A REVIEW OF “THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY” SEASON 2 (SPOILER FREE)
I question when I will hit the superhero movie fatigue that is always brought up in conversation when the likes of Marvel and DC throw out their beloved titles that the studios recognize as cash cows or when fanboys in a homicidal rage scream to the interwebz “Release *insert name”‘s Cut!”. All I have to say is, “Not Yet”. Also, I need to recognize the thought and effort put into television shows of the less well-known comic book entities. Of course one must mention “The Walking Dead” (even though that show should have ended around 4 seasons ago), HBO’s “Watchmen”, Amazon’s dark and entertaining superhero show “The Boys”, and of course Netflix and My Chemical Roman….I mean Gerard Way’s “The Umbrella Academy”. (Not to forget the now defunct and gone-too-soon shows of Netflix’s “Daredevil”, “Jessica Jones”, “Iron Fist”, “The Punisher”, and “Luke Cage”). I plan to keep this review as spoiler free as I can, but it is technically “Season 2”, so there will be mentioning of sh*t that occurred in “Season 1”.
Let me first start off by saying that I feel like it’s been ages since we met “The Umbrella Academy” (even though the show premiered in February of 2019) and the Hargreeves children who make the X-Men look like model citizens in comparison. If you don’t want to know the ending of season 1, please stop reading HERE.
Vanya f*cked sh*t up.
To give more detail in an eloquent manner, Vanya murdered the moon in season 1 which caused a giant piece of it to careen into the earth; killing all life as we know it. Luckily for our heroes, Number 5 (does…does he even have a name?) managed to transport them out of there and back to 1960s Texas, which turned out to be not so bad for most of the group (Klaus even got his own cult)…except for Allison, whose vocal chords had been sliced and has now been deposited in a time where racists denied African Americans their rights, including even the right to sit and be served at a diner.
And this is where I think the second season really one-ups the first season.
As the first season was our introduction to this new comic book world with a new family of enhanced beings with abilities, the second season goes full tilt into showing how they are able to cope being stranded in an era that did not take kindly to what was seen as different, be it Luther’s size, Klaus and Vanya’s sexuality, or Allison’s race. Really, the main plot of this season is just like the entire premise of “Quantum Leap” (another fantastic sci-fi show). Just like Dr. Samuel Beckett, they’re hoping their next leap will be the leap home.
In 10 episodes, Netflix is able to make us feel and empathize with what is going on with each and every one of the main characters (including even Ben, whose character arc was one of the best this season) while weaving an intricate narrative that climaxes into quite the spectacle. I wish I could go into quite more detail on the on-goings (seriously, go watch this…like, right now), but you’ll just have to live with me saying there’s blood, psychotic rage, goldfish, Antonio Banderas lookalikes, daddy issues, and of course (as Dominic Toretto quips in every one of his movies) family. – YoungYoda
The Nerd Corps 