Review: Netflix original ‘The Umbrella Academy’ storms into top 10
Editor's Note: Beware The Spoilers The 1st season originally released in 2019, and season 2 released July 31, 2020. Since then, it's risen to the No. 1 spot in many countries. As of Aug. 15, the series is the 1st scripted show to stay in the top 10 for 2 weeks. As of Dec. 1, 2020 Elliot Page has come out as transgender, and goes by the pronouns "he" and "they." He also uses the label nonbinary, meaning he neither identifies as a man nor a woman, to define his identity. This review was published July 31, 2020 before Page came out.
Dysfunctional families, we all know them. Some may even live in one, but the family we meet in the Netflix original series “The Umbrella Academy,” based on the comics created by former “My Chemical Romance” frontman Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá, brings that trope to some super (pun-intended) levels.
In the show, we meet the Hargreeves family, whose members include seven super-powered siblings, their adoptive father and mentor Reginald Hargreeves, played by Colm Feore, chimpanzee butler Pogo and android mother figure, Grace, played by Jordan Claire Robbins. The seven siblings were all born on Oct. 1, 1989, with about 43 other children, all to mothers, who earlier in the day had shown no signs of pregnancy.
The curious and supernatural eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves sets out to find as many super-powered children as he can. Possibly through bribery to persuade the mothers, he adopted the seven children who viewers come to know and love. The siblings and their powers go as follows:
No. 1, aka Luther, played by Tom Hopper, has super strength, and after an experiment led by their father, he has monkey DNA fused with his own, giving him an abnormally large chest and arms.
No. 2, aka Diego, played by David Castañeda, manipulates thrown objects like knives.
No. 3, aka Allison, played by Emmy Raver-Lampman, “rumors” anyone into doing anything.
No. 4, aka Klaus, played by Robert Sheehan, summons and speaks to the dead.
No. 5, played by Aidan Gallagher, teleports and time-travels.
No. 6, aka Ben, played by Justin H. Min, died at a young age but his power was summoning unknown creatures through a portal to another dimension located in his body, which most often came in the form of tentacles from his stomach area.
No. 7, aka Vanya, played by Elliot Page, has powers, but due to her inability to control the extreme strength of them, they were suppressed all of her childhood. Her sister Allison manipulates Vanya into believing that she never had powers.
