The Umbrella Academy (TV series)

The Umbrella Academy is an American superhero comedy drama television series loosely based on the comic book series of the same name written by Gerard Way, illustrated by Gabriel Bá, and published by Dark Horse Comics. Created for Netflix by Steve Blackman and developed by Jeremy Slater, it revolves around a dysfunctional family of adopted sibling superheroes who reunite for their father's funeral and the threat of an imminent apocalypse. The series was produced by Borderline Entertainment, Irish Cowboy, Dark Horse Entertainment, and Universal Content Productions.
The cast features Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Cameron Britton, Mary J. Blige, John Magaro, Adam Godley, Colm Feore, Justin H. Min, Ritu Arya, Yusuf Gatewood, Marin Ireland, Kate Walsh, Genesis Rodriguez, and Britne Oldford. The adaptation began development as a film optioned by Universal Pictures in 2011. It was eventually shelved in favor of a television series in 2015, before being officially greenlit by Netflix in July 2017. The series was filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario.
The first season was released on Netflix on February 15, 2019. In April 2019, Netflix reported that 45 million households had watched season one during its first month of release, thus becoming one of the most-streamed series of the year. The second and third seasons subsequently followed on July 31, 2020, and June 22, 2022, respectively. In August 2022, the series was renewed for a fourth and final season, which was released on August 8, 2024. Netflix gave seasons 1 and 2 a TV-14 rating, while seasons 3 and 4 received a TV-MA rating.
The first three seasons received positive reviews from critics, while the final season was met with a more mixed reception with many calling it an unsatisfying conclusion. The series has received a number of accolades, including six Emmy nominations.

Plot summary

The Umbrella Academy is set in a universe where 43 women around the world gave birth simultaneously at noon on October 1, 1989, although none had shown any sign of pregnancy until labor began. Seven of the children are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves and turned into a superhero team that he calls "The Umbrella Academy." Hargreeves gives the children numbers rather than names, but their robot-mother, Grace, later names six of them: Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, and Vanya. Reginald puts six of the children to work fighting crime but keeps Vanya apart from her siblings' activities, claiming she demonstrates no powers of her own.
The first season is set in the present day, where Luther is part ape and has lived on the Moon for four years, Allison is a famous actress, Vanya is a violinist, Klaus has a drug addiction, Five disappeared sixteen years earlier, Ben, now deceased, is a ghost able to converse only with Klaus, and Diego has become a vigilante. The estranged siblings learn that Reginald has died and gather for his funeral. Five returns from the future, revealing that a global apocalypse is imminent, but is chased by time-travelling Commission operatives Hazel and Cha-Cha. The reunited siblings try to uncover the secrets behind Reginald Hargreeves' life, and their dysfunctional relationships are strained. They band together to try to prevent the impending apocalypse.
The second season sees the siblings scattered in Dallas at different times in the early 1960s, establishing lives for themselves. Five arrives there on November 25, 1963, minutes before a nuclear doomsday that is linked to JFK not being assassinated, but with the help of Hazel manages to travel back ten days. Five is hunted by a trio of Swedish assassins but finds his siblings, who have all made new lives, and attempts to reunite them in order to stop this new apocalypse.
In the third season, the siblings realize their actions in the past created a new timeline and returning to 2019 is vastly different where they have been replaced by another Hargreeves superhero group adopted by Reginald, dubbed "The Sparrow Academy". They also have to find a way to stop a kugelblitz from consuming and destroying the universe created as a result of the grandfather paradox the siblings caused through their time-travel. They successfully reset the universe, while losing their powers in the process, and go their separate ways.
In the final season, the siblings reconnect with the goal of stopping the "Cleanse". They also regain their powers in the process, and some have augmented or completely different powers. At the end they eventually realize that the only way to save the timeline is to erase themselves from the universe. They come to terms with this fact and let the Cleanse reset the timeline back to normal, removing all traces of the Umbrella Academy's existence.

