The Umbrella Academy Season 3: Umbrellas meet Sparrows, oh and there’s another apocalypse!

The Umbrella Academy Season 3 is finally here! Yes, folks! After almost two years of waiting, we finally have some answers to the millions of questions we had after that Season 2 finale! And of course, we want to discuss some of them with y’all.

Created for Netflix by Steve Blackman and based on the comic book of the same title by Gabriel Bá and Gerard Way, The Umbrella Academy follows a dysfunctional family of super-powered adoptive siblings who reunite to solve the mystery of their father’s death and the threat of an impending apocalypse.

In the second season of the show, the Hargreeves siblings – now scattered back in the ’60s in Dallas, Texas – face some pretty intense issues on their quest to return to their original timeline. Between racial riots, the Kennedy assassination, and the never-ending persecution of the Commission, they go through it all while searching for a way back home. The last episode of the season sees the Hargreeves finally time traveling back to the present to what would be their original timeline, only to discover that what they knew as The Umbrella Academy is now The Sparrow Academy and that Ben (Justin H. Min), their once-deceased brother, is somehow still alive in this future.

The Umbrella Academy Season 3 wastes no time and picks up right where Season 2 left off. So come with us as we try to untangle this new timeline, which in our opinion is one of the best this show has pulled off so far!

The Umbrella Academy Season 3: Umbrellas meet Sparrows

As we already mentioned, when we last saw the Umbrellas, they had just returned from 1963 after preventing the (second) apocalypse and time-traveling back to the present. But what appeared to be a victory for the set of siblings was short-lived, as they were soon shocked to discover that they had been replaced by the Sparrow Academy – another set of superhero siblings raised by their once-adoptive father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore).

But why? Is this another reality? A different timeline? Yes and no. It turns out that their actions in the past – 1963 – had dire consequences in this version of the future. And although we’re not going to spoil them all, we can tell you that these consequences led Sir Reginald Hargreeves to adopt a different set of gifted children on the day all these superheroes were originally born – October 1st, 1989.

This new set of famous siblings includes the once-Umbrella-Academy-member Ben, who died during a mission when the OG Hargreeves were still kids. However, this version of Ben is completely different from the lovable ghost-Ben we’ve all grown to know and love over the past two seasons. In the words of the Umbrellas themselves, “he’s a dickhead.” 

The rest of the Sparrows are made up of Marcus (Justin Cornwell), Sloane (Genesis Rodriguez), Christopher, Fei (Britne Oldford), Alphonso (Jake Epstein), and Jayme (Cazzie David). Who all have their own special superpowers ranging from super strength (Marcus), telekinesis (Sloane), bird conjuring (Fei), toxin emission (Jayme), and kinetic energy redirection (Alphonso) to, believe it or not, a sentient cube (Christopher).

But who is the best? It takes one fight (and dance-off, literally) between these two sets of siblings to prove that, on paper, the Sparrows appear to be the superior team. But that’s only because they’re used to fighting together all the time and Sir Reginald’s involvement in raising them seems to have been better than it was with the Umbrellas. But as the season progresses and the Sparrows’ numbers dwindle significantly, it’s clear that the Umbrellas are and always will be the best dysfunctional super-powered family in any timeline. 

But we’re getting a bit off-topic, let’s get back to the season.

The Brellies at the Hotel Obsidian

Kicked out after the fight from what used to be their home, the Umbrellas head to a fancy but weird-looking place called the Hotel Obsidian to regroup and decide what to do. While The Umbrella Academy has always worked as an ensemble show, Season 3 bets on the individual storylines of the characters, and it truly pays off as each of our leads gets a chance to shine.

Klaus (Robert Sheehan) becomes obsessed with the idea of finding his birth mother and understanding where he really comes from. This new obsession leads him to develop an unexpected and at times quite amusing connection with this timeline’s version of his father and to discover the full potential of his superpowers – no spoilers, but this one blew us away. Diego (David Castañeda) barely has any time to process what’s going on around him before he’s faced with new (and BIG) responsibilities in the aftermath of his relationship with Lila (Ritu Arya). Luther (Tom Hopper) begins to develop a romantic connection with Sloane, a member of The Sparrow Academy, causing him to reconsider his priorities and really tap into that himbo mode of his.

Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) goes through some of the most intense and heartbreaking storylines this season, as she is forced to grieve the loss of both her husband from 1963, Ray (Yusuf Gatewood), and her daughter Claire (Coco Assad) from the original timeline. Vanya (Elliot Page), whose identity journey actually began in Season 2, comes out as a trans man in Episode 2 and changes his name to Viktor. But his story doesn’t just revolve around that this season, as a visit from someone in his past brings him face to face with a terrifying and harrowing reality that threatens to test the bond with his siblings. And Five (Aidan Gallagher)? Well, Five’s plan is just to enjoy this new timeline and finally retire. But in true The Umbrella Academy style, he soon realizes that their arrival in this version of the future wasn’t as uneventful as he first thought and that they inadvertently created a catastrophic event that’s already ending the universe as we know it…again.

The Kugelblitz 

We know! The world is ending again, surprise, surprise. Once again, the Umbrellas must preserve the space-time continuum while dealing with the emotional fallout of their time-traveling shenanigans. But while the formula seems to be the same for this season as it was in its previous installments, The Umbrella Academy Season 3 really takes on a new life with the introduction of this new time paradox, which while leading to the same catastrophic ending, is VERY different from what we’ve seen in previous seasons.

Five explains it better than us, but we’ll try our best. With the arrival of the Umbrellas to the future and after the events that took place in 1963, they created what the Commission describes as the Grandfather Paradox. In the Commission’s book of paradoxes (you won’t believe who created the Commission by the way), it’s explained that the Grandfather Paradox is a hypothetical time event in which a subject goes back in time and basically prevents their own existence in the future by killing a direct relative from their past, but they still exist and are the direct source of such tragedy in the future, are we explaining ourselves? 

We don’t want to spoil what actually happens because it’s a really cool plotline that has a huge impact on the story until the end of the season, but in simpler terms, some of the events of 1963 prevented the Umbrellas from even existing in this new future, but they’re still physically there, so their presence is itself a time paradox. This paradox is nothing more than energy taking the form of a Kugelblitz – some sort of black hole that causes the universe to contract rather than expand itself – thus condemning the world to a certain doom. 

So…can the Hargreeves siblings save the world again?

That seems to be the big question and you’ll have to watch The Umbrella Academy Season 3 to get the answer, but we can tell you that this season is definitely action-packed with a lot going on. Like A LOT.

The show now has two sets of main characters (the Umbrellas and the Sparrows) and they each have very distinct relationships and backstories as individuals and as members of their respective families. So again, there’s a lot going on and at times you’ll feel like the show is a bit overstuffed, but once you start untangling all the mess and the many threads come together as one, it’ll all make sense. We promise.

This season delivers some of the best performances from the main cast, with Elliot Page, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Justin H. Min, and Aidan Gallagher perhaps shining brighter than the rest. But overall, both the old and new cast members deliver, and deliver well.

The Umbrella Academy is a show that’s crafted with a lot of love and care, and you can particularly see that this season not only in the complex and rich storytelling but in the way they so masterfully (and respectfully) weaved Page’s own transition into the show without making it the center of attention.

We talked about this in more detail in our article on Viktor Hargreeves, but we truly did cry a lot of happy tears at the way they handled the character’s transition and how beautiful the reaction from all the other characters was. Luther asking him to be his best man, Harlan not hesitating to call him Viktor despite being a man raised in a very different time, Viktor’s bright smile when looking in the mirror… *wipes away happy tears*

The Umbrella Academy Season 3 is in our humble opinion the most emotional and action-packed installment of the Netflix original series to date. And we really hope that we can get another season of this show because, once again, the season finale left us with more questions than answers. But honestly? We wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Until the next apocalypse, Brellies! 

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The Umbrella Academy Season 3 is available to stream exclusively on Netflix. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!