Television 

Five (and a Half) Thoughts on The Umbrella Academy‘s “Number Five”

By | March 13th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

They’ve got powers. They’ve got baggage. They’ve got eight days to save the world. Welcome to the Umbrella Academy.  The Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba series comes to Netflix, introducing the world to the eccentric Richard Hargreeves and his superpowered progeny, who themselves have become less than superpowered adults.

Five and Luther share secrets, and Vanya’s off her meds and feeling not herself.  Put on a pot of coffee and let’s dive in to “Number Five,” As always, spoilers within.

1. Lunchtime in the Apocalypse

One clever mark of this show has been the opening titles. Instead of a full opening credits scene, we get the show titles as part of a found object – – sometimes a music box, sometimes an actual umbrella (ROLL CREDITS!) – – and this week, it’s a metal lunchbox featuring the Umbrella Academy kids at the peak of their fame that somehow survived with Five at the end of the world. Guess your past will always follow you, even to the end of days, no matter what our Hargreeves kids say to each other.

2. Hitman Number Five

*singing* A little bit of Luther in my life, a little bit of Vanya by my side, a little bit of Diego is all I need . . .

I’ll stop with the bad pop now.

While off in Mad Max land, Five gets a job offer via The Handler (Kate Walsh of Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice fame), who is also Hazel and Cha Cha’s boss for The Commission, an organization that works to preserve/manipulate time. For them, free will is bad, and they take all means necessary to stop it. Five can work for them for five years and then retire to wherever – – and whenever – – he wants.

The catch with The Commission: They cannot prevent certain events from happening, much like the fixed points in time referenced in Doctor Who. So the apocalypse Five has been working to prevent now is going to happen no matter what. While he takes the job (it does seem like they had a good benefits package, at least until recently) and works his way through time ensuring certain events take place as they should, he works out a way to get back to his time and warn of what’s coming.

I applaud Five’s efforts but has no one learned their lesson from Doctor Who that messing with fixed points in time (presumably what The Commission was set out to enforce) causes more problems than it should?  And while Five realizes you can go home again and accepts a new upper management position with The Commission (though not without negotiating employment terms, like any good candidate would do), I don’t think he’s going to play it The Company Way at all.

Also: The Handler bears quite a passing resemblance to Who’s Missy, especially in wardrobe. The look for villains these past couple of seasons has been Twisted Mary Poppins, and I’m loving it.

3. Private Klaus Hargreeves

Once more for everyone in the back: Does no one in this show understand that time travel has consequences?

Though I can’t fault Klaus too much, he found time travel by accident and by the mystery briefcase in Hazel and Cha Cha’s possession (or was in their possession). One peek inside and he’s sent off to 1968 Vietnam for a year. He manages to return, but with a whole other life and some traumatic memories.

Whatever it does has a sobering (figuratively, not literally) effect on him.  And it leads to some bonding moments with Diego (including a nice little Klaus saving Diego’s life thing), which are nice for both of them. Diego needs a friend after losing Patch, and Klaus needs some support that isn’t . . . well, dead.

4. Due For a Refill

Leonard may have pilfered Vanya’s meds last episode, but she’s feeling pretty okay without them: wearing makeup, going on a coffee date with Leonard, even auditioning for first chair in the orchestra. What’s she’s not feeling pretty okay about is Allison, whose attempts at sisterly concern over her new relationship dent up the relationship that was still in the healing process.

I want to like Leonard. I really do. He’s got me all heart eyes with his puppy dog love and support of Vanya, but the Allison side of me is suspicious. Not to the level of, oh, breaking into Leonard’s house to find dirt on him. (Seriously, Allison. Just because he “broke into” Vanya’s apartment doesn’t give you the right to break into his.) But maybe to the level of, inviting him out for a cup of coffee myself and telling him if he even disturbs a hair of head on my sister he will die by any means necessary.

Continued below

5. She Plays the Violin

Vanya is nailing this first chair audition.  She’s doing what Natalie Portman couldn’t do in Black Swan that Mila Kunis could: play the passion. And there’s . . . something radiating off of her violin as she plays that has her conductor take notice. Confidence? Belief in herself? Or a superpower that Papa Hargreeves had somewhat hidden? My guess it is the latter as Lord Wikipedia tells me her code name is “The White Violin.”  Whatever it was, that medication was holding back her full potential, and it’s spreading its way throughout the city now. Leonard’s questionable motives aside, maybe ditching those pills was a blessing in disguise.

But I can’t shake the fact that it looks like there’s a dead body and some weird notebook in his attic.

5.5 “I took pride in it. But it never gave me pleasure.”

There are times that you find comfort and inspiration in the oddest of places.  Hearing Five say this, in the context of his work with The Commission, sums up some of what I had been feeling lately with my current job. It’s a lesson we all can use.

Afterthoughts:
– This show seems to have a fair bit of love for the library, with a second key scene in as many episodes taking place at the local library. As a librarian, thank you Gerard Way.
– If someone ever decided to bring Image’s “Ice Cream Man” to television, Robert Sheehan in the ice cream truck makes him the perfect casting for the titular character.
– As a woman of a Certain Age(TM), the moment that The Handler stopped time had me thinking of a certain TV show.

Line of the episode:

Diego: “I told you to wait in the car.”
Klaus: “Well you also told me licking a 9 volt battery would give me pubes.”
(Don’t try this at home kids.)

We’ll see you next week to kick off the second half of the first season with ‘The Day That Wasn’t” and let us know what you thought of the episode in the comments!


//TAGS | The Umbrella Academy

Kate Kosturski

Kate Kosturski is your Multiversity social media manager, a librarian by day and a comics geek...well, by day too (and by night). Kate's writing has also been featured at PanelxPanel, Women Write About Comics, and Geeks OUT. She spends her free time spending too much money on Funko POP figures and LEGO, playing with yarn, and rooting for the hapless New York Mets. Follow her on Twitter at @librarian_kate.

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