The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 - CULTURETAP

Well folks, it feels good to be back. I'll hold for your metaphorical applause.

Yes, hello, it's me. I'm not dead, just back from a two-month(ish) unplanned, unexpected hiatus. After losing a lot of work on a post that meant a lot to me, I decided to regroup and take some time to plan the future of this site and my work instead of pumping out posts every week when I was kind of down on myself. But now I've returned and I'm better than ever! I probably won't be holding myself to a weekly upload schedule anymore and will instead work on making my writing the highest quality it can be. More info on this and possible changes being made to my blog in general might be discussed in a later post. But with all that being said, I've been waiting to make this specific post for a while (so long, in fact, that an Umbrella Academy S2 review might be technically obsolete at this point, but whatever), so let's get right into it!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record at this point, I am always extremely apprehensive when it comes to getting into new TV shows. While it doesn't usually happen as early as season 2, I think it's far too easy for a good show to be ruined at the expense of churning out new seasons. Conversely, I swear by The Umbrella Academy as one of my favourite TV shows of all time and I was super excited for the second season to come out. With these things in mind, this was an extremely difficult review to write.

Is it possible that another "we-need-to-change-the-timeline-to-stop-the-apocalypse" storyline has already caused TUA to get boring and/or repetitive? Has a new, possibly worse season tarnished the way we look at the critically acclaimed first season? I'm gonna try to look past my personal biases to answer these questions in this review. Let's unpack this.

Fair warning: while I do keep my cardinal rule and don't spoil season 2 in this review, I do mention spoiler-y parts of season 1, so proceed with caution if you've yet to see it!

My initial major thought about The Umbrella Academy season 2 is simple: it's a second season. Not better than the first, but not awful, and with more easily identifiable weak points. However, let's start with what was done well.

I feel bad making you sit through this first part of my review simply because I think most of the things I liked in season 2 are similar to what I liked in season 1. The Umbrella Academy has a unique way of revealing partial information in order to keep the viewer as interested as possible. Like in season 1, while some decisions might seem inconsistent or stupid at first, they quickly correct themselves, building an interesting narrative style that isn't exactly typical, yet familiar of a show or movie that involves time travel. I feel like this is something that is exceptionally difficult to pull off (as is all media in this genre) so I definitely commend the writers for that. Additionally, part of what makes the show so fun to watch in terms of TUA's characterization is the dysfunction of the main characters and how the dynamic between the siblings shifts as the story develops. This, again, was something I enjoyed in season 1, but the fact that we got to see more of it at play this season was definitely a plus for me. Some highlights in this department include each siblings's relationship with the post-apocalypse-causing Vanya and the simple fact that this season included more of the deceased Ben Hargreeves. The show found interesting and creative ways to include him in the family dynamic (despite him being, well, a ghost) and show how he experiences the world through being constantly chained to Klaus. This, coupled with the fact that we got to see more action scenes involving all or some of the siblings together was the crème de la crème of season 2.

Another high point that is reminiscent of season 1 is the soundtrack. Not only is it a fantastic one overall, but each song somehow fits perfectly for each situation/setting/scene while also keeping the viewer on their toes with how unexpected each song choice is. This, again, is something I really appreciated about the first season, so I'm happy to see that they decided to stick with a similar theme for season 2.

Finally, at the risk of breaking the "no spoilers" law, I feel that I have to note that both the first and last 15 minutes of the season respectively absolutely blew me away. I definitely feel that there was extra work put into those parts, which I think was a smart move in terms of keeping viewership and helping their chances of being greenlit for a season 3.

Now, the downsides. While I do have a list of things I wasn't crazy about this season, I want to note that my final overall rating of TUA season 2 reflects the fact that these complaints didn't ruin the show for me in a grand sense. While I wish that these things were changed/improved upon, I was thoroughly entertained this season, and again, my final rating reflects that.

I'll start with what is arguably the most nitpicky: sometimes I found the sound mixing and special effects in the show to be sort of wonky. In some action sequences, it feels like they choose the most random sound effects to highlight and/or make louder than everything else going on in the scene, making otherwise phenomenal fight scenes sort of distracting to watch. In terms of visual effects, I may be biased since I watched the first few episodes with my boyfriend (who is a 3D modelling/visual effects artist) and he pointed some things out to me that could have been executed better. However, even when I watched the remainder of the show by myself, I found that I could still point out things that simply didn't look quite right.

Like I mentioned earlier, The Umbrella Academy has a writing style that allows the audience to be skeptical of what's going on before eventually revealing a reasonable and interesting truth. In season 1, they consistently met the mark in this regard, but in season 2 I unfortunately felt like this wasn't the case 100% of the time. There were just a few too many events that were driven by plot conveniences and warping the source material from book-to-show in order to make certain decisions and events work in unnecessary ways.

I personally wasn't the biggest fan of most of the new characters that were made for the show, particularly the Swedes and, to a greater degree, newcomer Ritu Arya's character Laila. Sometimes the decisions and development of these characters don't make a whole lot of sense for what's going on, and while I hope that they'd find ways explain this in season 3, I don't feel very optimistic in that regard. The lack of explanation doesn't feel like a deliberate choice to make the characters seem more cunning and mysterious, rather, it feels like a misstep on the writers's part.

So, I'd say my overall verdict is generally a good one. From what I can tell, season 2 of The Umbrella Academy was objectively able to keep that charm and entertainment value that garnered the show so much praise in the first season. Even though it's by no means perfect, it pained me to have to find anything bad to say about this series. I still maintain that it deserves a good review and that it was a ton of fun to watch. I'd obviously recommend it to anyone who liked the first season, and I can't wait to see what's in store for a possible season 3.

Rating: 8.3/10

Images retrieved from Forbes.com