The Umbrella Academy Season 1 Review

The Umbrella Academy (2019-)
Season 1 - 10 episodes (2019 February 15)

Watch The Umbrella Academy on Netflix

Created by: Jeremy Slater
Starring: Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Mary J. Blige, Cameron Britton, Adam Godley, Colm Feore
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer & more information

Plot
A disbanded and dysfunctional family of superheroes reunite after their adoptive father, who trained them to save the world, dies.

Verdict
This show has a great vibe. It's the end of the world, but the siblings are busy arguing with each other. That's the tone of this show, comedy against a dire backdrop. The story is engrossing with mysteries and reveals in equal measure. Be forewarned, this does end on a big cliff hanger. Most of the characters are well developed. The stylized production is really well done and the soundtrack is simply amazing. I rarely binge a show, but I couldn't stop watching this.
Watch it.

Review
This has a great introduction. Forty three women became immediately pregnant and gave birth. Sir Reginald Hargreeves managed to adopt seven of these children who had special powers.
At first we don't know what their powers are, but learn them as the show progresses. I wondered what happened to the other thirty-six babies, but this season doesn't answer that.

Hargreeves trained the kids to be super heroes in his Umbrella Academy, robbing them of a childhood. He referred to them by number, not name. This show takes a lot of common super hero tropes and looks at them from a worst case scenario. None of the children continued being super heroes into adulthood and their upbringing alienated them from their father and each other. Upon Hargreeve's death, the children return to pay their respects.

The Academy was composed of Sir Reginald Hargreeves who adopted, Luther aka Spaceboy, Diego, Allison aka The Rumor, Klaus, Number Five, Ben, and Vanya.

There's also a robot mother, Pogo a primate associate of Hargreeves, and two assassins in the mix.

Number five had been missing for years. He can teleport, but became lost when he decided to transport himself not only in space, but in time. He's back, albeit in a child's body due to a miscalculation to stop the apocalypse. His arc unfolds each episode, at first seeming contradictory. I had a lot of questions about Five and what happened, wondering if his claims were true at all, but everything will be revealed. Five is one of the better characters with the actor absolutely owning the part.

 

Klaus is the comic relief, while also an addict. He's really funny and over the top, but his story is also tragic. We eventually realize he's an addict to dull his ability of seeing dead people. His brother Ben, who died in an unknown accident, acts as Klaus's conscience.

We realize soon that Hargreeves was a taskmaster. There are quite a few questions about Hargreeves the show hasn't answered. He has to be a Professor X send-up, but the depths of how training super heroes rather than raising stunted the group gets worse each episode. These characters all have a tragic streak and that's because they were trained to be super.

He may have treated Vanya worst of all. Vanya was one of the mysterious children, but doesn't seem to have powers. She was always treated as lesser than by everyone. We quickly get a few clues, that there is more to that story than we realize.

There are a lot of moving parts to the story that seem separate but they all come together eventually. This is certainly entertaining, There are a lot of questions, and these questions compel you to watch another episodes while allowing you to develop your own theories. The show never makes you wait too long for answers, at least for the broad story arcs.

Hargreeves death and the impending apocalypse all link together. By a certain point you'll know the root cause of the apocalypse, but that doesn't hamper the show. I knew the what, but I wanted to know the how. We find out the how, but this ends on a big cliffhanger. I hope this show gets another season, but with how good it is I would be shocked if it didn't.