The Umbrella Academy Season 3: Twice the siblings, twice the chaos?

With only its two previous seasons The Umbrella Academy has developed quite a reputation of having a chaotic story line and uncontrollable characters, and the third season proved to be no different in that aspect.

The third season picks up right where the second ended, running off the adrenaline of a victorious fight where the Umbrellas yet again stop another apocalypse in hopes that they have finally restored the timeline. However, when they time travel back to the present from 1963, they are in for a shock when they enter the Academy and realize that it has been over run by a group that go by the name of The Sparrows, a different set of siblings that were chosen and adopted by Reginald, a group definitely more powerful but also hostile. A move very cold hearted and calculated but also very expected of the man that both the Umbrellas and now Sparrows have come to refer to as ‘Dad’.

The first episode opens up with a dance off turned fight scene that thrusts you back into the world of the Umbrella Academy that all its fans had missed for the two long years spent awaiting this new season. This is also when we get to meet the new group of siblings with their own set of interesting skills. Personally, the most exciting new sibling being the crow-summoning Fei, possessing an ability you could only understand if you watch her in action, while she also oozes badass, matrix vibes. Probably the most questionable new sibling would the floating cube named Christopher, who doesn’t seem to have an explanation behind being a cube but is apparently hilarious, if only we could decipher everything he was saying. The new sibling that probably had the most character development would be the gravity defying Sloane who also quickly becomes Luther’s favorite acquaintance. We surprisingly also come face-to-face with Ben, an Umbrella sibling who had died before the beginning of the first season, or atleast an alternate version of Ben, not the friendly faced “ghost” that we have met previously, but a version of him who is a lot meaner and competitive , and who quickly gets annoyed with being told how much he was missed by the Umbrellas but it was impressive to see Justin H. Min bring to life an alternate version of his character so beautifully.

This season brought out more personality from the Umbrellas, particularly Diego, who is just as charismatic as always, and Lila Pitts, whose connection grows stronger lead by a series of events we didn’t see coming. This is also finally the season where we witness Luther really step out and fill in his character and have some memorable scenes throughout the season. Allison and Vanya definitely go through the most emotional turmoil after making discoveries post their latest time travel, the largest character change however would have to be the transition of Vanya to Viktor Hargreeves, a transition that was handled pretty well by the writers.

Overall, in my opinion, introducing a whole new set of siblings was ambitious and gave way for a lot more chaos, but also meant a requirement of more character development, an area they may have had a little trouble finding their footing.

Even though fighting off a group of “heroes” that have taken their place in the Academy is not dooms day equivalent, a season of The Umbrella Academy could never be complete without yet another apocalypse, which has become quite a running theme for this quirky comic book adaptation. This time the threat comes from, what comes to be known as the potentially universe ending swirling ball of energy, the Kugelblitz, linked to the Grandfather Paradox, that emerges because of the coming together of two non-co-existent timelines, brought forth by the landing of the Umbrellas in current time, forcing the otherwise scattered group to work together to save the universe from impending doom. A theory that may sound confusing but is meticulously explained throughout the 10 almost hour long episodes, however in true Umbrella Academy fashion don’t expect all your questions to be answered, making this season in particular seem like a transitional season, with quite a few fillers, undoubtedly preparing for an upcoming fourth season (an idea that has been proposed, but yet to be confirmed by Netflix), where we could potentially get more of an insight into the different relationships between characters that seem to be forming this season.

The new season may not have topped its predecessors on the ‘whacky’ scale, but still comes with a few shocking plot twists that keep u watching on and if you enjoyed the show enough to reach this season, it is absolutely worth your time and more than enough fun to segway, and hold us off till the next season arrives (hopefully in less than two years this time). It will also be interesting to see how this will run into the next season or if this is where TV series starts running out of steam, an unfortunate fate met by a lot of out favorite TV shows recently.