Cast and characters

Main

Elliot Page as Viktor/Vanya Hargreeves / Number Seven, a meek violinist, alienated from his siblings as he has no apparent supernatural abilities, who writes a damning tell-all book about his childhood. In reality, he can convert sound waves into physical force, an ability his father suppressed with drugs as he considered it too powerful and dangerous to control. The character was originally named Vanya and referred to as female until he comes out as a trans man in the third season, going then by Viktor and using he/him pronouns after the change. This change corresponds with Page's own transition in real life. T. J. McGibbon and Alyssa Gervasi portray the character as a teenager and a 4-year-old, respectively.
Tom Hopper as Luther Hargreeves / Number One, an astronaut with super strength who lived on the Moon for four years on a mission from his father. He was severely injured during a mission and is the only sibling who did not leave the team. To save his life, Reginald injected him with a serum derived from a gorilla that turned his upper body into that of a gorilla. In season 1 and beginning of season 2, he secretly harbors romantic feelings for Allison. In season 3, he falls in love with Sloane. Cameron Brodeur portrays a younger Luther.
David Castañeda as Diego Hargreeves / Number Two, a rebellious troublemaker with a mild telekinetic ability to curve the trajectory of moving objects, including knives and bullets. His jealousy of Luther for his father's affections led to him becoming a vigilante after leaving the Umbrella Academy. He starts a relationship with Lila in season 2, and eventually marries her and has three children with her in season 4. Blake Talabis portrays a younger Diego.
Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison Hargreeves / Number Three, a celebrity actress and mother with the ability to control minds and bend reality with the phrase "I heard a rumor ...". In season 3, she discovers she can now control minds without needing the phrase in moments of intense anger. Prior to her first marriage before season 1, she was romantically interested in Luther, and it is hinted that these feelings are continued in season 1. In season 2 she marries Raymond Chestnut. Eden Cupid and Jordana Blake portray Allison as a teenager and a 4-year-old, respectively.
Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves / Number Four, a flamboyant drug addict possessing the ability to communicate with the dead and temporarily make them corporeal; he uses this ability to connect with Ben. In season 3, he discovers he also has the power of immortality and can thus revive himself and heal his own wounds after being killed, and even recreate his body if it is obliterated. Dante Albidone portrays a younger Klaus.
Aidan Gallagher as Number Five, a boy with the ability to jump through space and time. After traveling to the future he ended up in a post-apocalyptic world, unable to get back. He survived on his own for decades before being recruited into The Commission, a secretive agency that keeps track of the established timeline of the world, finding and eliminating those who would threaten it. He eventually betrayed them in order to get back to his time to warn his family of the impending apocalypse. Returning to his time in the pilot episode causes him to revert to his 13-year-old body, played by Gallagher. Jim Watson plays an adult Five and Sean Sullivan portrays an elderly Five. In season 3, it is revealed that Five was the founder of the Commission, and a 100-year-old Five tells his younger self to not save the world a third time. In season 4, Five and Lila start a romantic relationship after getting trapped in alternate timelines for 7 years.
Mary J. Blige as Cha-Cha, a Commission agent partnered with Hazel, she is "ll-business" and the more sociopathic and ruthless of the two assassins who puts work above all else
Cameron Britton as Hazel, Cha-Cha's partner, a fellow assassin who is disillusioned with his life as an agent and leaves the Commission after falling in love with doughnut store-owner, Agnes. In season 2, an elderly Hazel appears to Five in 1963 to help him prevent doomsday.
John Magaro as Leonard Peabody / Harold Jenkins, Vanya's love interest in season 1. As a child, he was an admirer of the Umbrella Academy and begged to join, since he was born on the same day but was the result of a normal pregnancy, and in his childhood was publicly humiliated and rejected by Reginald. He later discovers Reginald's diary, detailing Vanya's potential, and inserts himself into her life with the goal of manipulating her into discovering and using her powers against the other Hargreeves siblings. However, Vanya kills him after discovering his ruse. Jesse Noah Gruman portrays a younger Harold.
Adam Godley as Phinneus Pogo, an intelligent chimpanzee who is Reginald's close assistant. Godley provides the voice and facial performance capture, while Ken Hall serves as body-double for the motion capture to play the character on set. In season 2, a younger version of Pogo appears in 1963, who is treated like a son by Reginald and Grace.
* Godley also portrays Pogo in the season 3 alternative timeline, where he left the Sparrow Academy because he grew disillusioned with Reginald, and became a tattoo artist.
Colm Feore as Sir Reginald Hargreeves, the Umbrella Academy's adoptive father and a billionaire industrialist who died in 2019 by suicide, leading to the planned reunion of his children. In the alternate timeline, he is revealed to still be alive, having founded the Sparrow Academy after disliking the Umbrella Academy when they meet in 1963 and deciding to adopt different children instead in 1989. However, the new academy has kept him under control by giving him pills under Pogo's instructions so that Reginald wouldn't send them on their most dangerous mission.
Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves / Number Six, the deceased member of the Academy who can summon tentacled horrors from his body. Ben died on a mission, referred to as "the Jennifer incident", but appears regularly to Klaus and helps him occasionally, although the other children don't believe Klaus when he tells them Ben is still around. Ethan Hwang portrays a younger Ben.
*Min also portrays Ben Hargreeves / Sparrow Number Two, an alternate version of Ben who, like his Umbrella counterpart, was adopted by Reginald alongside five other children, a result of Reginald not knowing about him in season 2. This Ben is still alive in 2019 as a member of the Sparrow Academy, with no memory of the Umbrella Academy.
Ritu Arya as Lila Pitts, Diego's love interest and The Handler's adopted daughter who is revealed to be one of the super-powered children born on the same day. Originally, her powers allow her to mirror someone else's, but in season 4, she has gained the ability to project green lasers from her eyes. In season 3, she is pregnant by Diego. In season 4, she and Diego are married with three children, but she has an affair with Five after they both get stuck in alternate timelines for 7 years. Raya Korah and Anjana Vernuganan portray Lila as a teenager and a 4-year-old, respectively.
Yusuf Gatewood as Raymond Chestnut, Allison's second husband in season 2 and a 1960s civil rights activist. At the end of season 3, he becomes the father of Allison's daughter in the reset universe, but has left her by the time of season 4.
Marin Ireland as Sissy Cooper, Vanya's love interest in season 2 who takes Vanya in when Vanya arrives in the 1960s and is hit by Sissy’s car. She is also Harlan's mother and trapped in an abusive marriage with Carl.
Kate Walsh as The Handler, the head of the Commission and Five's former boss. The Handler is also Lila's adopted mother, as she used the Commission to kill her parents and claim Lila for herself to use her powers. Walsh makes a speaking-only cameo in season 3 in the form of a letter to Lila.
Genesis Rodriguez as Sloane Hargreeves / Sparrow Number Five, a member of the Sparrow Academy with the ability to manipulate gravity, who falls in love with Luther and later marries him
Britne Oldford as Fei Hargreeves / Sparrow Number Three, a member of the Sparrow Academy with the ability to control crows. She is blind and uses the crows as her eyes to spy on others.