‌Season 2 ends on an all-mighty cliffhanger when the Umbrella Academy return from the 60s to 2019 only to discover things are not as they expected. Not only is there a portrait of Ben on the wall at the academy where the portrait of Five used to be, but their father Reginald Hargreeves is still alive and he drops this bombshell:"This isn't your home. This is the Sparrow Academy." A mystery group of five assemble above And Ben 2.0 strides into view: "Dad, who the hell are these ass holes ?" This is a huge WTF moment for the Umbrella Academy who suddenly discover they have no home and no obvious future. First off, some interesting details to point out are that Ben, who is of course alive in this new timeline,seems to be the Sparrow Academy leader, the equivalent of the Umbrella crew's Luther aka Number One. Notice the scar on his face, which he presumably acquired on a mission, and also the coat of arms on his jacket which has a sparrow in the top-left quarter rather than an umbrella. Something else you might have missed is a mystery cube that floats into view next to the other Sparrows on the balcony. The cube has some glowing green light inside and although it could be some kind of device or invention the Sparrows use, it might also be the seventh member of the team, perhaps even a character who died like original Ben and whose consciousness is contained within the cube, perhaps like Robot man from Doom Patrol . Or if the cube itself is sentient, it makes me think of the talking A.I., Mainframe, which appears in one of the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 post-credits scenes "I miss you guys so much." If the cube is just a piece of tech though,I wonder if the fact there are only six Sparrows on screen could imply one of them is dead or that there's a supposedly non-powered sibling, like Vanya aka Seven, who's not yet part of their super-team. In the comics, the Sparrow Academy is a group of superheroes who turn up at the very end of the third volume of books to take down a group of villains rampaging through the city. They seem more capable than the Umbrella Academy Who were basically losing the battle until the Sparrows arrived. Their leader calls himself "Number One" but they have different powers to the Umbrella team. And the comic book Sparrows also have a cube that floats alongside them. Gerard Way, the comics writer and producer on the Netflix show, has said the next volume in the comics will begin to answer questions about the other super-babies which strongly implies that the Sparrows are indeed other babies born on that fateful day. The TV show will doubtless have its own plans that will differ in some ways from the comics, but what's especially interesting is that there were sparrow motifs hidden all through the second season fore shadowing the introduction of this new team. But how did the Sparrow Academy come about? Was Reginald Hargreeves so unimpressed with the Umbrella team he met in 1963 that he decided to form an alternative super-group: the Sparrow Academy? "Thank you for coming. I've seen about enough." Or did the Umbrella crew alter the time line so badly in Season 2 that they accidentally wrote themselves out of the future? Let's review the season's big events for evidence and how this points to the existence of an Umbrella Academy multiverse. One of the crucial moments in Season 2 that connects directly to the events of the first season is when Old Man Five time travels through a portal from 1963 to 2019. However, when the scene plays out again in the second season, there's a subtle but vital difference. In Season 2, we see Old Man Five fall backwards through the portal into 2019 rather than falling through face forwards as he did in Season 1 . And the Five that jumps forward in time to 2019 in Season 2 also has a whole lot of different information to what he had in the first season. For example, Luther already told him that the eyeball he found in the apocalypse is just a red herring:"Yeah, that's a waste of time." "Then why were you holding it when I found you dead in the apocalypse?" "No idea. But the guy it belonged to didn't end the world. Vanya did." The eyeball Luther is referring to belonged to Leonard and so now when Five arrives in 2019 it won't make sense for him to chased own leads on where the eye came from, as he'd surely immediately tell the others about Vanya. Which means he will end up creating an alternate time line. We've already seen the show touch on alternate realities in the first season, for example, Episode 6 "The Day That Wasn't", where Allison And Luther dance. But at the end of that episode when Five time-jumped to an earlier point in that day, the show followed on and began an alternate time-line in which Allison and Luther never had that kiss. "We have never even kissed." And there are so many other examples in Season 2 of major effects that the super-siblings must have had on the timeline,that it's easy to see why the gang arrive back in a rather different 2019. As Vanya pointed out in the 60s:"Has anyone done anything here to screw up the timeline?" Klaus, for example, starts a cult that attracts at least a few hundred followers and tries to convince Dave not to sign up to fight in Vietnam. In fact, there's a clue in the sixth episode that the timeline was already changing when Klaus discovers that Dave has enlisted in the army days before it originally happened. And by the final episode, the whole Umbrella crew end up on the national news as persons of interest in the JFK assassination, something which could have myriad repercussions on the timeline. In addition to that, Five killed the Commission's Board of directors, allowing the Handler to take over. Which means the Commission's decisions on how they want the timeline to proceed could be very different now,which could lead to the formation of The Sparrow Academy. And given Reginald Hargreeves is still alive in the new timeline, it's fair to assume that Pogo and Grace who were killed during Vanya's destructive rampage in Season 1 will also be back in Season 3.
