The wider story in a season absolutely lousy with subplots gives Umbrella Academy the space to do what it does best: develop characters.įrom left, Genesis Rodriguez as Sloane, Cazzie David as Jayme, Justin H. Min's "new Ben") and a time-bending plot that has twisted so far into itself it's become almost impossible to follow, it can feel like Umbrella has almost jumped the shark.īut while Season 3 might not live up to the previous one, it doesn't fall on its face. When you factor in new characters outside of the Sparrows (including Euphoria's Javon Walton), new versions of old characters (like Justin H. Of the seven Sparrow Academy siblings, we're asked to meet, care about and remember Sloane (Genesis Rodriguez) as she hits it off with the eminently loveable Luther Hargreeves (Tom Hopper), Alphonso (played by an absolutely unrecognizable Jake Epstein of Degrassi fame) battling it out with Diego Hargreeves (David Castañeda) - and then there's Christopher, a sentient cube that speaks in its own unintelligible robot language. While last season saw the addition of Ritu Arya as assassin/frenemy Lila, Yusuf Gatewood as love interest Ray Chestnut, and Marin Ireland as pathos-engine Sissy, Season 3 comes with a tidal wave of new characters - along with different versions of some of the established ones.įrom left, Raver-Lampman as Allison Hargreeves, David Castañeda as Diego Hargreeves and Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves appear in this still from The Umbrella Academy. A timeline paradox - and the black hole "kugelblitz" wreaking havoc in the Hargreeves' basement - is threatening to rip apart the entire multiverse and everything in it.īut though the end result is a similarly irreverent storyline, full of all the offbeat comedy and mind-bending plot choices of past seasons, it almost gets crushed under its own weight. The stakes are even higher it's not just the Earth that's at risk but every version of it on every possible timeline. And following yet another botched effort at time travel, the Hargreeve siblings find themselves in an alternate version of their present, this time pitted against a through-the-looking-glass version of themselves: the Sparrow Academy. The episodes are still shorter, with one even falling under the 40-minute mark. And the character development, tighter writing and expanded scope helped make that season an overall improvement over the first.įor Season 3, the show's writers apparently didn't see a need to mess with a good thing. Season 2 saw the cast (accidentally) travel to the 1960s once again and fight to save the world from destruction - though with a refreshingly grown-up look at civil rights issues woven in and a mercifully shorter runtime. WATCH | The Umbrella Academy S eason 3 is 'about family first':ĭuration 3:06 Members of the Umbrella Academy team on the evolution of characters, life on set, and what sets the series apart in the ‘crowded field’ of superhero content. What began in Season 1 as a loose but ambitious story of seven orphans reuniting to save the world from the apocalypse - a danger their brother, Aidan Gallagher's Number Five, discovers after accidentally time travelling to the future and back - each successive season has followed the same formula, albeit with a growing number of characters and subplots. Looking at the third season, you can't fault the effort. And yes, it is becoming a crowded field, but I still think we managed to be something different than the other shows out there." "You know, we're trying to always subvert the genre of superhero as much as we can. "It really is about a family first, and a very dysfunctional one at that - a sort of Wes Anderson, dysfunctional family like The Royal Tenenbaums," Blackman said in an interview with CBC. and Marvel jumping into the multiversal pot.īut showrunner Steve Blackman says Umbrella still stands "in a different space." The show's third season, which premiered on Netflix Wednesday, dives even further into the time travel aspect of its superpowered-sibling narrative - a trope that in the past few years seems to have consumed TV and movies, with everything from Russian Doll, Palm Springs, Everything Everywhere All At Once to, again, D.C. Between D.C., Marvel and even non-franchise options like Watchmen and The Boys, there wasn't much room for yet another superhero offering to stand out in the crowd.įast-forward three years and Umbrella's identity problem has only gotten worse. Way back when The Umbrella Academy first premiered in 2019, there was already a bit of an image problem.
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