The Umbrella Academy’s Third Season Is Imperfect, But the Best So Far

We are positively beset with stories of heroic, superpowered entities… self-sacrificers of vast power and great nobility who risk their lives against super-powered villains. In a way they’re a modern equivalent of the folkloric heroes of old—Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Beowulf, Sigurd, Sun Wukong, all complex beings of great powers and capable of tremendous feats. At this point the stories still land yet are a dime a dozen. The Umbrella Academy takes on that tradition to answer the question “what if superheroes, but a messy adopted family?” As a whole, the series has often been a parade of hits and misses with loads of potential. Season 3 carries this tradition forward, finding its footing towards the end despite a mixed bag of a start to become the best season yet.

Based off the comic series written by Gerard Way (and drawn by Gabriel Bá), the series’ premise is simple: October 1st, 1989, 43 women around the globe give birth at noon. None of them had been pregnant beforehand, and each gives birth to an infant who grows to show a different set of powers. Seven of them are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), who assigns them numbers and trains them as the superhero team “The Umbrella Academy.” Don’t worry, their robot mother Grace gives them actual names—Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Ben (Justin H. Min), and Viktor (Elliot Page), while Five (Aidan Gallagher) stays simply, well, Five.

Season One of the Netflix adaptation saw the long-separated family reunite to investigate their father’s death amid a growing apocalyptic threat. Season Two sees the family sent back in time throughout the 60’s, forced to reunite across time to thwart yet another apocalyptic threat. The Third Season will have the Academy emerge back into a changed present, where their actions in the past had caused Reginald to choose to adopt a different set of 7 superpowered infants to form the Sparrow Academy. They discover themselves facing this competing team while stuck in a timeline they don’t belong to, faced with a growing danger that could destroy, well, the Earth. Again.

The first episodes focus considerably on the Umbrellas contending with their new super-powered antagonists, the Sparrows, amidst their own unique crises. The initial episodes are the weakest, with a number of repetitive plot beats and setting up the world for the rest of the season—Grace is weird! Allison’s not dealing with the loss of her life in the past well. Reginald Hargreeves seems different from his past. It’s a bit of a slog, but the first third or so do have some strong elements: Five’s interactions with Klaus, Five’s interactions with frenemy Lila (Ritu Arya), really everything having to do with Five, Klaus, and Lila.

One the series gets going, Season 3 is one of the series’ strongest from an emotional standpoint. Each member of the Umbrella Academy, raised as a de facto family, has their baggage and flaws, and many of the characters have wonderful arc development this season. Klaus discovers new facets of his own powers while working through some of his familial baggage, anchored by a characteristically excellent performance from Sheehan (who is finally given an arc fully befitting his talents). Diego and Lila both come to have strong growth backed by equally strong performances, while Aiden Gallagher’s Five remains one of the best parts of the series (that’s not new).

The long lonely Luthor finally finds connection with Sparrow Sloane (a star-making turn from charmer Genesis Rodriguez), and the series as a whole builds towards a stunning final pair of episodes. Many characters have been resistant to or inhibited from working on their vices and trauma, and this season finally allows them to start working their way out of long-held ruts. Star Elliot Page gives a characteristically fine performance as well, and the announcement of Viktor’s gender transition (mirroring the real-life announcement of Elliot Page’s own) is handled in a wonderfully supportive, nonchalant way. While Viktor does have real emotional baggage this season (stemming from his time in the past), Page is written into a morose, somewhat mopey corner in Season 3 and given, frankly, too little to do.

Allison’s turn into an aggressive, antagonistic version of herself (a byproduct of the new timeline erasing her love and their daughter together) is handled both repetitively and poorly. This season sees her engage in some truly villainous interpersonal behavior, and in each case the ills are somewhat shrugged off instead of properly dealt with. On a larger point, between this and Wanda’s villainous arc in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness there’s a stunningly specific trend of a superpowered mother losing her child in otherworldly ways then instantly losing themselves and turning against their friends and allies—it’s already a tired plotline that suggests a mother without her child becomes a chaotic sociopath, and after two uses of the trope in short succession we should already discuss retiring it.

Altogether, Season 3 may be the best season yet of The Umbrella Academy. It boasts smart dialogue, long-needed character development, some excellent performances, and the introduction of the Sparrows adds organic novelty to a series that always ends in an apocalypse. It still does, of course, but here it has greater depth. It remains uneven, with issues in character development and a first third that’s a slog compared to what follows, but altogether the series is heading in exactly the right direction to finally meet its considerable potential. Easily the series’ best season yet.

The Umbrella Academy premieres June 22nd, 2022 on Netflix.