Recap: The Hargreeves Siblings Explore New Lives in ‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 2, Episode 1 “Right Back Where We Started”

Kaity
Kaity - Co-Director
11 Min Read
Image courtesy of Netflix

“On April the 1st 2019 the Earth was destroyed in a cataclysmic event.”

The Hargreeves siblings have survived the Apocalypse (yes the one they started), and so begins the adventure of Season 2 of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. Based on the comics by Gerard Way, The Umbrella Academy follows the Hargreeves siblings, seven of the 43 children born on October 1, 1989. Each of the seven possess a superhuman ability.

  • Number One, Luther/Spaceboy: Super strength and durability.
  • Number Two, Diego/The Kraken: He can hold his breath indefinitely and is extremely skilled in knife throwing and close combat.
  • Number Three, Allison/The Rumor: Reality altering powers via lying.
  • Number Four, Klaus/The Séance: Mediumship and evocation of the dead.
  • Number Five, Five/The Boy: Time travel and teleportation.
  • Number Six, Ben/The Horror: Deceased. Can possess alternate dimensional monsters and utilize their powers (typically through tentacles flying from his torso).
  • Number Seven, Vanya/The White Violin: The most powerful of the seven. Her powers were suppressed her entire life until the end of season 1. Uses destructive waves, seemingly from her violin.

Season 1 ended with Vanya shattering the moon, setting the Apocalypse into motion. Five saved the siblings with his time traveling powers and we’re set to see just where and when they land …

Klaus and Ben land first in Dallas, Texas on February 11, 1960, but no one follows. Allison drops down in 1961, Luther to 1962, Diego on September 1, 1963, rescuing a damsel in distress, Vanya falls on October 12, 1963 … and gets hit by a car (she’s seemingly fine?), until Five finally makes his landing into the war torn Dallas streets on November 25, 1963.

The Soviets have attacked the United States. “What the hell did we do now?” Five mumbles to himself. Well that’s the question, isn’t it? A tank fires a round from right beside him, and suddenly Vanya emerges. She stops the round in mid-air, reducing it to ash and smoke as Klaus summons an army of dead soldiers to attack the enemies charging towards him. Luther flies down from the sky, blocking an explosive headed right towards his brother, and Ben is seen with his ghostly tentacles, taking out the enemy with ease. Allison blows some soldiers minds … literally to smithereens, and Diego leaps from atop a car, using his high flying acrobatics to dodge oncoming bullets and landing as his soaring knives hit their targets and kill the enemy soldiers around him, yelling for Five, asking where he’s been.

Five runs towards his family but is stopped by Hazel, the time-traveling assassin who fell for Agnes, the donut shop owner in season 1, who tells him nukes are incoming and they’ve got to go. Then Dallas explodes …

Hazel and Five land 10 days earlier on the same street and Hazel tells him he’s got 10 days to reset the timeline and save his family. Three men with white hair exit a bus in front of them, killing Hazel as he sends Five out of the way with his final moments, saving his life … again. Five narrowly escapes a second attack from the posse, who continue their search for him.

Image courtesy of Netflix

As he’s searching for a place to lay low, Five spots some equipment on a rooftop and knows that’s what he needs. He teleports into the owner’s home much to their surprise (Elliott, who’s a bit of a paranormal/extraterrestrial buff), and much to no one’s surprise, makes himself a cup of coffee. Five pretends to be an alien … and manages to get this guy to explain the circumstances of the other five Hargreeves siblings’ arrivals throughout the years here in Dallas, always in the same alley. Five recruits Elliott for help, and Elliott hands him a newspaper cut out of Diego, featuring his mugshot from when he was found outside Lee Harvey Oswald’s house with knives …

Diego is now in a mental institution (has been for 75 days) and group therapy isn’t going his way … or is it? He admits he’s never known the real Diego, but he’s ready to find out. Oh, nope, it’s still Diego, it’s all a ruse. He knows that John F. Kennedy’s assassination is a week away, probably how he he got into a mental hospital in the first place? Yup. He’s playing his part, trying to get out in time to save JFK. At least it looks like he’s made a friend, a woman and fellow patient named Lila.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Five pays Diego a visit. He tells Diego that a new Apocalypse in headed there in 10 days, not 60 years, and that maybe Diego being so hellbent on saving JFK (and possibly succeeding) is what starts it, which just hypes Diego up even more. Five rats his brother out, says he’s trying to escape, and the guards tranquilize him. Glad to see things are still dysfunctional. But, Five promises he’ll be back for him soon, but for now, “nighty-night.”

Vanya is … a live-in nanny?

Image courtesy of Netflix

Klaus is, well, Klaus. And as fabulous as ever. His car breaks down on the way back to Dallas from San Francisco and him and Ben get into a little tiff. Klaus ultimately wins because, well, Ben doesn’t exist without Klaus (“you are my ghost bitch, remember?”). They get into a physical tussle and does anyone else want to see this from the point of view of a passerby? Good, because we get one, and it’s as incredible as we could have hoped it would be. Klaus and ghost Ben trek across the desert on foot, finally finding a billiards bar, where he gets invited to a poker game.

There once was a young buck from Dallas, who sported a miniature phallus …

He taunts his opponents, successfully, as Ben looks on from behind, ensuring him that the man is very much bluffing (except he’s not). Klaus convinces him to ante up the keys to his pickup, and … loses. He steals they keys anyway, tries to get Ben fight with him, who says nah. Klaus gets the truck anyway and drives off.

Allison is married and living in marital bliss.

Luther has joined Fight Club? And he’s, of course, very proficient.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Allison and her husband, Raymond Chestnut, are organizing a sit-in with the other Black civil rights activists of Dallas, scheduling it for five days before the President’s arrival. They’re met with resistance from an affluent white man, who Allison physically removes from the property as he tries to shove his way into their meeting place (Allison’s place of employment, a hair salon).

Back to Vanya, who finds the wife of the family she’s living with, Sissy, smoking in the kitchen, her husband, Carl, is “back to work” in the late hours of the night. The pair head out into a barn for a quiet night, where the woman tells Vanya a little bit about her life.

Well, Diego is in a straight jacket and padded room, rather upset (who would have thought?), and he manages to get his jacket off and the lock to his confines picked. Still very loopy from his sedative, he wanders the halls while the white-haired men from earlier enter the building, killing the guard on duty. Diego is stopped very easily by a guard, but Lila, his friend from group, comes to his aid. They come face to face with the white-haired crew, and their very automatic weapons, and take off running. Lila takes out a few cops on their escape route (is it too early to say we love her?) and the pair has narrowly avoided their very strange assailants, and let the entire mental hospital out, but that’s a problem for another day.

My, my, Luther seems to be living large. He’s at an exotic dancers club with his manager (it would seem?) and is that the husband of the household Vanya is staying in with him? A waitress approaches Luther, they know each other, and tells him she’s worried about a kid sitting front and center in front of the stage. A kid? It’s Five. And Luther isn’t happy to see him.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Five tells his brother about the impending apocalypse and that they have to find the others. “I don’t give a sh*t,” Luther responds. Well, okay then.

Where is Diego? Will Luther join up with Five to reunite the siblings? All 10 episodes of The Umbrella Academy are out now on Netflix!

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By Kaity Co-Director
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Kaity started with Harry Potter in second grade and it’s been a losing battle ever since, or maybe a winning one ... She lives in New England with a small herd of cats, two dogs, three chinchillas, and one daughter. You can definitely find her either watching anime, reading manga, or playing the same five video games over and over again. Contact: kaity@nerdsandbeyond.com
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