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 Reginald Hargreeves and his superpowered progeny, who themselves have become less than superpowered adults.
The biggest secret of the Hargreeves family is now out in the open, but that’s just the start of the worst to come. Put on a pot of coffee for the last time this season, and let’s dive in to the finale, “The White Violin.” As always, spoilers within.
1. Reginald Hargreeves, Time Lord?
The opening scene sort of confirms a fact about Papa Hargreeves known in the comics: that he is not of this Earth. The “long ago” opening set in the turn of the 20th century has me wondering if Mr. Hargreeves has time travel as one of his powers, and wondering as well why it was only revealed now, ten episodes in. Is it a setup for a second season (now confirmed)? Perhaps.
That aside, the central object to focus on here is a violin, one that belonged to a dying woman (Mrs. Hargreeves?), one that becomes a lightning rod for Vanya’s abilities. Exactly what did Reginald know about his Number Seven, way before she was even born?
(By the way, internet, thanks for not noticing that all season, I called our Father of the Year Richard Hargreeves in the post intros, instead of Reginald, his proper name. You’re all awesome.)
2. Family Responsibility
“Did you know?”
Three words, one death sentence. Vanya doesn’t care about why she wasn’t told, she cares that she wasn’t told. That she was ignored, treated like a second class citizen. That’s all she cares about: did you know.
Pogo’s direct answer and Grace’s decision to stay as the building housing the Academy crumbles are the first time the adults in this household take responsibility for their actions. They ruined Vanya’s life, so they will pay with their life.
But so will the rest of civilization, as Five realizes in the rubble of their home that Harold/Leonard was just the fuse to the end times. Vanya’s the bomb. And despite all Five’s best efforts, this is one timeline he has to let play to its conclusion.
3. Blind Loyalty
All season, Allison had been the one to put her own family first before her siblings, wanting to run back to L.A. to her daughter before the apocalypse. Now, with only a pad and pen to speak her truth, Allison calls for calm and caution, because “she’s our sister.”
Um, did Allison miss the walls and ceilings crumbling around her, along with Pogo and Grace’s deaths? And who caused all that to happen?
Her only motivation here has to be guilt for revealing Vanya’s secret to her, but she has got to get over that. Like Harold/Leonard was the fuse to Vanya’s bomb, Allison was just the vessel. If she wants to make things right for everyone – – her daughter included – – she moves forward, instead of looking back. And try she does. But her attempt to move forward (by killing Vanya) is what is the catalyst for the end of the world.
4. Why Do All Villains Look Goth?
Initially I was put off when I saw that the first manifestation of Vanya went goth with the heavy eyeliner and White Walker-esque eyes. Why does every villain have to look goth?
But then Gerard Way and company surprise me somewhat by bathing Vanya at the apex of her transformation in pure white, hence “The White Violin.” White is a color often associated with purity, innocence, and safety: all things Vanya is certainly not right at this moment in time. (Though one can argue her innocence in not knowing her true self, and purity of power that was not corrupted or exploited for fame by Hargreeves.) In consideration of light, white is also the absence of color, the absence of hue. How ironic that Vanya, the girl who was told she was only ordinary, absent of anything special, becomes in her greatest, most extraordinary, most colorful, moment, bathed in a color and a light that is at its heart, an absence.
Continued below5. We Fix Her
Watching that final scene of Five’s solution to preventing the apocalypse – – by traveling back to their teenage past to “fix” Vanya before she becomes The White Violin – – has me thinking of what we often say about Marvel’s Hydra organization: you cut off one head, another grows in its place. Even with the foresight that the adult children have, will they be able to fix what is predestined, what seems to have been predestined by Mr. and (presumably) Mrs. Hargreeves hundreds of years before. Those final moments continue to raise the question at the heart of this series: does free will even exist at all?
Naturally, there’s also another question: where does season 2 go from here? This season was based heavily in “Apocalypse Suite,” the first volume of the comic series, with some elements of “Dallas” thrown in, one of those being the destruction of the world. This does leave some room for the rest of “Dallas” for Season 2 (there’s a whole subplot about the effect of JFK living on that fateful day in Dallas that was only hinted at in this season), as well as the current “Hotel Oblivion” series (which wraps up in May). There also remains the possibility that Netflix could deviate completely from the comics, perhaps diving into Hargreeves’ alien past, perhaps setting up episodic adventures for the Hargreeves kids that live in the universe before the events of Season 1.
Afterthoughts:
– This episode has come under fire for its use of Yiddish, with one phrase spoken by Kate Walsh’s The Handler to Hazel and Cha Cha about the eggs being smarter than the chicken. I’m hoping that Netflix chooses to edit this scene out. Intentional or otherwise, it’s uncomfortable viewing, and the Yiddish adds nothing to the scene.
– I feel bad for Kenny’s birthday party at the bowling alley, getting interrupted by assassins and all that.
Thanks for coming along on this dysfunctional family journey with me, and I heard a rumor we’ll meet again whenever the second season premieres.
