THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

The Umbrella Academy is a recent show Netflix launched after a 2007 comic that was made in an alternate reality where JFK wasn’t murdered. Having little knowledge of these comics, the show has been altered slightly to their own TV adaption. After watching the trailer of the season I was pretty hyped about the idea of it all but all the same I had a feeling a great idea will be shattered as it would have been better as a movie rather than a TV show. When these sort of TV shows are made, they tend to drag the idea and milk money from it as long as they possibly can until the point viewers start criticizing and stop watching it all at once. 

The episode opens with a woman swimming. She goes to dive in the pool and starts screaming in pain with blood forming in water. People around her pull her out and she gives birth, even though before diving she wasn’t pregnant at all. The very same day 43 other children are born the same way. A multi billionaire pays 7 mothers and adopts them. He could only get a hold of 7 unusually super powered children born in an unnatural, sudden birth. These seven children lived in a mansion with a highly intellectual chimpanzee named Pogo and a mother figure who they called mom. Each one of them have a unique power they can control. Number 1, or Luther, is a buff guy who I’m assuming has super strength and works on the moon. Number 2, or Diego, has heightened sense and works as a police officer. Number 3, or Alison, can whisper into peoples ears, making them bend to her will. She is a super star. Number 4, or Klaus, can talk to the dead. He has a giddy personality and is known for abusing drugs. Number 5 can move through time and space, or telekinetically move, but has been missing for years. Number 6, or Ben is dead He could transform himself into anything he wanted. Klaus can see and talk to Ben at times. And number 7, Vanya, has no super power. 

All these children find out that their father died in the first 10 mins into the plot and they meet up at the mansion. Everyone hates Vanya because she gave out family secrets in order to be someone in the Umbrella Academy. Feeling overwhelmed and an under achiever due to her circumstances has lead her to be depressed and is seen popping pills often. After lurking around the house, Luther seems to think dad’s death was out of the blue, while Diego constantly shuts it down. After a while a small black hole is formed outside their yard and number 5 appears. He answers no questions as to where he was or why he went. A small ceremony is made where Pogo tries to speak generously about dad. But with all the tension around, it is unveiled that dad was a strict dictator figure who wasn’t attached to the kids and thought of them more as an experiment, and none of the children seem to take that admirably. Short flashbacks of how these children were trained is shown and Vanya always seems to be left out. After all that has been said and done, everyone goes their own way. Number 5 ends up in a coffee shop and is followed by some gang of upgraded technology goons who track him down and try to kill him. Needless to say he teleports into space and kills them in a fraction of time. After everyone ends up back to their lives, Vanya opens the door and finds number 5 sitting on her couch. He tells her he traveled in time and the world is ending in 8 days from today and doesn’t know how to stop it. 

Having seen the only plot, I sense that the show is very predictable and though it may seem that us figuring out some parts is very Sherlock of us, it is indeed not. They made it easily comprehensible for those who cannot catch on to the plot of the whole season in one go. Even though the plot of the umbrella academy was well established for the viewers to catch on to the idea of the show, a lot of scenes felt very forced and the lines were pretty calculated with shorted pauses. The plot could not figure out if it wanted to be light or dramatic and switching from comical music to theatrical constantly was getting a little tiring. The overall base that they made to continue the show was entertaining yet it could have been made better if the back stories of what the characters were referring to came to an instant flashback WHEN they were saying it or sliding it smoothly in an hours time of the episode. The sequencing of the plot felt disorganized and chaotic

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Two people are suspects of killing dad, the chimpanzee, Pogo, and possibly Diego, but that might be a little too obvious to be true. Watch the show and comment who you’re betting on. I hope the show doesn’t getting over stretched, predictable and sticks to a good script.

Overall I’d give this one a 7.5/10.