Umbrella Academy

Elliot Page is “proud” and “excited” that their real-life gender transition will be represented through their “Umbrella Academy” character.

Page said “Umbrella Academy” showrunner Steve Blackman was “really excited” to incorporate trans identity into the show. “That’s obviously a big component and part of my life and a beautiful thing to experience now,” they said. “So Thomas came on board and helped out, and I feel proud of it and excited for people to see.”

Of all the superhero franchises Netflix has attempted to launch, “The Umbrella Academy” is easily its biggest hit. Three seasons in, the series is trying to do ...

Of all the superhero franchises Netflix has attempted to launch, “The Umbrella Academy” is easily its biggest hit. Viktor Hargreeves’ coming out is one of the best-handled storylines of the season, and provides a masterful “how to” guide in handling a transitioning family member. It may be an accident of fate that “The Umbrella Academy’s” best plotline came from something the universe threw at it. Since its first season, “The Umbrella Academy” has thrived on chaotic storylines, throwing around time traveling tales and multiverses like ping pong balls, and delighting in whichever way they landed. Most only lasted a season (“ Jupiter’s Legacy,” anyone?) or have flown under the radar, like “ Locke & Key.” It is also one of the few (if not the only) of Netflix’s superhero franchise legitimately able to challenge Marvel’s supremacy, at least more than certain DC films can claim. Three seasons in, the series is trying to do too much, and some of the show’s best moments are the ones it never saw coming.

The Umbrella Academy ended the world... again. But it's different this time! Here's what's going on with that Season 3 ending and a breakdown of all the ...

We meet Ben’s mother immediately before her immaculate conception on a similar subway in Korea. But we also probably shouldn’t sleep on the fact that the version of Ben we see on the train looks pretty different from the Sparrow version we spent Season 3 with. But, like all things in The Umbrella Academy, there’s a lot more to this moment than meets the eye. Why is Viktor so ready to forgive his sister for murdering a man who’s only crime was getting saved by the Umbrella Academy as a child? But why is everyone so willing to roll with the unforgivable things that she did in her grief? It’s just strange that Viktor and Luther are so willing to let bygones be bygones after two pretty unforgivable actions from their sister (and in one case, ex). Because of his connection to Viktor and the Umbrella Academy, it targeted all of their mothers before the Umbrellas could be born. Harlan (the young boy that Viktor saved in Season 2, accidentally giving him a piece of his powers, played by Callum Keith Rennie) returns this season much older and much more broken than we remember him. Most of the Sparrow Academy met pretty untimely ends (their Number One played by Justin Cornwell was done dirty, if you ask me) in Season 3. Season 3 put Allison and Viktor through the ringer. The Sparrow’s version of Ben, however, remains alive and well with the rest of his dysfunctional family. Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) snaps out of her loss-induced rage long enough to save her siblings, and Viktor (Elliot Page) decides not to wipe his sister out in favor of trusting her and hopefully repairing their incredibly damaged relationship. Giving the Hargreeves children the opportunity to explore and reflect on their own emotions and intentions rather than sniping at each other constantly gives the audience the opportunity to empathize more than they may have in the past.

Acot Elliot Page appeared on 'Late Night With Seth Meyers' to promote season 3 of 'The Umbrella Academy' and discuss how his character's transition aligns ...

So that’s really what I’m focusing on and embracing the most.” Page describes transphobia as “unfortunate” because “whether you’re trans, gender nonconforming, cis, we all have these expectations and limits and constraints because of people’s obsession with the binary and how we’re all supposed to live our lives. The June 21 episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers welcomed Elliot Page to promote season three of The Umbrella Academy, out today on Netflix. The actor spoke about his character’s transition this season, which corresponds with his own. So to me it’d be so special for us to all be able to connect and talk about how similar we are in all of our journeys.”

You may known Javon "Wanna" Walton as Ashtray from 'Euphoria,' but Walton has a surprising new role on season 3 of 'Umbrella Academy.'

Stan's around for the rest of the season, as Diego and some of the other Umbrellas look after him while trying to solve another apocalypse. He does get to help out Diego when the two run into some trouble. He also said that he's logged over 80 fights and hopes to go pro when he turns eighteen. He added that he got the role after only one audition, saying "I was the only kid pronouncing the drug names right." Javon "Wanna" Walton joined The Umbrella Academy in a secret role earlier this year, soon after his fan-favorite character Ashtray met a tragic fate in Euphoria's season 2 finale. Based on the comic book series by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the show follows a dysfunctional family of heroes as they stop the end of the world (after usually bringing it about themselves) in a new setting every season.

