Basically: They’re back and they’re bad at it but they’re saving the universe anyway . . . we hope.
At some point, while watching The Umbrella Academy, you ask yourself: Why is this so good? It could be during any of the three seasons. Maybe because you read the comic book series and this team not only understood the adaptation assignment but surpassed it. It might be delightfully deranged dysfunction is your thing. Maybe it’s the cast (it’s definitely the cast). Perhaps you enjoy Doctor Who and this series is like traveling with seven distinct Doctors with all of the quirks, none of the ego (well, maybe Diego), and much sharper teeth.
There are a lot of reasons to be completely enthralled by The Umbrella Academy and—if we had signed a contract for great television with Netflix—TUA Season 3 comes through on the deal.
We begin at the end of one cataclysm, involving the assassination of JFK, and we faceplant into an even worse one. That’s not a spoiler, friends. Sh!t gets bad when you give the laws of physics the finger. You see, remixing the timeline in order to save the world takes finesse and the Umbrella Academy ain’t got it. D’you know who does? The new Sparrow Academy, a new group that the Umbrellas accidentally created when they traveled to the past and showed their father ‘how badly he raised them.’ He calls them “perfidious”, y’all. Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) is most definitely displeased. Seems like the universe is too. This means the Umbrellas have to stop fighting with each other, figure out what went wrong and try to fix it, while the Sparrows continuously kick their asses to the tune of, well, some sweet tunes.
Why is The Umbrella Academy so good? I’ll tell you once you’ve seen S3 and thus cannot be spoiled. Until then, I hope people will recognize this show’s brilliance a lot more. TUA straddles the line between the unexpected, the ridiculous, the obscene, and emotional acuity. Do you know how hard that is? To find the humanity inside of absurdity takes skill. This series is as good, although not as weighty, as Watchmen but it doesn’t get that particular kind of love. Probably because, as Gerard Way told me, it is “weird” and because these characters are messed up in a less real but more tangible way.
The talent it takes to balance the varying tones and madness of The Umbrella Academy is vast. And then there is such tenderness, so much love that bleeds but glows at the precipice of disaster.
So cheers to Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min, Colm Feore, Ritu Arya, and creators Steve Blackman, Jeremy Slater, Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá, and the writers, the designers, even the Sparrows for saving the weird, geeky side of the universe from a hotel bar at the edge of Oblivion.
In the End: The Umbrella Academy has done it again. I can’t wait for another round.
The Umbrella Academy returns to Netflix on June 22.
