The superhero team of the Umbrella Academy took Netflix by storm last year, and its second season delivered on their promised potential. Inspired by Marvel’s X-Men, Umbrella Academy showcases a darker side to the superhero experience, much like Watchmen or Amazon’s The Boys; however, the Umbrella Academy balances out its darker story about an inevitable apocalypse with its fun tone, wacky characters, and surprising twists and turns. While season two did feel a bit repetitive in some of its narrative beats, the focus on its characters throughout gave the show a renewed focus and energy that will help elevate the show as a Netflix favorite.
*Spoilers Ahead*
As the second seasons of most shows tend to do, Umbrella Academy’s second season repeated a lot of the same narrative beats as the first season, as our heroes must stop themselves from causing the apocalypse again, but this time in 1963. Successful shows tend to fall into this trend if they are afraid of straying too far away from their original concept that made them popular, but Umbrella Academy takes the opportunity to focus on building its characters. While season one focused on the mysteries of its plot, season two paced the show around the characters’ development. Allison really evolves from being the nagging sister of season one to a well-rounded character in season two. Season one Allison was nothing more than a catalyst for Vanya’s story and Luther’s love interest (yes, they are siblings, but you watched Game of Thrones so get over it). Allison’s relationship with her husband Ray teaches great lessons about trusting your partner and sharing your true self with them. When she reveals the truth about how she is from the future to Ray, he accepts her for who she is, powers and all, something that Allison has rarely felt from “normal people”. She has never felt comfortable with her powers because when they are abused, her relationships are destroyed. She used her mind controlling powers on her daughter which ended her marriage prior to season one. When she was a child, her father made her use her powers on Vanya, making Vanya forget she had powers, which indirectly leads to the apocalypse in season one. Despite this, Ray accepts her power as part of Allison, something that Allison had never been able to do. His acceptance leads to Allison being more confident and accepting of herself, allowing her to grow as a character.
Season two also helped grow Diego as a character, to the point that he is almost unrecognizable from the character he was in season one. Diego is obsessed with being a hero because he was designated as “Number 2” believing that his father saw more in his brother Luther, “Number 1”. He is eager to prove that he is worthy of his father’s pride by saving the world, which he believes he can do by saving President Kennedy in the past that they are stuck in. Five finds him stuck in an insane asylum, deluded that he was destined to stop Kennedy’s assassination. He comes across as a conspiracy nut throughout season two, believing that stopping the Kennedy assassination will prevent doomsday and confusing every conflict as part of the plot to kill Kennedy. Diego eventually believes his father is part of this nefarious plot and pursues him only to be easily defeated by him. As he continues to stalk his father, he calls Diego out for his delusions of grandeur, telling him that doing some enormously heroic thing will not give him any sort of worth. His father continues that no matter what he does, he will still be a failure. Meanwhile, his delusional nature allows him to be easily manipulated by Commission agent, Lila. Lila uses Diego as a means to her mission of following Five. Of course, she ends up falling in love with Diego in typical spy trope fashion, admiring the heart of gold beneath the surface of his obsessive hero complex. Lila gives Diego the opportunity to spend the rest of his life with her as part of the Commission, but Diego instead uses the Commission’s resources to figure out how Kennedy is killed. Instead, he discovers that Vanya causes the apocalypse again, so he teams up with his siblings to calm her down. When he is not strong enough to get to her, he realizes that he is not the right person to stop doomsday. He accepts that his brothers Klaus and Ben are the ones who can stop Vanya and entrusts his mission to them. After Vanya is stopped, Diego realizes he still has a chance to be the hero that saves Kennedy and rushes outside to stop his father, but unfortunately, with doomsday averted, Kennedy is killed according to the original timeline. Diego lost his chance to be the hero and has to accept that being a part of the Umbrella Academy is all he needs to be special. Diego and Allison are just two great examples of how focusing on building your characters can greatly improve the pacing and tone of the show, with the rest of the cast also developing in their arcs as well. Most importantly all of the characters feel like they have consistent character motivations, as opposed to season one where the characters motivations shifted with the plot. In season one, characters constantly shifted how much they cared about the impending apocalypse as the plot demanded, while in season two, the overarching doomsday plot feels perfectly balanced with each character’s personal arcs.
The biggest problem that I have with season two, however, is that many of the finale’s moments do not land well and lose their impact one way or another. One example of this is when Five goes back in time a few seconds to prevent his family’s death in the finale. This weaker, yet more controlled version of his powers was teased a few episodes earlier as a theoretical possibility, which made this moment even more predictable, leaving the family’s death feeling emotionless as the audience knew they would be fine a few moments later. This power up moment stands out because other members of the family constantly level up without any foreshadowing of their additional abilities before this moment. In this same episode, Diego shows off his ability to make multiple bullets swerve out of the way, when his powers were previously explained as throwing knives very well. In the season two premiere, Allison is shown being able to use her mind control powers to “blow people’s minds” causing their heads to literally explode. Five’s big moment lost much of its impact as his siblings already set a precedent for dramatic power escalations. Another big moment from the finale that landed flat was The Handler’s death, which came suddenly by the hands of the last Swede. The Swede plot had been going on in the background for much of the last few episodes after he finds out that The Handler set him and his brothers up to fail. He kills her very suddenly and unexpectantly, in a moment that did not feel like true vengeance for his brothers. Lila had just found out that The Handler had been manipulating her whole life as her weapon, including ordering the killing of her parents. Harlan, another kid who develops powers, looked to be The Handler’s next target in the finale as she pretended to understand what he was going through. She was finally ruling the Commission with an iron fist that looked to have implications in later seasons. Her potential as a character seemed wasted here for a quick shock factor. They also should not go for a fake out death, to reveal she is alive in season one, because they already faked her death in season one. The show had really taken its time to build a proper pace, and unfortunately, the finale just feels too rushed and crammed for its big moments to leave an impact. Despite my problems with the finale, I believe season two was a great improvement on season one in the way that it worked with its characters to create a more engaging tone for audiences to work, and I am excited to see them hopefully take the show in new, interesting directions in season three.
Did you like Umbrella Academy season two? Let us know in the comments below.