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After the disaster that was The Umbrella Academy Season 3 I thought the showrunners would quit while they were only slightly behind. But then came The Umbrella Academy Season 4 which removed any doubts about how bad the series had gotten.
Here I will talk about why Seasons 1 and 2 are good watches and how the quality quickly deteriorates when Season 3 takes off and then nosedives in Season 4.
Plot
The story begins with a group of seven extraordinary children, born under mysterious circumstances across the globe, and brought together by an eccentric millionaire. This unconventional adoptive father takes them under his wing, providing them with a unique upbringing.
The series' captivating voiceover, soulful soundtrack, and enigmatic plotline make the early episodes a compelling watch. When the millionaire dies under mysterious circumstances, the members of The Umbrella Academy reunite for his funeral.
However, their gathering takes a dramatic turn when one of the siblings emerges from a portal, claiming that the world will end in just six days. This shocking revelation forces the estranged siblings to come together and embark on a desperate mission to save humanity from impending doom.
This is not a feel-good series by any stretch of the imagination, it deals with dark subject matter interspersed with comedic bits. So watch accordingly.
The Cast of The Umbrella Academy
The cast delivers good performances and has great chemistry with each other but that still doesn't help this series after season 2. I remember a famous actor saying that while good acting can take a script from a B to a B+ there's no way it can lift a script to A+ levels.
This is the problem with The Umbrella Academy - the plot after the second season seems to build on unnecessary chaos without a clear payoff.
One of the stand-out performances is from Aidan Gallagher who plays Number Five on the show with teleportation powers. His nuanced acting really makes the whole series worth watching.
Ellen Page played Vanya Hargreeves for the first two seasons and then her real-life transition into Elliot Page was mirrored in her character as Viktor Hargreeves. As usual Page's acting is beyond reproach and the showrunners have handled the issue of her transition with appropriate sensitivity.
Tom Hopper plays No. 1 or Luther Hargreeves, the leader of the band of superheroes that is The Umbrella Academy. Luther's superpower is basically superhero strength and endurance.
Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves is probably one of my favorite actors in this series because he is so eccentric in a way that is hilarious. He is a truly versatile actor and can don many hats as required by the role.
Ritu Arya plays Lila Pitts, another individual similar to the kids of the Umbrella Academy. While her character seems to have a few screws loose, she hides a lot about who she really is, and her purpose.
The thing with so many good performances side by side is that even the slightest shortcoming in anybody's acting is seen quite clearly.
One such performance is David Castañeda's Diego Hargreeves, the telekinetic superhero of the bunch who uses it to throw knives with unnatural precision. I felt that he seemed to do a mediocre job of acting throughout the various seasons of this series. His role involves playing someone who puts on a facade of bravado to compensate for the deeply troubled persona on the inside. However, there is a case to be made about such a personality existing within every one of the kids.
At the risk of reapting myself, Castañeda is not a bad actor, but his performance seems dull in comparison to his castmates. This would actually be a good compliment to the casting director.
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Colm Feore plays Sir Reginald Hargreeves the patriarch of the family who is cold, calculating, and almost alien in his ways. He raises his adopted children as if they were test subjects who were bred to be superheroes.
Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves is one of the more mysterious characters in the series seeing that he's dead except for a few flashbacks in the first episode, and can only commune with the living through Klaus.
Cameron Britton portrays the role of an assassin named Hazel who is tired of his horrific vocation and seeks peace and quiet. Very early on in the series, you find out that Hazel can go toe to toe with possibly the strongest of The Umbrella Academy - Luther Hargreeves, or No. 1.
Mary J. Blige's performance was surprisingly good considering she is already a multi-Grammy-winning hip-hop artist. She plays Cha-Cha a hardened assassin working alongside Hazel for a shady organization with mysterious resources that seem to transcend time and space.
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John Magaro plays a psychopath Leonard Peabody who is bent on destroying The Umbrella Academy due to some deep-seated neurosis. He plays this role with great ease which is kind of disconcerting, to say the least. But that's what actors are paid to do - play roles regardless of how close or distant they are from their personality. His vibe is similar in intensity to the one he exudes in the brilliant movie Past Lives about karmic connections.
Sheila McCarthy plays Agnes, a sweet old lady who is content with running a donut shop in the middle of nowhere, trying to bring a smile on people's faces.
Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison Hargreeves is basically movie star material and fittingly plays the role of a movie star to perfection. Her powers are to make people do what she wants regardless of their intentions.
Adam Godley is someone whom I remember in Breaking Bad playing the head honcho of the fictional enterprise "Grey Matter." In this series, he plays the role of Pogo the chimpanzee who can talk and has higher-than-average intelligence.
One of the defining moments of the series is when the group of estranged siblings pull together to dance to a song in different parts of their palatial home. This is an endearing moment, which these days are referred to as glimmer moments - a moment of beauty that stands out from the mundane everyday.
The scene is one of the few that is pure joy in the series without any malevolence or violence where all the kids of the Umbrella Academy come together and dance to the song "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany. It symbolizes the initial stages of the siblings reuniting while still literally and metaphorically retaining a respectful distance.