A crucial new character that will surely be returning is Lila, who in the finale turned out to be one of the 43 super-powered babies born on the same day in 1989. Lila's power set is fascinating as she canre produce the abilities of any of the Umbrella Academy members in certain circumstances. For example, when Vanya flattened the Handler's Army of assassins with an energy blast, Lila was able to replicate Vanya's defensive powers,by creating a shield that protected both her and the Handler. Lila can also mirror Vanya's other powers,such as when she sent a powerful blast against the Umbrella crew. On top of that, Lila was also able to redirect Alison's rumour back at her, almost killing her. "I heard a rumor...""...you stopped breathing." And she also took on Luther's brute strength when he tried to hit her. Although Lila's huge power reveal was a surprise in the finale, there was actually a hint to her ability to mirror other people's powers during her mid-season fight with Five when she was able to blink just like he does. "How are you doing this?" "Anything you can do, I can do better." Lila's ability to mimic other hero's superpowers reminds me of the Marvel villain Taskmaster who appears in the new Black Widow movie. "So unoriginal." It seems that Lila's abilities may be something that's triggered temporarily, such as when another super-powered individual uses their powers because she doesn't seem to use superpowers any other time. Lila has a troubled backstory, with Five having killed her parents after the Handler placed a kill order on them so she could adopt the gifted girl for herself. So, Diego suggested that she join the Umbrella Academy who he said were her real family, however, she ended up escaping with a Commission briefcase to an unknown time and location. Is it possible that Lila is one of the members of the Sparrow Academy? Either way, she's far too interesting a character not to return at some point. As for Lila's adoptive mother The Handler,by the end of season 2 her double-dealings with the Swedes and her scheming against The Umbrella Academy finally catch up with her as the sole surviving Swede guns her down. Presumably she's dead for good this time;however, that also appeared to be the case in Season 1 when Hazel shot her in the head,but she survived thanks to the metal plate in her head. I wouldn't quite put it past her returning in the future as she was such a fantastic character, with her schemes and outfits getting more and more outrageous as her powers grew within the Commission;though I suspect if she does reappear, it'll be in flashbacks or yet another alternate time line. Although the Umbrella Academy's very existence comes into question when they get back to 2019,by the end of Season 2 the team are actually much stronger and more mature, with a better understanding of who they really are and better control over their powers,which will be important for Season 3. Vanya and Ben perhaps go through the biggest arc with their fates converging in an emotional ninth episode. When Vanya arrives in 1963, she loses her memory after being hit by Sissy's car, so she starts with a blank slate and seems more comfortable in her own skin than in the first season. Not surprising given that now she's not being mistreated , constantly made to feel she's worthless, or incessantly compared to her supervisor-siblings. And as she rediscovers who she really is,this time – unlike in Season 1 she has much more control over her powers. She's able to voluntarily levitate a whole body of water in order to rescue Harlan and she breezily demonstrates how she can manipulate a sound wave in front of Hargreeves and her siblings. She can even turn into the White Violin at will as a way of warning Five, and then quickly turn it off as well. She has control over her energy blasts now and curiously she almost seemed to make the FBI agent's face implode when he was interrogating her. However, when she's drugged by the Feds andelectro-shocked, Vanya's memories of what she did in the first season, including attacking her sister Allison and destroying the world, come flooding back. "You can't deny your true self even if you are afraid". And the emotional overload sends Vanya's powers out of control again. That's when Ben becomes the hero of the moment because, as a ghost, he's the only one who can withstand the physical force that's blasting out from Vanya. Ben uses his newfound ability of possessing another body to enter Vanya's psyche and communicate with her. He helps his sister come to terms with her powers , and explains that she isn't a monster and that her siblings love her and are out there fighting to help her. The brotherly love that Ben shares with Vanya In this moment is very touching and restores her sense of self-worth, bringing her back from the brink of destruction. This experience also gives Ben the resolution he's been looking for for 17 years to leave his current plane of existence. There's a really nice visual of Ben walking towards the light as he goes to help Vanya, which relates to the conversation he had with his brother Klaus at his own funeral: "There's