The following contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy Season 3, now streaming on Netflix
The Umbrella Academy's third season, now streaming on Netflix, takes the cast to some pretty absurd extremes -- and considering how much gonzo nonsense the adopted family has already survived, that's saying something. That's especially true for Five (Aidan Gallagher) and Lila (Ritu Arya), whose time-traveling antics take them to the very end of time, leading both of them to make some pretty massive discoveries about themselves and their place in the world along the way.
They also end up confronting a paradox that threatens to wipe out all existence because it wouldn't be The Umbrella Academy without another apocalypse dooming the Earth. During a discussion with members of the press including CBR, Aidan Gallagher and Ritu Arya broke down Five and Lila's respective growth over the course of The Umbrella Academy's third season, Five's potential retirement plans, and how a minor script idea turned into a highly choreographed nude fight scene.
Five spends the early portion of Season 3 fixated on the hope that he could finally retire from saving the world only for a new set of world-threatening circumstances to draw his attention all over again. Reflecting on whether he believes Five could actually step away from his habitual heroics, Gallagher admitted that "I think at first he would sort of wrestle with the whole retirement thing. I don't think he's quite figured out exactly what he wants. He sort of just like, 'This is what I'm supposed to do, right?' I think he'd be a bit lost at first, and then he'd eventually settle into the comic book version of Five -- being a hired gun running around in a suit with a dog maybe, just going on missions and stuff. I think that's how he passed the time, with a nice glass of scotch."
Five does get to see what his darker future could look like in the form of the Founder -- an important figure within the secret inner workings of the time-traveling organization, the Commission. This chance to actually confront the ghost of his future sins gives Five the chance to confront who he is and how he sees himself. "I think that has to do with a lot of self-hate that he has," Gallagher explained. "He doesn't like who he is. But he is a sort of a malicious entity who is sort of grounded by his family ties, and [he] wants to resolve the trauma of his youth -- which is the fiery apocalypse he was forced into growing up. And so that coupled with the love for his family is what ultimately makes him a good person."
"But he's quite a vicious being. Meeting another version of himself is frustrating just because that's sort of his personality. It has a lot of friction in it. And with this particular instance, he's giving himself advice. To hear himself say 'Don't do anything' is so infuriating... There's a lot of rage in that particular meeting. It's not even having anything to do with the paradox psychosis thing. It's just self-loathing."
Lila, played by Ritu Arya, spends most of Season 3 fighting the family but is occasionally stuck working alongside them as the chaos in their lives continues to escalate. Arya had a more expansive than in her previous year on the show, including a pretty dynamic fight against Five in the nude -- something Arya revealed wasn't in the original script for the episode. She explained that Series Creator/Executive Producer Steve Blackman "Was kind enough to... well, he's just an awesome collaborator and always encourages our ideas. And so, I think I felt like something was sort of missing between Lila and Five from where they left off in season two. So I suggested, can there be some kind of fight when they first meet? And he loved the idea. So, you know, I was like, 'She's not going to put on clothes It's just like, attack.' She's so uninhibited. [Lila] doesn't care about that stuff. So it just kind of happened."
Of course, that's where the limitations of filming a television show with some restraint on actual nudity come in. "And then afterward, I realized sort of the logistics of that, because, you know, they can't show anything. So in rehearsals, we had someone come in who... had like the camera with us to try and figure out what could we actually film and what moves would work given those restrictions. I think it worked, it was really a lot of fun. And that scene in particular on-set kept getting pushed just because of scheduling. So it meant that we kind of got to analyze, we got to add a bit of stuff. So it became like a bigger thing than even originally it might have been, and they loved it and kept it in. We had a lot of fun filming that."
Looking back at the arc, Lila finds herself in throughout the new season -- ranging from lying to Diego about their "son" to test his potential parenting skills to actually confronting some harsh emotional truths about herself -- Arya explored where she took the character. "She goes with the flow. She's angry about what she has gone through, and then she finds out she's pregnant, and she's lost. She doesn't know what to do. And again, this kid is with her, and she's just not maternal."
"She's a kid herself. She's had such a weird upbringing of time traveling, being an assassin, and trying to please her mom -- who has never given her any reason to feel good about herself. So she's like, 'Hey, let's go terrorize this guy who I am concerned is going to be the father of my child.' She doesn't realize [that] what she's doing is so selfish and so manipulative until it's a bit late, and then she has to complete. That takes courage and vulnerability. So I think she goes on this amazing journey of self-discovery this season."
To see Lila and Five's heartfelt story arcs and absurd fight scenes, check out The Umbrella Academy on Netflix