The Umbrellas and Sparrows ping-pong off each other in the best episode of the season. A recap of 'Auf Weidersehen,' episode seven of season three of ...

And I still suspect we’ll learn that Viktor is more powerful now that he has reabsorbed the energy he passed to Harlan back in 1963. • While in Ben’s room, Viktor spots a drawing labeled Jennifer — yet another reference to the mysterious Jennifer Incident that led to Ben’s death in the original timeline. This very painful break between Viktor and Allison — probably the Hargreeves siblings with the healthiest relationship, despite everything that has happened — is the kind of thing you can only earn after several seasons of character development, when it’s clear to the audience just how high the stakes are. But while it’s nice to have Umbrella Academy filling in these gaps in the plot, the scene that will stick with me is silent: a long take of Lila playing the drums, unleashing all her accumulated emotion after the events of season two. The episode begins with a Lila flashback, revealing that when the Commission offered to send her to any time and place, she chose West Berlin in 1989. Early on, the Umbrellas and Sparrows team up to take on the kugelblitz, winning what turns out to be a pyrrhic victory.

It's a pleasantly low-key moment on the superhero drama — but it comes at a time of anti-trans rhetoric and backlash.

Viktor is trans, and is imbued with powers even beyond the strength it took to come out; Page is trans, and is a soulful and warm actor in part because of all of his life experiences. The character walks in, with only momentary haltingness and a studiedly casual “hey” to the barber, and sits in the chair to chop off a long mane. But at a time when an ongoing backlash against the rights of trans people simply to exist is rolling across this country, a show depicting the coming-out process as a declaration of self that is possible and that can be met with kindness feels like a worthy thing to put out into the world, if given the opportunity. How could “The Umbrella Academy” best leverage Page’s talent and honor the work he’d already put in on the show, while accounting for the fact that his character, known to this point as Vanya, had for two seasons presented as a woman? It’s seamless — so much so as to remind one both that “The Umbrella Academy” is a fantasy, and that Viktor’s identity within the show is perhaps less significant to those writing it than his role in the battle for the fate of the world. And his public disclosure that he is a trans man in late 2020 presented the series with a conundrum as it looked ahead to a third season.

Rick and Morty creators Dan Harmon & Justin Roiland have long stated their aversion to time travel, despite their series' often cynical copulation with ...

To depict time travel without showing a contradiction (and, therefore, an impossibility), most fictional accounts show that (1) is false; they prevent the time traveler from changing events. (1) is true because if he was facing his grandfather with a gun, he could (in that he has the physical ability to pull the trigger) kill him. It appears as if the time traveler can kill Grandfather, but perhaps the time traveler fails. How they’re able to do this without making time travel itself impossible ... well, that’s the paradox. If one of these events occurs, then the time traveler is prevented from doing the impossible: killing his Grandfather. If he’s prevented from doing the impossible, then there is no contradiction. Therefore: backwards time travel is impossible. Again, this book assumes that the time traveler can in fact kill his grandfather. The video shows a boy, Elmer, who invents a time machine in order to go back in time and kill his grandfather, ridding the family of his current wrath. And like both Russian Dolls and Loki, the series wants to change the timeline; it wants to go back in time to remake the future. Therefore: time travel must not allow this situation to be possible. (An actual paradox has no solution; that's why it is a paradox.) (See: Russian Doll and Loki). The Umbrella Academy, which spent Season 2 in the 1960s, returns with an even more ambitious use of time travel in Season 3.

The Hargreeves siblings faced the end of the world once again, but did they save it or just make things worse?

This time, to save the world, all it takes is for one of the siblings to hit a literal reset button. What a jam-packed season, with plenty of cliffhangers to propel us into the next. In a Tony Stark-like tower, marked by huge "H E" letters (or "H" and three horizontal lines floating parallel over one another), old Reg overlooks the city with the same ethereal woman revealed to be living on the moon at the same time Luther was. Luther desperately runs off to find his love Sloane, who could still potentially exist out in the reset world somewhere, just not as part of the Sparrow Academy. The rest of the siblings go their separate ways. Another Ben! This one looks super suave, wearing a trim suit and reading a book as he travels to Yeouido Station in Seoul. So in this reset universe, not one, but two Bens exist. She takes another step out of character by striking a deal with Reginald to do whatever it takes to bring Claire (and potentially Raymond) back. In the penultimate episode of season 3, we see that this alien possesses a sharp-as-a-blade arm, which he uses to stab Luther to death. This is part of a tactic he's used before to bring the siblings together. Only later does Lila reveal that Stanley isn't in fact his son, but her mate Trudy's (unfortunately, Stan ends up Kugelblitzed). She "borrowed" him to test Diego on whether he'd be up for the job of looking after his real son. This resulted in a Grandfather Paradox -- in this altered timeline, the siblings were never born. This black hole is the universe's response to a Grandfather Paradox created by Harlan, Sissy's superpowered son. Superhero life is always busy when it comes to the Hargreeves siblings.

