Umm, is this the reason why I can't find the X-Men franchise on Netflix and I had to raid my local library for them? I know it's a completely different franchise, but underneath the...well...umbrella, they are the same franchise. An aging man runs a school for gifted youngsters, one of which her powers were far greater than he anticipated so he shut her away to "protect her." The only thing this franchise did differently was saving the powered individual rather than killing her.
With that aside, WHAT A SHOW! I mean HOLY SH*T! In just ten episodes, you learn to feel for seven very different people who were forced to be a family because some white-haired weirdo said so. Luther is a big burly man who wants to feel important. Diego is a vigilante who wants to fight for truth, justice, and the American way. Allison is a controlling whisperer who wants to have her own voice rather than be used. Klaus is a Sixth Senser just wants the pain to go away. Number Five is a teleporter who wants to feel trusted that he would do the right thing. Ben is dead, but I'm sure wanted to be heard. And Vanya is a shut-in violinist who wants to be equal to her siblings.
But let's take it from the top. All 7, out of 43, children were all born simultaneously on October 1, 1989, despite none of the mothers ever being pregnant with them. Then some crazy recluse scours the globe to adopt as many as he can to form the Professor Hargreeves School of Gifted Young...er, I mean...the Umbrella Academy, and he got the seven. Over the years, he trained them to hone their powers except for Vanya, who was told that she was ordinary. Never in their thirty years of living did it occur to them that she was born the same day as the rest of the Umbrella Academy and possess no powers. Well, to be fair, their enemy was born the same day as them, and the only power he has was festering hate inside him.
On February 15, 2019, the reclusive professor died, bringing all the children, now adults who've gone their separate ways, home for the funeral. The funeral starts a chain reaction of events. Number Five, who went missing at thirteen, returns home from a time jump. However, Five is not thirteen anymore, even though his body says so. He has been stuck in the future for 45 years; he's now 58, he has a drinking problem and he's in love with a department store mannequin. And he's not the only one. Mary J. Blige and the guy from Mindhunter are after him. Five (will someone give him a name?) is trying to stop an impending apocalypse that is caused by, you guessed it, Vanya.
Ellen Page jumps from Kitty Pryde to Jean Grey in this series as she struggles to come to her own without her family. Before the series started, Vanya wrote her autobiography spilling secrets about the academy. The rest of the family hate her for that, so she tends to stay away. Nearly every conversation she has with them winds up with her leaving or offending the others because she was never part of the family. But when a shy aspiring violinist shows up at her door for lessons, she begins to take an interest. Together, they bond over their own reclusiveness and how they aren't lonely with each other. However, he has other plans. Harold Jenkins, or in this show Leonard Peabody, was the other kid born on the same day as the Umbrella Academy. He idolized them and wished to be a part of them. He almost got the chance when the reclusive billionaire humiliated him in public. So he goes home and destroys all his comic books and toys, and he kills his abusive drunk father and serves twelve years in jail. Now that he's out he plans to undo the Umbrella Academy once and for all with the help of Vanya, who would use her newfound powers of resonating sounds and make shockwaves to cause the apocalypse.
The rest of the Academy band together to stop Vanya from causing the apocalypse, and they sort of do it. They stop Vanya, but the apocalypse happens anyway. Thinking quick, Five decides to time jump with the Academy to the past to prevent the apocalypse from ever happening.
That sounds like it should be a stand-alone movie or at least a start to a film franchise, but the show went the extra mile to connect with all the characters. Klaus is the comic relief, obviously, with his constant drug abuse and standing on the sidelines while the others fight. But when he transports to the A Shau Valley, in Vietnam 1968, he changes dramatically from a happy, cynical junkie to a dark, broken soldier. He also experiences love and loss during his time with fellow soldier Dave. They met in a night club near their base, and it nearly kills Klaus when Dave gets shot on the front lines and dies in his arms. Luther and Allison struggle with their relationship, which I haven't felt this weird since Clueless. In Clueless, they were stepsiblings but they were related through their mother. Ew. Here, it's sort of more okay since they aren't related at all. Allison has just out of a divorce and losing custody of her child because she used her power to control her. Luther was sent to the moon after a botched job caused him to have monkey blood coursing in his veins to save him, resulting in being a 'roided out ape with a tiny Luther head. Together, they struggle to rekindle the puppy love they once had as children, and I'm somehow okay with that. Diego's vigilante style brings a complicated relationship with a cop who wants to do everything by the books. Their relationship never got to blossom from what we see because she gets gunned down by Mindhunter and MJB, but we see that they sort of care for each other because she decided to trust his off-the-books instinct and he decided to trust her by-the-books approach towards the endgame.
