The Umbrella Academy (Spoilers)
I finally got around to watching The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, after hearing lots of mostly-positive comments and reviews. Naturally, I must now share ALL OF MY OWN COMMENTS AND REVIEWS. Such is the nature of the internet…
I mostly enjoyed it, though the ending felt empty and unsatisfying.
Details behind the spoiler cut…
All right, let’s start with:
Stuff That I Liked
Klaus. It took a couple of episodes for him to grow on me, but by the end, Klaus had become one of my favorite characters. I loved his fear and his vulnerability — not to mention his fashion sense. He struggles so hard to face up to his demons, and I loved the payoff at the end where he starts to discover new aspects to his powers.
Family Dysfunction. Not that I like dysfunctional families, per se, but I thought the show did a better job than most in its portrayal. In the very first episode, after the children are lashing out at each other and so obviously hurt and angry and broken, having Luther turn on the music and seeing everyone dancing — alone, but also together in one home — felt like such a great image of a messed-up family. They’ve all suffered under an abusive father. They’ve all coped in their own ways. They care about each other, but their coping mechanisms clash hard, and they’ve hurt each other a lot. I thought the show pulled it off better than most.
Five. I’m really impressed with Aidan Gallagher’s acting skills. I thought he did a great job portraying an old, bitter, broken killer trapped in a kid’s body. Watching him, I never lost the suspension of disbelief and thought, “Oh, he’s just a kid.” Five may be a jerk with no compunctions about killing, but he’s a jerk determined to save his family (and the world, if he can).
Other Miscellaneous Stuff…
- Allison using her powers on her daughter. Totally not okay, but it felt real and honest, and Allison had to face the consequences for that choice.
- The musical choices were generally wonderful, from the older pop stuff to Vanya’s violin performances.
- I appreciated that we got minimal backstory and pretty much just jumped into the weirdness. It might make it harder for some people to get into the story, but I liked it.
- Hargreeves’ suicide. He killed himself to bring the kids back together? Okay, Hargreeves was an asshole, but I didn’t see that coming.
- The relationship between Hazel and Cha-Cha. So messed up.
The Not So Good
Too-Powerful Women Should be Suppressed, Lest They Destroy the World. Vanya’s story felt like a play-by-play retread of X-Men 3, watching an older man suppress and erase any memory of a young girl’s abilities because she’s “too powerful.” There are so many other choices they could have made to tell this story, and this one both annoys and bores me.
That Ending. Basically, it didn’t feel like an ending to me. There was very little resolution or emotional satisfaction. After everything they set up this season, how much of it is now going to be undone? Season one ends up feeling more like backstory and prologue to the “real” story.
Luther. His character just didn’t work for me. I didn’t get a real sense of why he was chosen to be Number One, or why he wanted to be a leader, or why he was so loyal to Professor Hargreeves, or pretty much anything. And why the heck was he on the moon? I wish the show had developed his character more.
Other…
- “The Day That Wasn’t.” I dislike this kind of story, where we show you the good stuff the characters could have, then magically erase it all via time jumps or whatever. It just feels empty to me.
- Leonard Peabody. Aka, Syndrome, redux. Slimy dude happens to find Hargreeves’ notebook and uses it to … what was his big plan? To create a supervillain? Kill the other siblings? Like Luther, he just felt bland.
The Extra
I did read the first two Umbrella Academy collections after I finished watching. That adds a whole new layer of surreal WTF to the story. Some of it probably wouldn’t have worked with the Netflix format, but I’m curious how many details they plan to bring in later. Hargreeves as an alien? Superintelligent goldfish? Reality-revealing monocle?
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Anyway, those are my semi-organized thoughts. I did enjoy it, and I’ll be watching season two when it comes out.
What did you think?
JanArrah
April 23, 2019 @ 3:29 pm
Luther was number 1 because it was completely random. He was leader (in his mind) because he was number 1. But it was completely random. Because Dear old dad is an asshole.. and never really cared about the kids. He was sent to the moon because dad caused him to get his gorilla body and then dad didn’t know what to do.. so it was easier just to send him off to space than deal with stuff cause dad is an unfeeling jerk.
X-men 3 was just.. all garbage. The father in this case suppressed Vanya’s powers more because he couldn’t control her. Cause he’s an asshole. He may also have known how her powers would have gone given his whole suicide to bring them together thing, but really.. I just think he was a selfish jerk.
Season 1 wasn’t undone. Just the ending may be undone. We won’t know what happens until Season 2. But the characters, themselves, time travel.. that means they keep their growth and change even if other things change.
And yeah.. the comics are better, but the show was good.
Fraser
April 24, 2019 @ 3:21 pm
“Hargreeves as an alien? Superintelligent goldfish? Reality-revealing monocle?” And let’s not forget the zombie ET Gustav Eiffel and his tower of death. I was pleasantly surprised Gerard Way doing a comic book wasn’t the equivalent of stunt casting (and he’s done other good stuff since).
Haven’t finished, but I agree about “The Day That Wasn’t”
Jo
April 25, 2019 @ 12:41 am
It was important for Luther to be a leader because Luther was a follower. He was told what to do. He was given the task of being the leader, and it’s because he was such a complete follower that he felt compelled to do the best he could in that role, even though it clearly didn’t fit him.
The problem I had with Luther was the Warf aspect, which is to say that he exists to showcase the strength of the enemy. Here we have this big brick of a man, a powerhouse, full of muscle growing on muscle, and he basically continues to get bested in combat.
sistercoyote
May 2, 2019 @ 9:11 pm
Klaus had two superpowers: one that really sucked, and the ability to see (and eventually channel) spirits.
Luther was Number One because his power was the weakest/least useful in Hargreeve’s estimation; Vanya was Number Seven because she was the most powerful.
I saw Vanya’s story coming from a mile away — both her power being repressed, but also the Boyfriend being Evil.
I actually understand *why* they went Kill Your Gays with Klaus’ Vietnam-era lover from a thematic perspective, but I was still irritated by it. Likewise, I understand the silencing of Alison in favor of Vanya but again, irritating.
I reeeeeeally could have done without Luther/Alison.
And despite all this kvetching, I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next season. (I was thinking that I find it amusing that of the three Netflix Original Dramas I watched all the way through, two of them — The Umbrella Academy and The Haunting of Hill House, the ones I liked the best — are about profoundly messed up families.)