Season 3 of Netflix's The Umbrella Academy ends on a massive cliffhanger. Here's what happened—and what it means for the Hargreeves kids.

“I left you to guard the most precious thing in the universe.” But Reg never tells him what—or, rather, who—that was. As a boy, I heard the legend of the seven bells.” If the bells are rung, “all will be restored just as it was.” Basically, “whoever or whatever” made the universe left a safeguard in place—a literal reset button—should the universe become a threat to itself. But if you’d rather not spend the next several hours tapping the rewind button, here’s a quick rundown of what seems to have just happened. Allison presses her palm to the button, and the universe powers down like a 1970s-era television set. Allison is the only one left sitting on the bench, and she’s forced to watch as this power—whatever it is—seems to eat her siblings alive, sucking up their insides and turning their skin dull and grey. We don’t know much about these guardians except that the “creator of the universe” put them in place to protect the reset button from those with nefarious intentions. Their tormenter is dead, but the kids are still in agony, and a Big Red Button has popped up on Reg’s screen. Instead, he calls the remaining family together to hunt for a “sigil,” one that will unlock the mythical “seven bells” that can reset the universe. Reg himself built the Hotel Obsidian around a portal that transports visitors to “the other side,” where it would seem the aforementioned seven bells reside. After finally believing he’d developed a trusting relationship with his abusive father, Klaus is devastated by Reg’s betrayal and impales himself on the horn of a taxidermic white buffalo in the Hotel Obsidian, ostensibly so as to preserve his physical form and return to life, pronto. After all, why return to the family that’s repeatedly rebuffed him, or the father who called him “more trouble than you’re worth”? But Luther appeals to Klaus’s intense need for validation—“I believe in you, brother”—and Klaus agrees to try reincarnating them, despite Luther’s motivational skills lacking Braveheart-level finesse. Episode 10 opens shortly after Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) plunges his tentacle-sword-arm into Luther’s (Tom Hopper) chest, then whips around and abandons Klaus (Robert Sheehan) to the devouring Kügelblitz, a black hole-like entity created by the impossibility of the Umbrella Academy’s existence in a reality where their mothers were killed before they were born.

Allison continues down her darkened path. A recap of 'Marigold,' episode six of season three of Netflix's 'The Umbrella Academy.'

She kills Harlan, tosses him into the trunk of her car, and delivers his corpse straight to the Sparrow Academy. I guess that’s the danger of trying out another version of yourself: Sometimes, it’s going to be a worse one. The two make it back to the Obsidian just in time to watch the kugelblitz absorb the real Stan. And while Diego might not technically be his father, it’s a safe bet he and Lila will do whatever they need to do to rescue their surrogate son. Now, after a lifetime of isolation, maybe he can enjoy the rest of his life as a regular human — a final gift from Viktor, honoring his love for Sissy by taking care of her son even after all these years. And while it’s clearly yet another one of Ben’s manipulations, he also offers Luther an irresistible chance to redefine himself as a Sparrow, stepping into the slot that Marcus vacated when he got sucked into the kugelblitz. Much of the fun of an alternate-universe story is seeing what might happen to a familiar character if they’d made a radically different series of choices. Pogo’s biker makeover is the most literal version of a theme that most of these characters are confronting: If you’re not yourself, who else could you be?

If you had just one day left to live, how would you spend it? A recap of 'Wedding at the End of the World,' episode eight of season three of Netflix's 'The ...

So I was very much on Viktor’s side when he decides to be the bigger person and apologize for his role in everything that went wrong. Even Reginald Hargreeves shows up, albeit uninvited, and delivers a lovely toast to all his children: The ones he raised in this timeline and the ones he has accepted he raised in another one. Allison had every reason to be angry that Viktor lied to her — but in the end, she made an active and calculated choice to murder Harlan. The episode is structured around an event that promises a kind of defiant joy: the wedding of Luther and Sloane, who want to be formally bound together as they stare down the apocalypse. Or in other words: This is a hangout episode, designed mostly to give us a heavy dose of these characters before the plot inevitably overwhelms them in the one-two punch of the last two episodes. No one knows how to stop it (or, in Five’s case, if it should be stopped). Assuming we’re at the end of the line: How best to spend the time they have left?

An unusually conclusive Umbrella Academy season 3 finale delves into Reginald Hargreeves' motivations but does it get things back to "normal?"

