Vanya was diffused and Doomsday is seemingly prevented, but something is up with Harlan. Ben is gone, for good this time, Reginald Hargreeves is not human, and Diego was unable to stop JFK from being assassinated. The Handler is preparing for an all out war, but with who? (Probably Five.) This is the finale of season 2 of The Umbrella Academy.
2006
The Hargreeves children surround Ben’s casket in the courtyard for a service and Reginald blames them for Ben’s death. The ghost of Ben returned to Klaus that day all those years ago, and Klaus convinced him to stay with him and not go towards the light coaxing him away.
Back in present day, it turns out the Hargreeves didn’t leave Doomsday unscathed. While the Soviets and the United States aren’t about to start a nuclear war, every single one of them is now wanted by the FBI and the Temps Commission. Five tells them it doesn’t matter where they go, the Commission will find them. Vanya is trying to call Sissy, who isn’t answering, and she has a vision of Harlan yelling “help me” and then remembers the little orbs of light that transferred to him the day she saved him from the lake. Vanya tries to convince her brothers and sisters to come with her and help her, but they disagree, they need to make a stand where they are and she leaves alone. But before she drives off, Klaus slides into the seat beside her.
He’s trying to keep up that nonchalant Klaus facade about Ben’s second death, but he does break a little and asks if there was anything Ben mentioned about him. “He wanted me to tell you that he was too scared to go to the light, it wasn’t you that made him stay.” Klaus is relieved. He’d spent years thinking it was his fault that Ben couldn’t go to heaven. Soon after, the rest of the siblings join to help Vanya save Harlan. And a familiar milk truck (minus two of its blonde occupants) follows.
Sissy is in a panic, she knows what’s happening to Harlan is caused by Vanya; she remembers Vanya’s powers and is seeing them in Harlan now. Harlan is caught in a vortex, which Vanya can penetrate and she walks through to speak to him. Something catches Klaus’ eye in the distance as Vanya tries to break Harlan from a similar trance she’d been in the day before at the hands of the FBI — The Handler and Lila have arrived. Five and Diego break off to talk with them.
They’re here on official business to eliminate the person responsible for the assassination of the former Board of Directors, which is technically Five. Lila begins to accuse Five of murdering her parents, but The Handler quickly changes the subject and summons hundreds of Temp Commission agents to help take out the Hargreeves. “Fight and die now or run and die later” are the options according to Five, and that seems about right unfortunately.
Vanya effectively calms Harlan, and the vortex begins to subside as the remaining Hargreeves sprint back towards the barn as The Handler releases her army upon them. The vortex calms until bullets begin raining down upon the barn, and Harlan surges again, throwing himself and Vanya in the process. Wait … DIEGO CAN STOP BULLETS? He controls the bullets as they speed towards himself and Five as he tells his brother to run, blocking the onslaught of projectiles headed their way.
The siblings are no match for the army of the Temps Commission, and they all have seemingly accepted their fate. As they bunker down, ears covered, Vanya floats into the sky from the barn, her chest glowing white. With a single, well controlled blast she takes out every single operative (except Lila and The Handler in a handy force field), saving her siblings. And oh.my.god, Lila possesses the same powers as Vanya? So that’s why The Handler wanted her so bad. She sends a blast back at the Hargreeves, who all go flying. Klaus, however, cries for someone to catch him, and he is … by two very dead cowboys.
Diego’s leg is caught under a tractor, Five is buried by bricks as the ceiling of the house caves in … and Lila can also teleport like Five? And she has super strength like Luther? Can she just mimic all of the powers around her? Lila and Allison get into some hand-to-hand combat before Allison tries to rumor her, but her rumor ricochets back and affects her instead. The rumor sent flying back to her? She can’t breathe. Luther begs with her to fight it as Five draws Lila off, and she does.
“Anything you can do I can do better.” Ah, so Lila can mimic powers.
The Handler knocks Sissy out as she finds her and Harlan beneath the barn, saying she’s about to be Harlan’s new mother. She’s collecting special children just as Reginald had it seems. The siblings (minus Five, who’s occupied with Lila) regroup with Diego at the tractor, helping him up, and they come to the conclusion that Lila is one of them — a special child born on October 1, 1989. And they begin to plot how to defeat her; can she only mirror one of them at a time?
Lila confronts Five about the murder of her parents. He remembers. He tries to tell her that he did it under The Handler’s orders, she’d actually come on that job, something she’d never done before. “She never cared about your parents. She was looking for you,” he tells her. The other siblings arrive and Diego tells her that The Handler stole her, just as Reginald had stolen him and the rest of his brothers and sisters. He continues his very un-Diego like speech reassuring her that he knows she’s afraid of what The Handler is going to do with all this power she holds now. He knows what it’s like to love dangerous people, “difference is, they love me back.”
I know that we can be your family, if you just let us. -Diego
And just as Lila begins to believe in Diego and the Hargreeves, The Handler comes in and shoots them all, save Lila. The Handler doesn’t deny Five’s allegation that she’s the reason Lila’s family is dead, but wants Lila to get over it anyway, be a happy family again. But Lila tells her the Hargreeves are her real family, and The Handler shoots her, too. Five is somehow still (barely) alive, and The Handler approaches to finish him off, but is then shot by the last remaining member of The Swedes. This was not the last man standing we’d expected.
It’s up to Five now. He remembers his father’s words about testing the limits of his time traveling abilities, “seconds, not decades,” and turns back time just long enough to catch The Handler before she arrives. He intercepts her at the entrance to the barn, disarming her. But before Lila can get her answer if The Handler is responsible for the murder of her parents, the last remaining Swede arrives right on schedule and kills her … again. Lila takes her mother’s briefcase and runs while Five squares up with his blonde adversary, but he drops his weapon. Enough, they both say, and we’re left with the Hargreeves alone.
Harlan is still stuck in his vortex, and Vanya removes all traces of her powers from him.
Herb and his associate in resistance, Dot, arrive to the farm next, the massacre of Commission agents surrounding them. Diego and Five meet them on the green and Herb tells them that while a new Board needs to be elected, he’s acting Chairperson. Way to go, Herb! He tells them to take their pick of briefcases, and it’ll get them all home.
Sissy can’t and won’t go with Vanya to the future. She can’t risk any harm coming to Harlan. They share a tearful goodbye, but Vanya knows it has to be this way. They both do. Allison has left a letter for Raymond in the book he’d given her. David gets on his bus to Basic Military Training, and the Swede last standing is picked up by Klaus’ cult bus. Looks like Harlan hasn’t lost all of his abilities, his faithful toy sparrow floating in his palm as his mother drives them to a new life in California. And just like that, the Hargreeves have returned to April 2, 2019.
Ah, but this isn’t the 2019 they remember. The original April 1, 2019 Apocalypse has been avoided and the siblings are home. Everything seems fine until they wander into the house in search of a much needed drink to find a painting of Ben above the mantle. And their father. Alive. Oh, and this isn’t The Umbrella Academy. This is the Sparrow Academy. Ben is alive, with a new look, and he doesn’t know them at all. On the second floor, a whole new family of super humans.
“Shit.”