Mindhunter and MJB are two time-jumping, um, government officials? They and Five are part of a secret agency that controls all events that happened or will happen. This is where the show takes a hard left turn into What the F*ck as we dive down the rabbit hole about the government controlling time and space and history and events. Five is now allegedly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy because he fired the mysterious fatal shot. However, this sort of makes more sense than anything I've ever seen involving time travel. I guess the writers really had to think about how to make it simple for us to understand, especially since it's the key to the Academy's survival. Some parts don't make any sense, however, like when do they really age? Five is a 58-year-old man that is trapped in his 13-year-old body. Does that mean, unless something changes, he'd die at 35 because when he's an 80-year-old man? And how do they age? Five is going through puberty again. This is more of a season 2 question but when they fix everything and all is right with the world, will they go back to aging normally or will they all perish at a young age?
I lost track, the two people I mentioned above have an existential crisis, especially when Mindhunter develops a relationship with the local doughnut lady. They struggle with the fact that they live meaningless lives killing people in history, never settling in one place, never having a life of their own. They even struggle with a task sent by Five to kill one another, but they decide not to instead.
The show plays with our emotions a lot from comedy to tragedy to confusion to dislike to like again. One minute, you're like, "What the hell? This show sucks," and the next you're laughing your ass off and not wanting them to stop. What helps is it's got a killer soundtrack, no pun intended, where they're playing Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" while Mindhunter and MJB shoot up a department store, and have Klaus' ice cream truck tinkle "Ride of the Valkyrie" while he and Diego race to rescue Five and Luther. Speaking of that last part, I never liked "Happy Together". Ever. (dodging a lamp) But I approve of its use in the fight against Mindhunter and MJB while the Academy gets away. By the way, the soundtrack is available on Spotify.
There are two things that were exceptionally weird, one of which I hope they explain in season 2. Pogo is their monkey butler. I want to know who is Pogo really and how come he could speak. Did Professor Hargreeves create a serum that allows him to speak? The other thing is the environment around them. It's 2019, but as you look around where they live, no one owns a cell phone. Payphones litter the streets. TVs are bulky wooden boxes rather than giant plasma screens. There are no computers, not even in corporate offices. Everything is in hard files. No one is tweeting or Instagramming. The cars look as if they haven't left the eighties. Did all time stop from moving forward when the Academy was born? The date kept going but pop culture didn't appear to evolve. Is George Bush still president? Perhaps not; he died just recently, but what if he stopped aging?
Every member of the Academy agreed at one point or another that Hargreeves was the worst father ever. This season didn't really give us a chance as to why he did things he did like locking Vanya away or sending Luther to the Moon. That is something they will have to explore in Season 2.
Things to consider for season 2, are you listening? Give Five a name, work out how this time and aging thing works, give Pogo an origin story, and make Hargreeves somehow justifiable in his actions.
I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie or a TV show for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return on Friday with another movie. See you then.
Released On: February 15, 2019
Rating: TV-14
Stars: Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher
Directors: Andrew Bernstein, Peter Hoar, Ellen Kuras, Stephen Surjik, Jeremy Webb
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%
IMDb Score: 8.9/10 (Average)
With that aside, WHAT A SHOW! I mean HOLY SH*T! In just ten episodes, you learn to feel for seven very different people who were forced to be a family because some white-haired weirdo said so. Luther is a big burly man who wants to feel important. Diego is a vigilante who wants to fight for truth, justice, and the American way. Allison is a controlling whisperer who wants to have her own voice rather than be used. Klaus is a Sixth Senser just wants the pain to go away. Number Five is a teleporter who wants to feel trusted that he would do the right thing. Ben is dead, but I'm sure wanted to be heard. And Vanya is a shut-in violinist who wants to be equal to her siblings.
But let's take it from the top. All 7, out of 43, children were all born simultaneously on October 1, 1989, despite none of the mothers ever being pregnant with them. Then some crazy recluse scours the globe to adopt as many as he can to form the Professor Hargreeves School of Gifted Young...er, I mean...the Umbrella Academy, and he got the seven. Over the years, he trained them to hone their powers except for Vanya, who was told that she was ordinary. Never in their thirty years of living did it occur to them that she was born the same day as the rest of the Umbrella Academy and possess no powers. Well, to be fair, their enemy was born the same day as them, and the only power he has was festering hate inside him.
On February 15, 2019, the reclusive professor died, bringing all the children, now adults who've gone their separate ways, home for the funeral. The funeral starts a chain reaction of events. Number Five, who went missing at thirteen, returns home from a time jump. However, Five is not thirteen anymore, even though his body says so. He has been stuck in the future for 45 years; he's now 58, he has a drinking problem and he's in love with a department store mannequin. And he's not the only one. Mary J. Blige and the guy from Mindhunter are after him. Five (will someone give him a name?) is trying to stop an impending apocalypse that is caused by, you guessed it, Vanya.
Ellen Page jumps from Kitty Pryde to Jean Grey in this series as she struggles to come to her own without her family. Before the series started, Vanya wrote her autobiography spilling secrets about the academy. The rest of the family hate her for that, so she tends to stay away. Nearly every conversation she has with them winds up with her leaving or offending the others because she was never part of the family. But when a shy aspiring violinist shows up at her door for lessons, she begins to take an interest. Together, they bond over their own reclusiveness and how they aren't lonely with each other. However, he has other plans. Harold Jenkins, or in this show Leonard Peabody, was the other kid born on the same day as the Umbrella Academy. He idolized them and wished to be a part of them. He almost got the chance when the reclusive billionaire humiliated him in public. So he goes home and destroys all his comic books and toys, and he kills his abusive drunk father and serves twelve years in jail. Now that he's out he plans to undo the Umbrella Academy once and for all with the help of Vanya, who would use her newfound powers of resonating sounds and make shockwaves to cause the apocalypse.