In addition to that, this might be the show’s way of slowly turning the Sparrow Academy Ben into our Ben. This Ben smiles, meaning that either the Sparrow Academy Ben is learning to chill out or that this really is the Ben of old. And if that is true, that might mean that Five’s prophecy has finally come to pass and there might be extra versions of all the Umbrellas out there in the world. The real interesting angle to consider here is how much of the events of The Umbrella Academy did Reginald Hargreeves foresee? By killing himself prior to the beginning of the series, did Reginald know it would set forward a series of events that would find his children: blowing up the Earth, going to 1963 Dallas, returning to a Sparrow-ified universe, and finally accessing Oblivion? Or did the old alien just kill himself because he could no longer take the pain? Ultimately Klaus, Ben (Justin H. Min), Sloane, Viktor (Elliot Page), Lila (Ritu Arya), Diego (David Castañeda), and Five fulfill the role of the Seven Bells. Reginald tells Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) to hold back because he knows the experience will kill her and he promised that she could be reunited with her daughter. By standing on certain locations in Oblivion previously revealed by a map, the children’s powers will be accessed and consolidated to open up a sort of computer terminal that can “reset” reality. Part of the reason why Reggie believes in the concept of Oblivion is because of an ancient prophecy referring to “The Seven Bells.” In fact, there are all sorts of prophecies from around the world that refer to a need of seven something. Earlier this season, Klaus recently discovered that not only does he have the power to communicate with the dead but to return from the dead as well. Now the TV series seems to imply that he only ever needed seven in the first place. At the tail end of season 3’s penultimate episode, “Seven Bells,” Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) fatally stabs his “Number One” son Luther (Tom Hopper) in the chest with one of his sharp alien fingers. Reginald Hargreeves seemingly achieves one of his biggest goals and his “children” get the opportunity to start their lives over, albeit without the crutch of their powers. Season 2 then brought the Hargreeves children back to the “present” only to discovery that something had gone horribly wrong as “The Sparrow Academy” were unwelcome intruders in their own home.

Umbrella Academy, the Netflix series where imagination has no limits, is reminding viewers that identity is not a prison.

And I love that I am queer. “I love that I am trans. It's not just that there are LGBTQ+ characters like Klaus and Viktor – played by Elliott Page – but that the Umbrella Academy itself is a band of misfits who, for better or worse, have to seek family in one another as they grapple with issues ranging from their father's death to saving the world from impending apocalypse.

We've been hurtling toward the Hotel Oblivion all season — was it worth it? A recap of 'Oblivion,' episode ten of season three of Netflix's 'The Umbrella ...

• Reginald’s holdings in the new future include real estate, a financial institution, and a really big tower. And I definitely don’t buy that she’d be anything but furious with Diego for patronizingly locking her up instead of letting her join the fight (even if she slaps him before she kisses him once she gets out). The idea of hallways and rooms that reconfigure themselves is unnerving, but Umbrella Academy doesn’t really take the idea of an infinite maze to its full potential, and it doesn’t turn out to be much of an obstacle. If you scan it and get a different result, let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. But the button is still there and active, and Viktor opts to stand down, trusting Allison that pushing it is the right move. The season two finale was a little confounding too, and the third season it teed up was probably the show’s strongest overall.

The Umbrella Academy season 3 ending opens up a new world and a lot of questions for Viktor Hargreeves and his siblings. Here's the questions we have for ...

But in the grand scheme of things, with the timeline once again reset? But in the park where they ended up in the new reality, Five’s arm is returned. “I originally just wrote the character to be dead, that was his function. The show may still answer it, especially since it’s never been particularly loyal to its source material and there’s already been a few clues strewn about the show, like Viktor noticing a Jennifer sketch in Ben’s room. It stands to reason (at least as much as anything else Umbrella Academy) that in this new world where Reginald commands much more capital, maybe he was able to save Alice in some way? whatever that machine was he had at the end of the season. He was, at least at one time, well-connected enough to run in the same circles as the shadowy group that ordered the hit on JFK. In the season 3 timeline, Pogo feared what he was capable of so much that he instructed the kids to dose him with some sort of pill every day. He was intensely interested in adopting the kids magically(?) born to 43 women on the 12th hour of October 1, 1989. As of the end of season 3, we also know it was vital to him to have seven children for… So what does all that mean in the grand scheme of the Umbrella Academy? That’s a complicated question, really. Even so, she at least has come out on the other side with not only Claire by her side but Ray, a choice that actress Emmy Raver-Lampman tells Polygon will probably haunt her: “I think there’s bound to be an immense amount of guilt that’s going to affect her at some point. In this new world Reginald is seemingly even more a captain of industry.