‘The Umbrella Academy’ Recap, Season 4, Episode 1

It’s been greater than two years since a brand new episode of The Umbrella Academy. Whereas the “Beforehand on …” recap that kicks off the season-four premiere gives a vital refresher on the place we left our heroes, it’s additionally a reminder that a lot of what occurred within the present’s third season didn’t truly matter. All you really want to know is that the grownup kids of the Umbrella Academy have been dropped into an alternate timeline with two main variations: Their imperious adoptive father, Reginald Hargreeves, is outwardly much more highly effective, and all their superpowers are gone.

As soon as once more, The Umbrella Academy has taken a season premiere as an excuse for a delicate reboot. It’s not simply that we’re in yet one more alternate timeline; it’s that the present instantly leaps six years into the longer term from the place season three ended. Which means — for the third consecutive time — that we spend a complete premiere episode catching up on what every of our heroes has been doing on this courageous new world.

The reply, now that everybody has been stripped of their superpowers, is … normie stuff. Luther is a stripper in a dingy dive bar. Allison is performing in detergent commercials. Klaus is a sober germaphobe. Viktor owns a bar (and has apparently damaged the hearts of a lot of the eligible bachelorettes in Nova Scotia). Ben is simply out of jail after serving time for operating a crypto rip-off. Diego delivers packages whereas juggling the three (!) children he has with Lila. And 5 … effectively, 5 is a deep-cover CIA agent, however that’s about as normie because it will get for him.

It’s at all times enjoyable to meet up with some previous mates, and as standard, The Umbrella Academy is at its finest right here when it simply throws them in a room collectively — on this case, a kids’s birthday celebration — and permits their wildly totally different personalities to ping-pong off one another. However for me, not less than, all these resets have additionally launched a form of time-travel nihilism: If the world is continually getting rebooted anyway, who cares if the Umbrella Academy saves it? At this level, what world would they even be saving?

The present’s reply comes within the type of a brand new group: the Keepers, which appears to exist someplace between a help group and a cult. Led by Gene and Jean Thibodeau (Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally), this grassroots group is united by its members’ perception within the Umbrella Impact (a cheeky riff on the Mandela Impact). Throughout the globe, persons are coming collectively, united by shared, hazy recollections that can sound awfully acquainted to Umbrella Academy viewers. Hargreeves on the grassy knoll. A intercourse cult known as Future’s Kids. A gang of kid superheroes in brief pants.

That’s the actual timeline — not less than for our heroes. The Keepers appear to suppose returning to it would result in both an important restoration or the top of the world, and Gene and Jean appear principally fantastic with both consequence. It’s this mission that has 5 and Lila going undercover at a Keepers gathering as “Jerome” and “Nancy,” even when 5’s superiors on the CIA aren’t particularly on this conspiracy.

However the conspiracy turns up on his doorstep anyway. Laundromat proprietor Sy Grossman (David Cross) kidnaps Viktor, prompting his siblings to mount a rescue mission that ends when Sy reveals he solely wished their consideration. His daughter was a member of the Keepers who disappeared a number of months earlier. Primarily based on the unusual artifacts he present in her trunk — most notably, a newspaper article detailing an incident wherein the Umbrella Academy children saved the Eiffel Tower — he’s satisfied they’re the one ones who may help discover her.

How are they going to try this with none superpowers? It’s right here, as soon as once more, that The Umbrella Academy is glad to just about immediately undo the cliffhanger it arrange on the finish of season three. The field of artifacts left behind by Sy Grossman’s daughter additionally features a jar of “marigold” that, when drunk, will restore superpowers. The gang votes in opposition to utilizing it, however they don’t rely on Ben shopping for a spherical of photographs and slipping every of them a dose. “See you on the opposite facet, fuck-faces,” he smirks — and identical to that, it’s a TV present about superheroes once more.

• It’s value noting that this remaining season, ostensibly a victory lap for The Umbrella Academy, additionally arrives with a big, darkish cloud hanging overhead. In June, a prolonged Rolling Stone characteristic laid out a damning case in opposition to showrunner Steve Blackman, citing an HR grievance that alleged a “lengthy historical past of poisonous, bullying, manipulative, and retaliatory habits” aimed toward a wide range of staffers. Blackman, who signed a growth take care of Netflix value a reported $50 million on the again of The Umbrella Academy’s success, known as the allegations “fully false and outrageous.” You possibly can learn the characteristic right here.

• One other signal that The Umbrella Academy might need undergone some artistic retooling between seasons: The season-four premiere doesn’t even try to handle the (already fairly inscrutable) mid-credits teaser from the season-three finale, which featured Ben studying a e book on a subway in Seoul.

• Fan idea time: In earlier seasons, The Umbrella Academy has dropped occasional imprecise references to a “Jennifer Incident.” Might the still-unrevealed true story behind that misadventure be related to Sy Grossman’s daughter?

• The episode is about at Christmastime, and apparently for no actual cause besides an excuse to open the season with Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Child.”

• Watch out what you want for: Allison might have her long-lost daughter, Claire, again on this timeline, however their relationship appears to be strained at finest.

• Diego spies 5 and Lila collectively when she’s imagined to be at her “e book membership,” so we will most likely anticipate a heated confrontation in regards to the affair they’re not having inside the subsequent episode or two.

• Luther drops a fast reference to Sloane, the spouse he misplaced once they departed the Lodge Oblivion, so the Sparrow Academy hasn’t been completely forgotten.

• One of many episode’s few poignant moments comes when Klaus attends the Keepers assembly. “I don’t know what’s actual and what’s not anymore. I really feel like I can’t belief anyone,” he laments — and whereas he’s theoretically undercover and saying no matter he thinks they wish to hear, that actually sounds like how one would possibly really feel after skipping by means of so many parallel universes and doable futures.

• The assorted timeline artifacts double as Easter eggs for followers of the present, together with Hazel’s canine masks from season one; Viktor’s autobiography, Additional-Peculiar: My Life As Quantity Seven; and a VHS copy of the second installment from Allison’s horrible-looking film franchise, Love on Mortgage.

• The Eiffel Tower incident is a direct reference to the very first situation of the Umbrella Academy comedian.

• “East Facet piñatas are infamous for his or her issue.”