’t make the deadline.Vanya is interrogated and tortured because she is believed to be a KGB spy for speaking Russian. During the torture, she remembers the past. Lila kidnaps Diego forcing him to work for the Commission and remain her boyfriend. Diego escapes the Commission with the help of an analyst called Herb who also shows him what will happen on November 22nd, 1963. Vanya destroys an FBI building and JFK is not assassinated which results in World War III as the Soviets are believed to be the cause.
When the siblings find Vanya, her powers are quickly ramping up to an explosion. Harlan it turns out has experienced her torture. Carl tries to take him while Sissy holds him at gunpoint. Long story short, Harlan deflects a bullet and Carl is killed. The Handler prepares for war.The Handler arrives with the agents and Vanya kills all the agents at the farm with the other siblings fighting too. It is revealed that Leia is one of the forty-three children born on that day. She mirrors powers of the Umbrella Academy. The Handler kills everyone except for Five who is mortally wounded. She is then killed by Axel. Five turns back time for a few minutes and stops the Handler.Vanya and Sissy mutually end their relationship due to Vanya’s dangerous life. Herb, now leading the Commission, allows the Academy to use a briefcase to return to 2019.
Season 3: Episodes 1 to 5
The Umbrella Academy season three introduces us to the altered timeline, where Sir Reginald has not adopted the kids of the Umbrella Academy. Instead he adopts this universe’s Ben along with six other children dubbed as The Sparrow Academy. The two sets of siblings fight. The Umbrellas are overpowered and leave the briefcase behind, taking shelter at the ominous Hotel Obsidian. Lila reveals to Diego that they have a son, Stan.
In the midst of all this, an older man named Lester Pocket packs a suitcase and leaves. Don’t forget about him, he is important! When Marcus gets the briefcase he discovers the Kugelblitz, a time anomaly caused by crossing timelines and is disintegrated. After discovering that Sissy died in 1989, Vanya goes on a journey of self-discovery and becomes Viktor. Allison spirals into grief and rage as her daughter, Claire, does not exist in this timeline. Five discovers the Grandfather Paradox. This was caused by all their mothers being killed before they were born in this timeline. It is discovered that Harlan is Lester. It appears that some of Viktor’s powers transferred to Harlan when he saved him in the lake. We find out that when Sissy died, Harlan’s outburst killed their mothers and caused the grandfather paradox.
Season 3: Episodes 6 to 10
A secret tunnel in the luxury suite called The White Buffalo leads to an abandoned alternate version of the Hotel called Hotel Oblivion. Allison blames Harlan for Claire’s erasure and kills him. The Kugelblitz is trapped in Christopher, a green cube, one of the Sparrow siblings but he soon explodes. This results in the reopening of the Kugelblitz.
Reginald calls a meeting. He explains that he built the Hotel Obsidian around a portal to the universe’s “reset button”. He built it as a mirror to The Hotel Oblivion.The button requires seven people to pass through the secret tunnel and ring seven bells protected by a Guardian.
Reginald murders Luther and blames it on the Guardian. Allison reveals that she made a deal with Reginald. The Kugelblitz consumes the Hotel. Reginald kills Klaus and he summons Guardians to attack the others but the group defeats them. Klaus returns to the living and exposes Reginald for his treachery. Reginald forces them to step on the stairs to activate the reset button, which is slowly killing them. Allison kills Reginald and hits the reset button. This results in Allison being back with Ray and Claire and Luther no longer being an apeman. Also everyone in The Umbrella Academy has no powers. Finally, a new version of Reginald and his wife Abigail are observing New York City under their control.
Season 4: What To Expect
The official trailer for The Umbrella Academy season four dropped in early July. It looks like we’re going to get the answers to many questions we’ve had since the first season! Most excitingly fans will get the answer to how Ben met his untimely death. The trailer implies that the Umbrella Academy need to unpack Ben’s first death in order to save the world. It looks like Ben, like Viktor and Harlan in previous seasons, will be the trigger of the final apocalypse. Apparently according to a new character in the trailer played by Nick Offerman:
“The world we live in is one big phony lie. That tentacle boy is the key to understanding all the timelines.”
But before the siblings team up to unpack all this, we see how they have been living relatively normal lives without their powers. Diego is seen as being a doting Dad. Allison is with her daughter and her husband. Viktor is working as a bartender. Ben may be the trigger of the apocalypse but Reginald, their alien father, will most definitely be the main villain of the final season. Season four introduces a group called The Keepers who determine that an Earth-shattering event is on the horizon.
Cast and Filming
Season four began filming in February 2023 and was wrapped on May 31st. The show was filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. The final season will not be ten episodes long like the rest of the seasons but only six episodes long. Elliot Page is returning as Viktor, Tom Hopper as Luther, and David Castaneda as Diego. Emmy Raver Lampman is reprising her role as Allison, Aidan Gallagher as Five and Robert Sheehan as Klaus.
We know that Colm Feore is Sir Reginald, Ritu Arya is Lila, Cazzie David is Jayme and Justin H Min is Ben. There will also be new additions to the cast such as Nick Offerman as Dr. S Gene a married small-town mayor. Megan Mullaly as Jean Thibideau, a conspiracy-obsessed community college professor is another new addition. David Cross shows up as Sy Grossman, a business owner.
I’m really looking forward to getting to know Ben’s character more and getting some very overdue answers!
