WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy Season 2, streaming now on Netflix.
When watching the second season of The Umbrella Academy, one thing becomes instantly clear: Season 2 is a massive improvement over the first. This isn't meant to be a knock on Season 1 -- no, the Netflix series' first season was good. It succeeded in introducing a very weird world and a strange, dysfunctional family of superheroes with a sprinkle of time-travel, and it made it all work. And because of this foundation, Season 2 was able to hit the ground running and offer something even better and more refined.
In The Umbrella Academy's second season, the characters were more well-defined and the actors had an even better handle on their roles. The storytelling was also much more concise and the team's predicament in 1963 was engaging. There was fun, excitement, fright and horror, superhero battles and memorable musical moments -- but that's only part of the reason Season 2 was such an improvement over the first. The truth is, this new season had a secret weapon: family.
At its core, The Umbrella Academy is a show about family. After all, the main characters are all adopted brothers and sisters, and the television series itself began with them reuniting for their father's funeral. But while Season 1 of the Netflix series started by bringing all of these characters together, perhaps its biggest flaw was that it rapidly separated them afterwards.
For most of the first season, the Hargreeves siblings each had their own solo storylines that converged only on occasion: Vanya was on her own with her evil boyfriend; Diego was busy being a vigilante; Klaus was doing what Klaus does; Allison was more concerned with getting back to her old life; Five was trying to stop the apocalypse; and finally, Luther had his own issues to deal with. It's only near the end of the season that the siblings properly united -- and even that was done to stop one of their own.
There was also plenty of animosity between the characters in Season 1, which was born of the dysfunctional nature of their upbringing.
But Season 2 changes that in a big way. By stranding the Umbrella Academy in 1963, the characters were now out of their comfort zones. Sure, they spent plenty of time off on their own, starting new lives separated from each other, but they all worked to find one another. And when they did, the series kept the siblings together. At times they were splintered off into smaller groups, but for the majority of this second season, The Umbrella Academy allowed its title super-team to be a family.
There were small, tender moments between each of them. They were there for each other and they supported one another when they needed to. They stopped lying to each other and instead chose to talk. They are still dysfunctional, to be sure, but Season 2 went a long way in showing the tangible love between the Hargreeves siblings. This gave the season some much-needed heart and, in turn, it allowed for a much stronger emotional core.
If Season 2 proved anything, it's that the Umbrella Academy -- the team and the television series -- works best when the Hargreeves are together, not apart.
Streaming now on Netflix, The Umbrella Academy Season 2 stars Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher and Justin H. Min, with Ritu Arya, Yusuf Gatewood, Marin Ireland, Jordan Claire Robbins, Kate Walsh and Colm Feore.