The Five’s are facing off, Vanya is the bomb and ready to go off; can Klaus, Allison, Diego get to her in time before she jump starts the Apocalypse?
Klaus, Diego, and Allison are still unable to get past Vanya as she continues to rage. Klaus calls himself sexy trash (no arguments) and him and Diego get into a little argument. Allison would rather battle Vanya’s power than listen to her brothers bicker, and she begins to crawl in the direction of the room holding Vanya. She doesn’t make it far before a sudden surge knocks her backwards. Diego is next, but before he goes, Klaus pumps him up by telling him he looks like Antonio Banderas with long hair (again, no arguments). He uses his knives to steady himself as he crawls up the hallway and he calls to Klaus that he isn’t going to make it, it’s up to Klaus to save the world.
It’s time to pep himself up, Klaus grabs hold of the fire hose Diego let loose and pulls himself forward. Klaus makes it to the door, opens it, but is then sent flying backwards to join the heap of Hargreeves in the corner. Hope is seemingly all but lost, until Ben appears before his fallen siblings, and then heads towards Vanya.
Luther is still stuck between the Fives, with older Five seemingly holding his cool while Five spirals into Paradox Psychosis. Luther, being the terrible liar that he is, basically confirms to Five that older Five is going to kill him with his severely lacking poker face. He also confirms he’s working with older Five on a plan that Five already knows older Five has. It is him after all. He reminds Luther that if he has Paradox Psychosis, other Five has it, too.
Herb rats out Diego to The Handler (she threatened him) and she asks Lila what she’s going to do. He was her responsibility after all. While Lila and The Handler argue about Diego’s fate, and mom’s faith in Lila, Herb goes over to investigate the fish bowl on the desk. He peers in, and written in yellow stones are the numbers “743.” After being kicked out the room, Herb heads down and finds a file for Case 743 and steals the first page.
Ben has no issue getting to Vanya, due to him being a ghost, but that doesn’t mean he can communicate with her to stop. He can, however, possess her thanks to his practice with Klaus. Also, the visions of Harlan pulsing with Vanya’s powers are not visions after all, Harlan is affected by what’s happening to Vanya. (A side effect of her reviving him earlier in the season?) Sissy and Carl find him unresponsive and stiff in his room until he says his first word: Vanya. Carl is in a panic, he takes Harlan and runs, ready to put him into an institution. Sissy stands in front of the car with a gun, she’s not taking Carl’s crap anymore.
Lila corners Herb in the hallway trying to get Diego’s time and location. He asks if she’s really going to kill him, and she responds, “of course not, I love him.” Whether this is setting us all up for more heartbreak or not remains to be seen. Lila, can we trust you again? He also hands Lila the stolen page from Case 743, and whatever it says is not good news to Lila. (Is it the truth about how she came to be with The Handler? What happened to her parents?)
The Fives are now in a battle of teleportation, but Luther finally steps in to talk some sense into these two little psychos. With a swift kick to the groin, they get Luther out of the picture and start their dance.
Ben is searching for Vanya inside her mind. He follows the same path she had, but at the table where we last saw the Hargreeves family sitting eating dinner (brains) is now just a lone white violin, Vanya curled in ball inside. “I remember everything, and I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Vanya confesses to her brother, a face she hasn’t seen in a very long time. Ben tells her it’s no wonder she can’t control it, her father was afraid of her, couldn’t handle her powers, but it doesn’t mean she can’t learn. All of their siblings are out there right now, ready to die for her; she isn’t alone anymore. Turns out, Ben actually isn’t impervious to Vanya’s powers, his spirit is disintegrating inside of her, and he won’t make it out with her. His final request, a hug. It’s been 17 years since he’s felt one, and it’s what he wants to feel in his final moments.
It worked, Vanya wakes up. So does Harlan. Sissy still has Carl at gunpoint. As they argue, Harlan gets out of the car, choosing to stand beside his mother and Carl isn’t happy. He tries to snatch the gun from Sissy, and as they battle for the weapon, it fires and the bullet speeds towards Harlan. But the little piece of Vanya he has inside of him comes alive, blocking the bullet and sending it ricocheting right into Carl’s chest.
Lila knows the truth, well, not really … but she thinks she does. She thinks Five killed her family on an order given by AJ (it was really given by The Handler). And now The Handler has an out, Diego was snooping around looking for that file to hide Five’s transgressions. Lila sets out for revenge, and The Handler … swallows AJ for trying to sabotage her.
Luther is now stuck trying to figure out which Five is the real Five. Well, they’re both the real Five, but which one is the one that can help. Luther decides that regular Five is the one and knocks older Five unconscious. Five opens the portal, and on the other side we see a very familiar sight — the Hargreeves from season 1 when Five first arrives home.
Thinking everything will not be okay with Vanya defused, Diego is back on his mission to save JFK.
So close … as Reginald Hargreeves arrives on the grassy knoll, Five and Luther almost have older Five where they want him, which is jumping down into that vortex. That is, until Luther is knocked out by 2019 Diego tossing something through the portal, and the spotter is gone. Then a battle for the briefcase begins again. Luther kicks older Five through the portal before it closes, but it renders the briefcase useless in the process, as half of it went with older Five back to 2019.
The siblings all watch on as Kennedy turns the corner awaiting the assassination, and Five spots Diego running for his father. So it wasn’t his father after all (or maybe Reggie caught some sense) and the shots fire. The assassination was successful. The man Diego tackled hands him a note from the office of Reginald Hargreeves. “Told you so…”
Speaking of Reginald, he arrives at what looks like a party of congratulations with the Majestic 12. Shockingly, Reginald is upset at the success of the assassination, “he was not to be touched, that was the deal.” They lied to him. Oh, so the Majestic 12 are after the moon. Reggie leaves, telling them not to contact him again. But it looks like Reggie may have some secrets, and they’re going to use them to blackmail him for his technological plans. And then … Reginald removes his face, revealing he isn’t even human, and it sounds like the Majestic 12 are now the Deceased 11.
Well, time is now in quite the anomaly … literally. The Handler recalls all of her personnel from the field, ready to prep for war. The screen zooms in on Sissy’s farm, their barn is bursting with blue and white light. Looks like Harlan might be in trouble …
The penultimate episode of season 2 of The Umbrella Academy was a brutal one. The siblings are all safe (minus Ben), JFK was still assassinated, and everyone is still stuck in the 60s with no way out in sight. And what is going on with Harlan? Can he be saved? One episode remains. You can watch all 10 episodes of season 2 of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix now.