a light and they told me to walk into it." "That thing. Don't worry about it." "You can go whenever you want." As for the others, Klaus develops his ability to manifest ghosts other than Ben in the real world. When Lila's blast sends him flying for a potentially lethal fall, he summons a couple of ghosts to catch him safely. And in the 1963 apocalypse we got a glimpse of the potential of his powers when he summoned an army of the dead. Five finally masters time travel by limiting his attempts to travel back in time to just a few seconds or minutes rather than whole year so or decades at once, and with this skill he's able to reverse everyone's brutal deaths by the Handler. Allison was unable to speak for a year until her throat wound healed and because she couldn't use her power, she felt more like everything she accomplished was earned. Given the situation she lands in though, her inability then reluctance to use her powers can feel more frustrating than usual. But as Emmy Raver-Lampman told Den of Geek,Allison sees her power "as more of a curse than a blessing" as it's "always backfired in the long game". Still, by the end of Season 2, Allison seems to feel she's found the right balance of when to call on her ability. Diego spends much of Season 2 really playing up to his hero complex, and although it's not entirely clear whether he resolved that,his power to manipulate objects in mid-air gets an upgrade in the final showdown when he's able to redirect an enormous hail of bullets. And then there was that pretty awesome moment during the 1963 apocalypse when if you look really closely,Diego is bending this stream of bullets away from him as he spirals through the air. In terms of their personal lives though, in many ways the gang lose more than they gain. Vanya finds a soul mate in Sissy but the dangers of life as a super-powered individual mean Sissy's scared for Harlan's safety if she goes with Vanya. However, a door is left open for a reunion down the road: "If you ever find a safe way back to me, you take it." If Vanya wanted to leave the team or settle down , she could grab a Commission briefcase and travel back in time to be with Sissy,similar to how Hazel enjoyed his golden years with Agnes in another timeline. Each of the others also loses someone important to them. Diego loses Lila to the timeline, although there's a good chance they will meet again; and Allison had to give up her marriage with Ray . Klaus wasn't able to convince Dave not togo to Vietnam and when Ben leaves the earthly plane, he's no longer able to see the girl he likes from Klaus's cult. As for Luther, when Jack Ruby disowns him,he loses the father figure he never had. "I treated you like a son" Ok, time to discuss Harlan, Sissy's son, who was gifted Vanya's telekinetic powers when she resuscitated him after he appeared to drown. Those little lights that transferred intohim seem to confirm the theory that the glowing lights we saw Hargreeves release in the Season 1 finale are connected to the special powers inherited by Vanya and likely all 43 super-babies born in 1989. Harlan's manifestation of powers triggers a major alarm at the Commission, with the Handler recognising the importance of the event which is why she went immediately to take Harlan for herself, like she did with Lila . Interestingly though, the transference of power from Vanya to Harlan connects them both even across distances. Harlan goes into a trance when Vanya is being tortured by the FBI, and emerges from it at the same time that she comes out of her shock. Harlan can also repel a bullet fired at him,just like Vanya did when the Swedes tried to shoot her. And similar to Vanya in Season 1, when Harlan's Emotions get out of control after the deflected bullet accidentally kills his father, he begins to go supernova. Vanya eventually is able to calm him down when she removes those golden lights from his body, however, as we see later when he's levitating one of his bird toys, he still retains at least some of the powers she gave him. Which makes me wonder whether Harlan might grow up to be the father of any of the members of the Sparrow Academy or even help form the group with Hargreeves? Season 2 goes deeper into Reginald Hargreeves' backstory, revealing that he was working for a time with a shadowy organisation called the Majestic 12. He had a deal to trade them his rocket technology in return for leaving alone his interests on the dark side of the moon. Hargreeves objected to their assassination of President Kennedy and attempted to leave the group. And when they tried to blackmail him, we got the awesome reveal that he's really an alien hiding underneath human skin. We only get a glimpse of the back of his head but the moment is a great nod to the same reveal in the comics that Hargreeves wears a mask to blend in as a human, which also explains why he never seems to age. Something I really enjoyed in Season 2 was getting to learn a lot more about the Commission and in particular the Infinite Switchboard Where operators constantly monitor the timeline for anomalies.
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