Alright, I saw some posts from people saying they didn’t enjoy Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy and although I think every one can have their own opinion, I’m here to tell you guys why you’re wrong (/j) and this is the best season yet and share how it made me like the first and second season. (all the spoilers, proceed with caution)
And I’ll start it by quoting dear Handler: Some things just don’t make sense… until they do.
She says that to Lila right after asking her to protect number Five. And like, I know her plan is all that “kill the higher ups, make shit for me and I’ll give you what you want”, but isn’t it funny how she lives for the Comission, she is the one to recruit Five and he is the founder of said Comission?
Time is already not linear before Five is saved by her, she saved him because she works for an organization he will found. We were living a paradox since the begining. That’s why I feel some people are confused about the third part of the series, But my time-travel-loving self is more than happy.
Do you remember when Reginald dies and Luther says that in his last call the old man said for him to pay attention to who he trusts? And how Luther than asks Klaus to speak with Reginald so they can ask him if he was murdered? And when Klaus dies trying to help Luther, his father tells him 1) he’s dead 2) Reggie killed Reggie. By the end of season three, finally someone betrays Luther and kills him. Who? Reginald. Klaus goes into the void and finds out Reginald killed Luther. How Klaus ends up in the void this time? He helped Reggie and died in the end. What was going to happen in season 3 has already been told to us by the first season. Klaus only realized he died in season 3, but Reggie had already told him that.
When Allison is worried about Ray, after the protest, Klaus tells her that she needs some menudo, which is what he eats with his mother when he is finally understanding himself and his powers(and it’s also the menudo that get’s him together with his father once again). At this point in season 2, Allison havent used her powers since Viktor and she is currently afraid os loosing everything by using it again, like an addict.
Klaus than tells her that fable of the frog and the scorpion. That is about someone’s way of being remaining the same even if it ends up fucking everyone up, including the scorpion. But it’s also about making a deal with someone who wants to use you. This is foreshadowing both of them being used by Reginald, but also Allison vilanization arc. “The point is: frogs are bitches and we do not negotiate with terrorists”. Both negotiate with Reggie lol Klaus for his love and Allison for her life.
Klaus goes from a real mess in season 1 to the one that’s dealing better with all this shit, while Allison goes from the person who had her shit together to the most unstable one. Allison lived her first life getting everything she wanted and when she looses her “things” she acts like the spoiled brat she’s always been(the scorpion). We know she got her husband, her carrer and control over her daughter by using her powers. Why are we really surprised that she’s doing anything to get it back?
In season 3 we understand why Reginald adopted 7 kids. In season one, they said that when Ben died, eveyone went their separate ways, so Reginald got him back, so he could unite the families, as he said he did to said Ben by the 10th episode of this season. If loosing a kid would fuck up his plans, he would’ve got more, but he didn’t did him?
And for those who wanted more of the sparrows this season, I must remind you that Reginald walks around with an umbrella, not with birds. Birds are nice, they are part of this scenary, but they’re not as useful as an umbrella. We see birds through all seasons and they are, indeed, important. But they are pieces to take the umbrellas where they need to go, to make the umbrellas do what they had to do, little pieces of Reginald’s game. And they “flew away” after doing what they needed to do.
first season we had Agnes, who loved birds. Second season has Harlan always holding a little wooden bird. And the third season has the sparrow academy. Every one of these “birds” came in handy by the next season. Hazel takes that video to Five because Agnes asked. Harlan saves them from Christopher. And I’m pretty sure Sparrow Ben (and probably Sloane too) are gonna be fundamental next season.
Specially since we kinda got that feeling that Season 1 was about Luther, with the moon and beins a leader, Season 2 was about Diego, being his own batman and saving the president (also seeking revenge from his father) and Season 3 with Allison’s need for control and for things to go her way. Next one is Klaus’s, who’s been preparing himself since the first season.
Now he’s lost everything again, right? Scoup after scoup after scoup. Like he’s menudo being eaten. Brother, Lover, Mother and Power, or even the Void, where he likes to be and where he believes is his place, his found home. And Ben, his best friend and possibly lover, is back but not really but yes. I’m pretty sure he will try to stick to Ben and this is gonna be fundamental by the end. Why? Because even though Ben “is with them” now, he is not, just like in season 1. And what saves them from those armed guys is Klaus and Ben working together. I’m sure this was foreshadowed there. in season 3 Klaus was again responsible for uniting them all by the end of the season.
I think the main point is understanding that everything they’ve been through was to make them go into Oblivion with Reggie. They had no other choice. Both previous seasons happened so the third could happen. Every little detail.
Luther died because he voted against going to Oblivion because he met sloane because he was kidnapped because Marcus went missing because they caused a paradox because they were never born because Viktor saved Harlan because he ended up in Sissy’s place because he lost his memorys because he destroyed the moon because Luther decided to attack him against Allison’s will because she lost her voice because she fount out about Harold Jenkings because Diego got info on him because he was friends with Patch who died because Cha-cha and Hazel kidnapped Klaus because he was high because that’s how he coped with his powers because Reginald trumatized him because he wanted to control him and because he needed to be helped out of the pills he took because Pogo left him because he wanted to get the kids to the oblivion because he wanted to reset the universe. And you can do this with everything in this fucking show. and this is only possible to notice when you’ve seen the three timelines.
It’ like Reginald set up all those domino pieces and every move they make happens exacly acording to his plan.
In first season when we see the flashback of the day Five got lost in time, there are two things to pay attention to: Reginald explains time travel in a way that would only make sense to those who had traveled already and he doesn’t even try getting up to go after him when he runs off. Five is the one sibling Reginald worked to have a high self steem, for him to disobey him and try time traveling, so he gets lost, so he comes back, so he guide his siblings to new 2019, so they go to oblivion. Old Five saying to little Five to not save the world is his way of trying to stop Reginald. The comission exists to try and kill little Five to stop Reginald. why? I don’t know lol Some things just don’t make sense… until they do.
My point being that 1st and 2nd seasons kinda end in themselves in a nice way, but the third opens the wound again and we can better understand things we understood on them.
Before I stop, I just wanted to point out that when Five meets Reginald in 1963, he recites Homer. Reginald reads it to Pogo: “ Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end– “ and stops there. The wanderer is Reginald, who’s seen many universes colapsing (he tells that to Five by the Obsidian Hotel). The Muse is his wife. Ulisses leaves Ithaca to fight in Troy and keeps trying to get back home to Penelope, his wife, who’s patiantly waiting for him.
The poem says: “He saw the townlands/ and learned the minds of many distant men, /and weathered many bitter nights and days/ in his deep heart at sea, while he fought only/ to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.” , and just as much this could be about Reginald, this could also be about Five. Maybe especially about Five, since it continues:
“But not by will nor valor could he save them, / for their own recklessness destroyed them all “
When I finished the first season, I had exacly this image in my mind: Five was trying so hard to save his “shipmates”, but their impatience, lack of comunication, anger, recklessness destroyed the world.
The umbrellas are at this boat together, trying to navigate Reginald’s waters. At times they have to deal with sirens(Harold Jenkins, JFK, drugs), at times they have to be invisible to scape a ciclops(Dead Ben, Five blinking, Allison in 1963), at times they would get high in a strange magic island(the wedding, high luther, high klaus) or deal with their own delusional lust (Allison in wherever it is that she’s at). But they are just trying to get home. To rule their own life.
(Ulisses is a King, for those who didn’t know)
Anyway, I felt like this season gave me this feeling that even if we are watching it from afar, we don’t have the whole picture yet, for it’s four or even five dimensional.
We’ll see, boys, we’ll see
