SPOILER ALERT: If you want to avoid SPOILERS for ‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 2, you may want to turn back now or proceed with caution.
‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 2 arrives at the end of this week, and to get you prepared, the show’s creator and showrunner Steve Blackman appeared with the cast for a virtual panel as part of SDCC@Home. At the end of S1, the Hargreeves siblings went into a time warp to escape the Apocalypse.
S2 is based on the “Dallas” storyline and finds the cast scattered through time between 1960 and 1963. The storyline involves the JFK assassination, but also the fact that this time mucking has seemingly pulled the end of the world from 2019 to 1963 and the Umbrella Academy will have to reassemble and work together to try and thwart it… again.
During the SDCC@Home panel, Blackman went into greater detail about where the different Hargreeves “landed.”
“Klaus starts a cult, Allison gets married, Luther finds a surrogate father. It was really important to develop those stories. They were tricky, because you know, each of those new characters had to sort of still work within our world until the family finds themselves again and sort of regroups, probably even stronger than they did in Season 1.”
The first Hargreeves to arrive in the past are Klaus (Robert Sheehan) and the ghost of Ben (Justin H. Min). Being given the extra time allows Klaus to accumulate the most power, by becoming a cult leader. But like most of his decisions, this was a very, very poor one.
Sheehan admitted:
“The novelty of being adored and worshiped by all these thousands of people has sort of very, very quickly worn off and he realizes that being number one, if you will, is a real drag. He’s sort of back to escaping again. It’s like sobriety was his cult in the first series, you know, and drugs was his escape, whereas his escape in the second series is just running with his legs.”
Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is among the earlier arrivals, landing in the South in 1961 during the height of the civil rights movement. Keep in mind, she lost her voice at the end of S1, so navigating in this already tricky climate is made even more difficult. She won’t be spreading any “Rumors.”
As Raver-Lampman said:
“She might not know exactly where in the world she is, but I think she knows exactly where she’s not supposed to be because of the color of her skin. Coming from the 21st century, I’m sure she has faced, you know, prejudice and microaggressions, and racism on some level. But immediately being threatened because of the color of her skin, I think, and legally not being allowed to be places — it has got to be absolutely terrifying… I think she’s at a low in so many ways.”
NOTE: This is a new wrinkle, as the comic book version of Allison was Caucasian.
Monstrous Luther (Tom Hopper) finds himself working as the driver for the owner of a burlesque bar, who becomes like a father figure to him. However, Luther was always the most loyal to their adopted father, Reginald Hargreeves, even after learning how duplicitous he was and how he had manipulated them from the time they were kids. This new identity allows him to grow and develop a life and identity of his own, out from under the “umbrella.”
Hopper revealed:
“I think he realizes that he was a bit too power-hungry, I suppose, and a lot of the decisions he made weren’t the best ones. It’s a big come down to Earth for Luther, I think, but also it’s something that he needed.”
Of all the kids, Vanya (Ellen Page) most needs to escape her past, and she gets that upon her arrival. Upon arriving in the past, she is hit by a car and develops amnesia. She will be taken in by a new family and viewers will see a brand new Vanya.
Page stated:
“She’s released a lot of emotion and repressed trauma, so we find her in a space that’s much lighter. She’s much more open, able to connect to her emotions. I think of course it’s difficult for her because she’s feeling like, does anybody care? Is anybody trying to find me? And feeling lost in that sense. But in so many ways, she’s way less lost than she was in the first season.”
Diego (David Castañeda) arrives in 1963, but after mentioning JFK’s assassination, gets locked up in an asylum. He will meet a character named Lila (Ritu Arya) who will be the Bonnie to his Clyde.
Castañeda explained:
“We find him lost, trapped in an insane asylum and obviously with a purpose of trying to maybe change the timeline, having the capability of proving his father wrong and also maybe understanding him a little bit. And then everything just kind of goes bonkers when Five decides to show up again.”
Unfortunately, while all of these “new lives” sound pretty mild, their actions have done massive damage to the time stream. Fixing these problems falls on the shoulders of Five (Aiden Gallagher), the last to arrive in the ’60s.
As Gallagher said:
“He just gets progressively more and more stressed and as his anxiety builds up, so does the chaos behind his eyes. That was very fun as an actor to see that sort of bubble over and really take over Five, and him really succumb to his suppressed insanity.”
And in case you forgot, there is a seventh sibling, Ben, who died under unrevealed circumstances before the show started. But due to Klaus’ abilities, these two siblings are linked, like it or not.
Min discussed Ben’s development, saying:
“I think through the evolution and progression of Klaus’ powers, Ben gains a lot more agency and independence in the second season and is able to really fight for what he wants.”
When asked if viewers will find out how he died, he began “If I say anything more, I will be — ” Sheehan completed his answer, “assassinated. Like John F. Kennedy.”
‘The Umbrella Academy’ blasts back this Friday, July 31.
Source: Variety
