My wife and I just finished Umbrella Academy last night - anybody else watch it? While the last episode tied up some loose ends, it left us both with some BIG questions (fully appropriate for an ongoing series). I loved the show because it was so campy and over the top; my wife loved the family drama aspect of it. I feel like the series has a little bit of something for everyone, and that made it really enjoyable.
In terms of last-episode very spoilery questions:
I understand that we have suspend our beliefs and use our imaginations, given that things like time travel, super-powers and an intelligent chimp exist, but how old is Sir Reginald Hargreeves? Is he immortal? Is he a time traveler, like the Commission? I would probably vote the latter, referencing back to his discussion around the dinner table with Number 5 about time travel - he seemed to have personal knowledge and experience when telling 5 that he wasn’t ready to do it yet.
Where did he come from? The opening scene in the last episode shows him and a dying significant other in a war-torn landscape. Were those space ships littering the ground? Was he from the future (that wouldn’t make sense, given the apocalypse that happens in the last episode). Far in the future from the apocalypse then time travelling to the early 1900’s?
What was that jar of motes of light he released? My crackpot theory is that that somehow links back to the 43 children all born on the same day to women who were not pregnant the day prior. This is how he knew they would be born and how he knew to travel the world trying to collect them.
My wife and I had a brief discussion after watching the last episode too, about how I felt that the series was commentary on the pitfalls of the patriarchy:
The team has several opportunities to work things through with Vanya, mostly championed by Allison, before she goes on to cause the apocalypse. It starts off with Reginald Hargreeves locking Vanya up, medicating her (to supress her “out of control emotions”) and finally using Allison’s power to suppress her abilities, as well.
Luther and Diego (and to a lesser extent 5 and Klaus) ignore Allison, and try to contain/control Vanya just like Reginald had, continuing his plan for Vanya. I really feel like had 1) they let Allison let Vanya out of the vault or 2) Let Allison go through with her plan at the concert to connect with Vanya and talk her out of it, the whole catastrophe could have been avoided.
I’m excited to hear what everyone has to say! We both really enjoyed the first season and are looking forward to the (recently confirmed!) second season!
I definitely had most of the same thoughts that you did when I watched it. There’re definitely some time shenanigans going on with Reginald Hargreaves and I was really confused by those lights that he released. I feel like the jar of lights has to do with the children in some way. I’m also curious what became of all the other children that he wasn’t able to collect, because there are still a lot of them out in the world with unknown abilities. I loved the show though and I can’t wait for the next season to hopefully answer a lot of these questions.
Early on in the series, I had figured that one (or more) of the non-collected special children were going to be featured, possibly as witting or unwitting villains. Certainly that’s a possibility for future seasons!
Oh! Another spoiler-y Reginald Hargreeves question:
Luther starts off the series believing Hargreeves sent him on a 4 year moon mission to “watch for threats.” After he finds all of his unopened data and samples under the floorboards, he then believes that Hargreeves exiled him to the moon because he was embarassed and ashamed about what he had done to Luther in order to save his life. HOWEVER, the apocalypse happens because Vanya destroys the moon and it crashes into Earth; could Hargreeves actually have genuinely meant to send Luther to look after the moon because of special foreknowledge about how the apocalypse would happen? He seems to know that it will happen. In the last episode, we hear 5 remark that “the moon is still in the sky” meaning that he had noted it was gone when he time traveled into the post-apocalyptic future.
Vanya, hands down. Next would be 5 and Klaus. Allison also makes for an interesting, compelling character, regarding her guilt of her previous abuse of her powers. I’m sort of indifferent to Ben, Luther and Diego. How about you?
I found Vanya’s conflict really moving and her arch was really interesting to watch play out. But 5 has to be my favourite because of his humor and he had some of the best scenes such as the donut shop fight, man what a sound track! I have to say though that Luther was my least favourite character as he just got so annoying in the end it was almost like the writers were forcing conflict and it just felt very unnatural.
omg yes finally! I binged Umbrella Academy with my mom when I was home for spring break! Klaus is my absolute fave, and I really hope they develop more of the Ben/Klaus dynamic because I did really like the bits they included. I thought the lights that Hargreeves released was actually more to do with some custom in whatever time/place he was for when someone passes away…like honoring them or freeing their spirit or something? But I’d be curious to learn more about where he was because it’s clearly not the same future that the UA have…
So my family believes that Reginald is one of the 43 kids and that he has the power to time travel and that he was given the task to unite the kids and lead them in the direction to save the world
First off, I had the same questions at the end of the series as well so I am glad others were thinking the same thing. Secondly, I like Luther because he was a good representation of a rigid leader with absolute belief in his orders who then realised that things were not what they seemed. I dont necessarily like how he turned out at the end of the series but I did find the character interesting. His belief in doing what is right is what drove most if his decisions. I find characters that hold themselves to their ideals that rigidly fairly interesting like Kingpin in Daredevil or Thanos in the Marvel movies. My favorite character though is number 5 or maybe Ben. It is kind of a toss up between them.