The rest of the Academy band together to stop Vanya from causing the apocalypse, and they sort of do it. They stop Vanya, but the apocalypse happens anyway. Thinking quick, Five decides to time jump with the Academy to the past to prevent the apocalypse from ever happening.
That sounds like it should be a stand-alone movie or at least a start to a film franchise, but the show went the extra mile to connect with all the characters. Klaus is the comic relief, obviously, with his constant drug abuse and standing on the sidelines while the others fight. But when he transports to the A Shau Valley, in Vietnam 1968, he changes dramatically from a happy, cynical junkie to a dark, broken soldier. He also experiences love and loss during his time with fellow soldier Dave. They met in a night club near their base, and it nearly kills Klaus when Dave gets shot on the front lines and dies in his arms. Luther and Allison struggle with their relationship, which I haven't felt this weird since Clueless. In Clueless, they were stepsiblings but they were related through their mother. Ew. Here, it's sort of more okay since they aren't related at all. Allison has just out of a divorce and losing custody of her child because she used her power to control her. Luther was sent to the moon after a botched job caused him to have monkey blood coursing in his veins to save him, resulting in being a 'roided out ape with a tiny Luther head. Together, they struggle to rekindle the puppy love they once had as children, and I'm somehow okay with that. Diego's vigilante style brings a complicated relationship with a cop who wants to do everything by the books. Their relationship never got to blossom from what we see because she gets gunned down by Mindhunter and MJB, but we see that they sort of care for each other because she decided to trust his off-the-books instinct and he decided to trust her by-the-books approach towards the endgame.
Mindhunter and MJB are two time-jumping, um, government officials? They and Five are part of a secret agency that controls all events that happened or will happen. This is where the show takes a hard left turn into What the F*ck as we dive down the rabbit hole about the government controlling time and space and history and events. Five is now allegedly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy because he fired the mysterious fatal shot. However, this sort of makes more sense than anything I've ever seen involving time travel. I guess the writers really had to think about how to make it simple for us to understand, especially since it's the key to the Academy's survival. Some parts don't make any sense, however, like when do they really age? Five is a 58-year-old man that is trapped in his 13-year-old body. Does that mean, unless something changes, he'd die at 35 because when he's an 80-year-old man? And how do they age? Five is going through puberty again. This is more of a season 2 question but when they fix everything and all is right with the world, will they go back to aging normally or will they all perish at a young age?
I lost track, the two people I mentioned above have an existential crisis, especially when Mindhunter develops a relationship with the local doughnut lady. They struggle with the fact that they live meaningless lives killing people in history, never settling in one place, never having a life of their own. They even struggle with a task sent by Five to kill one another, but they decide not to instead.
The show plays with our emotions a lot from comedy to tragedy to confusion to dislike to like again. One minute, you're like, "What the hell? This show sucks," and the next you're laughing your ass off and not wanting them to stop. What helps is it's got a killer soundtrack, no pun intended, where they're playing Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" while Mindhunter and MJB shoot up a department store, and have Klaus' ice cream truck tinkle "Ride of the Valkyrie" while he and Diego race to rescue Five and Luther. Speaking of that last part, I never liked "Happy Together". Ever. (dodging a lamp) But I approve of its use in the fight against Mindhunter and MJB while the Academy gets away. By the way, the soundtrack is available on Spotify.
There are two things that were exceptionally weird, one of which I hope they explain in season 2. Pogo is their monkey butler. I want to know who is Pogo really and how come he could speak. Did Professor Hargreeves create a serum that allows him to speak? The other thing is the environment around them. It's 2019, but as you look around where they live, no one owns a cell phone. Payphones litter the streets. TVs are bulky wooden boxes rather than giant plasma screens. There are no computers, not even in corporate offices. Everything is in hard files. No one is tweeting or Instagramming. The cars look as if they haven't left the eighties. Did all time stop from moving forward when the Academy was born? The date kept going but pop culture didn't appear to evolve. Is George Bush still president? Perhaps not; he died just recently, but what if he stopped aging?
Every member of the Academy agreed at one point or another that Hargreeves was the worst father ever. This season didn't really give us a chance as to why he did things he did like locking Vanya away or sending Luther to the Moon. That is something they will have to explore in Season 2.
Things to consider for season 2, are you listening? Give Five a name, work out how this time and aging thing works, give Pogo an origin story, and make Hargreeves somehow justifiable in his actions.
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Released On: February 15, 2019
Rating: TV-14
Stars: Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher
Directors: Andrew Bernstein, Peter Hoar, Ellen Kuras, Stephen Surjik, Jeremy Webb
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%
IMDb Score: 8.9/10 (Average)
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