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Five Thoughts on The Umbrella Academy‘s “We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals”

By | February 16th, 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.

With the death of their father figure, the surviving Hargreeves children reunite to bury their father but not bury their hatchets with each other. But they had better do so soon, for a much larger crisis looms.  Put on a pot of coffee and let’s dive in to “We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals.” As always, spoilers within.

1. Something in the Water

How did the Hargreeves children come to be?  On October 1, 1989, 43 women who did not start off pregnant that day gave birth. These 43 children are nothing short of extraordinary, with super personalities, gifts, and abilities.  Eccentric rich dude Richard Hargreeves attempts to adopt all of these children, but only succeeds with six (later a seventh), using their superpowers to form The Umbrella Academy.  With code names, prep school uniforms, and masks, these six children are ready to kick ass, take names, and fight evil:

  • Number 1 is Luther, who possesses extreme super strength, and now lives on the moon.
  • Number 2 is Diego, now a reckless, angry vigilante.
  • Number 3 is Allison, an actress with the power to manipulate people through wishes and rumors
  • Number 4 is Klaus, who can communicate with the dead. He’s a washed up party boy who consider rehab his personal Club Med.
  • Number 5 is . . . well, we just call him Number Five. He can teleport through time and space, and has seen the future, all while remaining 13 years old.
  • Number 6 is Ben, who died. Before he died, Ben possessed monsters under his skin, a superpower his siblings loved to see in action, but one he really didn’t like at all.

And then there’s Number 7, Vanya (Ellen Page), who’s just plain ordinary. (But she plays the violin!) She desperately wants superpowers, or at least to have the same fun and games as her superpowered siblings. Richard cautions her that she is “special” for other reasons and thus has to sit on the sidelines, which you can imagine does not sit well with a young child.  She also wrote a tell-all book about the family, putting a wedge between her and her siblings.

The household includes “Mom” a Stepford Wife-type mother figure who is pure robot, and Dr. Pogo, a talking chimp who has more fatherly affection for these kids than their human father (and for Vanya in particular).

2. Daddy’s Gone

As the title implies, the death of their father figure brings everyone back home and back to each other for the first time in years for his funeral.  There’s pretty much no love lost between these siblings, and the common bond of their father (who himself seems to love the children’s abilities more than themselves) doesn’t do much to repair those bridges.  No one likes Vanya for her book.  Luther is convinced that their father’s death wasn’t just heart failure as Dad’s beloved monocle has gone missing, but Diego just won’t believe it. (Possibly because Diego has that monocle, and by extension, something to do with his death? Is that autopsy report he produces the legit thing?) Klaus just can’t seem to behave, and Allison’s distracted by her recent divorce, which resulted in her ex-husband receiving full custody of their daughter – – so she’s in no mood to deal with the infighting.

No one can seem to put their differences aside for even the memorial service for Mr. Hargreeves, which features a fistfight, a broken statue, and Klaus putting out his cigarette in the remains of his late father.

Kinda makes you feel better about your own dysfunctional family, doesn’t it?

3. I Think We’re Alone Now

With a comic book series created by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, it should be no surprise that music is a significant part of this TV series.  Just in this premiere episode alone, we have everything from The Kinks to Phantom of the Opera to They Might Be Giants. However, it’s mall superstar Tiffany that wins the day in this episode. Her cover of the 1967 Tommy James and the Shondells hit “I Think We’re Alone Now” (which has also appeared in promos for the series) provides for a dysfunctional dance party for the adult Hargreeves kids, each getting their respective groove on in separate rooms in the house – – finding that one common thread to hang on to in the face of all their differences and misplaced grief.

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I mean, these kids need some serious therapy with a licensed professional but a little dose of 80s pop can certainly soothe the savage beast. And if Tiffany doesn’t have a resurgence on the pop charts after this, we’re doing something very, very, wrong.

4. I Heard a Rumor You Have Some Super Sized Regret

Vanya may be the star of this show, but of all the Hargreeves, the one that intrigues me most is Allison. Much like Ben did as a child, she regrets her superpower, thanks to one wish or rumor that had gone astray.  Based on a locket we see in her bedroom engraved “A+L,” a tentative reunion with Luther, and some lingering hand holding, we can pretty much guess what that wish gone astray was.  But how did it go astray? Was this one of the secrets revealed in Vanya’s book? Or just a case of unrequited teenage love? Did Papa Hargreeves find that romance distracted from the larger goal of the collective and took extreme measures to put a stop to things?  (And you thought your parents were protective of you while dating!)

And what of her career as an actress: did she use her powers to work her way to the pinnacle of fame?  That could be the source of her regret for her superpowers as well.

If Allison is the most mysterious, Klaus is pure fun. He has no filter and takes great joy in that fact.  No doubt he’ll be the comic relief.

5. Number Five

As with any good premiere, the majority of this episode built the world of the Hargreeves family, but we get a taste of what’s to come this season in the last act.

Our most mysterious Number Five, an old soul in a young boy’s body, has been jumping through time and space.  He may have missed his father’s funeral, but for good reason: he’s seen the end of the world. And he’s seen the day it’s going to end. And that day is coming very soon. Which is why he rushed home when he did. But why tell Vanya, who has no visible superpower like her siblings, nor any desire to want to return anymore to the family fold? For whatever reason, Vanya is the only person right now Number Five can trust.  And perhaps that trust is her superpower.

We’ll see you on Wednesday for “Run Boy Run” 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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