The Umbrella Academy Review: Sins of the Parent (Season 2 Episodes 4-6)

In the second third of The Umbrella Academy Season 2, the show starts to hone in on how the parents of the key players — the Hargreeves siblings and Lila — influence each of their individual decisions on how to handle the impending doomsday.

One of the main focuses of The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Episode 5, “Valhalla,” is the relationship between Lila and her mother, The Handler. This is a nice change of pace from the complicated relationships of the Hargreeves. 

As demonstrated on “Valhalla,” Lila is more than happy to work diligently with her mother to achieve whatever the elder woman deems their goal. This is a bit surprising because based on what we know about The Handler, we would automatically assume she failed epically at having a relationship with her daughter.

If anything, The Handler’s superiority complex should make any kind of relationship non-existent and yet we have discovered she has one of the tightest bonds there is in this world — parenthood.

Our instincts — based on our own experiences with the Hargreeves family’s relationship with their own distantly cold father — tell us her daughter should be a mess and have no real connection to anyone in her life. And yet, she is totally devoted to The Handler.

It’s going to be intriguing to watch as these two continue to manipulate and scapegoat Five to meet their ultimate ends. Will The Handler be able to put aside her utter disdain for Five in order to achieve her endgame?

It’s going to be extremely hard for her — if Season 1 is anything to go off of. Therefore, seeing her willingly enter into a partnership with Five during The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Episode 6, “A Light Supper,” catches everyone’s attention because it changes the whole game.

Five ultimately decides to take her up on her offer as an attempt to save everyone — well mostly himself — from the doomsday and put them back in 2019. However, there are so many ways that both Five and The Handler could doublecross the other to achieve their greater ends.

I could see Five being as self-righteous and pompous as he is letting his guard down and The Handler uses Lila to manipulate that to end the world in a way that they find satisfying. After all, The Handler is one and the same with Five which is probably why they both irritate each other so much. 

Evidently, The Umbrella Academy is using both of these parent/child relationships to show that both parents are highly problematic but the results can be drastically different depending on the child. The way Reginald Hargreeves and The Handler view parenthood and childrearing is very similar.

On Season 2 Episode 4, “The Majestic 12,” we get our first glimpse into what Reginald is up to during the 1960s. This gives us insight into how he is as a man — long before he decided to adopt children and “raise” them.

The younger version of Reginald gives us a better, clearer idea of just what he was like as he trained his children to be “heroes.” Sure, we’ve gotten snippets of him in the past doing drills with them but, we’ve never seen him on a much larger scale — much as we do here.

So, how is it that these six — ultimately seven — children were raised in a similar environment as Lila and yet only Luther seems to have a sort of loyalty to the man? Especially, since Luther is only one step up from Vanya on the abandonment scale with their father.

Is it because these children have special abilities to fall back on so they don’t really need that loyalty and connection to their father? We all know that Five is most like him so it isn’t hard to see that he would need that bond the least of all them.

But what about Vanya or Diego who struggle often with finding a family connection? Wouldn’t you think they’d have a loyalty to the man despite his cruel nature because something is better than nothing?

These are all things that keep us on our toes and bring us back for more. We want to find out more about these characters so that we can better understand why they are who they are with regard to their parents.

The relationship with Sissy and Vanya is worth mentioning because it is such a drastic difference from Leonard. Vanya is much more open and freethinking about creating connections with those she cares about this season that it’s hard to imagine she was ever vengeful.

Some would argue that it’s not as exciting that Vanya is more easygoing this season. However, I would argue that seeing this side of her gives us a glimpse of who she could’ve been and she deserves this version of herself.

All of last season she floundered to find a reason for her existence. Now, she knows that she has this gift and knows how to properly manage it and uses it for good.

This in turn gives her a level of satisfaction we have never been privy to with her before. I truly believe that Vanya can be her strongest when she is under control — yes, uncontrolled she is more destructive but controlled she can use her powers on a grander stage.

As we have now witnessed from her on three separate occasions, Vanya is willing to use her power and actually excited to do so. We get to see a level of joy from her which isn’t something that people expect from her based on her outward demeanor. 

Vanya is coming into her own true self and could easily bring her family back together for the greater good. Which considering she’s the one that tears them apart in the other timeline is a major step up and worth watching play out.

Drama doesn’t mean we have to have villains within the family — especially when The Handler and The Commission are a big enough antagonist to the team. That is something that also sets Season 2 apart from Season 1 at the current time.

Vanya isn’t a threat on top of their impending issues of The Commission and nothing could be better for the development of her character. She gets to openly explore herself and who she wants to be without the stress of her uncontrolled magic.

Further Thoughts:

• I hope that Carl doesn’t become a dangerous threat to Vanya and Sissy because both women deserve unconditional love from each other.
• Luther’s emotional eating because of Allison’s marriage is a huge mood.
• Seeing Pogo’s origins leaves me wanting more. I hope we get an insight into how he becomes the highly intelligent version in 2019.
• Once again the music editing is OUT OF THIS WORLD
• The dance scene with Vanya, Klaus, and Allison is a nice parallel between the Season 1 dance scene with all the Hargreeves siblings
• Vanya saving Harlon and be extension creating a connection between him is going to end up helping them in the end — I’m calling it now.
• MORE BEN…ALWAYS! I need more Ben.

What did you think of these episodes of The Umbrella Academy? Share your thoughts in the comments below! Be sure to catch up with our review of The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Episodes 1-3 here.

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The Umbrella Academy is currently streaming on Netflix.

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