@scarletdadspidr
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Season 2 of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy does not miss the mark. I managed to binge eight episodes in one day, knowing very well I could finish the entire 10-episode run in one sitting. Instead, I watched the final two episodes the next. Picking up from Season 1, we find the Academy escaping one doomsday and landing on another. It is an understatement to say Season 2 feels like Season 1 with elements moved around, but that would be a fallacy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me0eoCwLj-A
The Netflix hit’s latest venture is more like learning calculus after studying basic arithmetic. That’s not even divulging the level of time travel and sci-fi incorporated into the newest season; the latest is an easy digestion even with the complexities of the story. Each episode pays a level of respect to an individual character, much like Season 1– with the main difference here being the gang travels back in time to avoid the apocalypse.
Episode 1 takes us right back where we started, with the audience seeing the heroes in their full potential and thriving in their individual powers. But that is really the only — and any — glimpse of hope of the team behaving so coherently. It’s an opening sequence worth the price of admission. After saving his family, Five (Aidan Gallagher) is given the quest to find and reunite his family amongst a scattered timeline. As if things could not be more complicated than that, Hazel (Cameron Britton) is the one that is trying to help Five and the Hargreeves from the nuclear destruction of the world.
Episode 1 is a convincing and engulfing moment to the series. The introduction of this new season and what to expect is laid out on the forefront in the neatest of packages. It also pulls from the graphic novel and turns it into its current iteration.
The rest of the series does not slow down. With time travel and multi-verses a tricky thing already to begin with, The Umbrella Academy goes in-depth with what the end of the world is experienced by each individual: Vanya (Ellen Page), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Ben (Justin H. Min), and Five. To say that loose ends are tied is an understatement. While this season builds on the prior logic, this show goes onto do something with the property so magical: it becomes itself. The series stays true to the source while being itself entirely its own. And that’s kind of the point about time travel, don’t you think?
https://youtu.be/jcdqpPzlTkM
Episode 1 was a great introduction to the chaos that should already be assumed. But as a series, this season hits the same marks: inward perception about relationships, identity, and justice — mixing the zeitgeist of human emotion. Race, love, mental health, perception are part of the themes involved in the storytelling. It really dives into America’s history and involvement through the scope of this particular world.
By the end of S02, the show also goes into the idea of what exactly family can mean. On a personal note: if you do not cry during episode “743”, we can’t be friends. The finale following that episode only leaves the audience knowing that there is more to come. So buckle up, this shit isn’t finished. On that note, the soundtrack is curated just as perfectly as before. So if fans of the comic have been on the fence about The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, then it’s time to jump on. This season is only further proof that we are in the golden age of comic adaptions. GO TEAM ZERO! 4.5/5 Bibles.
-Frank Simonian