The Background Music, Soundtrack, and Cinematography
One of the cool things about this series is how they sync music with action sequences and overlay it to match the emotions very closely. One of the few people who have mastered this artform in modern cinema is Edgar Wright starting with his Cornetto Trilogy and then Baby Driver where the entire movie is in sync with its soundtrack.
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Three such great sequences include the one mentioned earlier ( I Think We're Alone Now ) and another one which is a fight scene in a bowling alley which is in equal parts hilarious and entertaining. The very first episode has the kids taking on bank robbers while The Umbrella Academy music plays in the background.
The Soundtrack in this series is also really fun and can be something you put on while driving to a vacation destination or a long idyllic road. It sets the tone for the series and adds a lot to the storytelling process.
Coming to the Cinematography, it is done well with great set pieces, shooting locations, and amazing lighting. In the first two seasons at least they use Cinematography to their advantage, painting a compelling picture with stunning visuals. The CGI and practical effects are not overdone which is easy to do in a post-Endgame world.
Mental Health Issues
The Hargreeves children represent almost the entire gamut of mental health issues from depression, anger, and psychosis to substance dependence, narcissism, and PTSD. That's just the ones that jump out at you, there are tons more that are either completely different or are variations of the ones just mentioned. I can only comment on the simpler ones such as the substance abuse that Klaus undergoes regularly to keep himself sane. There's PTSD that Klaus also suffers from due to his misadventures, his superpowers, and his general upbringing.
There's Diego's speech disorder was probably due to the cold upbringing of their unfeeling father and his need to constantly prove himself.
It's basically all bad, and all the kids from the academy have a bit of all the disorders with a lot of at least one of these issues. Explaining any further would be a deep-cut spoiler which is why I won't explore in this review at least. Real-life psychologists will probably have a field day sorting out the ones that were shown right and the ones that were off.
What's noteworthy is the way the showrunners have weaved these issues into the characters, adding extra dimensions without making it all about them addressing these issues and healing. It's a significant part of the plot, but not the whole storyline by itself.
The credit for portraying such complex characters goes to the actors who do a great job of bringing these impossible superheroes to life while retaining subtlety.
Season Summaries
As mentioned right at the start, seasons 1 and 2 are the good ones, and from Season 3 it goes downhill really fast.
Season 1
The series kicks off with death of Reginald Hargreeves under mysterious circumstances, a millionaire who adopted seven gifted children and trained them to be superheroes. These children, who form the Umbrella Academy, are now estranged adults. Upon hearing of their father's death, they reunite and discover a conspiracy involving time travel and the apocalypse.
The siblings end up confronting their past traumas, navigate their complex relationships, and try to solve the mystery of their father's death. As they dive deeper into the investigation, they realize that their actions could end the world.
Season 2
The Umbrella Academy find themselves accidentally in 1963, Dallas, Texas, after their time-traveling attempt misfires. They must navigate the challenges of living in the past while trying to figure out how to get back to their own time. Meanwhile, a new threat emerges in the form of the Commission, a powerful organization that can travel through time with ease.
Season 3
The Umbrella Academy returns to the present day, but they find that their actions in the past have created a new timeline. They must now face the results of their choices and prevent a global catastrophe from happening. The siblings must also deal with the return of a long-lost sibling who pose a serious threat to their existence.
Why is The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Unwatchable?
Simply put, The Umbrella Academy got too carried away with its sci-fi thingamabobs and watchamacallits for its own good. They turned sci-fi concepts itself into the entire plot along with needless complexity that they just planned to pawn off to later episodes without any payoffs.
It started with Season 3 where the scifi bits got longer and more cumbersome. They tried to do the multiverse thing quite unsuccessfully while still stringing along the audience for a payoff. After doing it long enough they wrote themselves into a corner stuffing Season 4 into nothing but a ball of Easter Eggs, CGI, and crazy character traits and who knows what else.
Season 1
The first season has a lot of intrigue, the characters are introduced with great subtlety and the audience gets to make their mind up about whom they like. The complex sci-fi concepts work in favor of the season's plot by adding to the storyline and not taking away from the finer aspects such as the broader story, action sequences that keep the audience engaged. As the personalities of the Hargreeves children unravel, so does the plot, in lockstep, which is kinda cool.
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This season leaves us with one hell of a cliffhanger while also giving us a great team up. The show creators tie up important loose ends before creating more plot points to be resolved in the coming season.
Season 2
Next comes season 2 where the Hargreeves children are scattered in time, trying to find themselves and each other over the course of historic events that occur simultaneously. There is plenty of character development with every child of the Hargreeves family discovering more of themselves in the past.
There's a bit of Edgar Wright movie magic in this season as well which strangely enough begins with one of my all-time favorite Backstreet Boys song :)
Season 3
The beginning of the end. Why oh why would you create another timeline that you simply can't tend to? There is another Academy similar to The Umbrella Academy with very little to no payoff about their origins and character development within the same season.
However there is a fiber of hope with the concept of a place beyond time and space that could have been developed into something truly entertaining and enough to close all open plot holes.
Then there's season 4 which completely messes all this up! I made it through all but one episode before I could stop watching it for good.
Should You Watch It? Season 1 and 2 Yes!
Watch Season 1 and Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy as it is great content, watch season 3 at your own peril and completely skip The Umbrella Academy season 4.