Note: Sorry this is so late, I've been busy
We’re back for Netflix Month 2, and the next 2 episodes of the Umbrella Academy. A difficult day was had by many in the last episode, let’s see if that continues
Number Five
In the post-apocalyptic future, Number 5 walks away from the
city, wheeling whatever he could find and Dolores. Was that relationship a
thing before the time jump? Because I hate to think he’s rushing into a
relationship here. She’s half the person he is, a real dummy too.
OK, OK, I’ll get back to it. He walks for presumably years
given the length of that beard, through sleet and through snow. He ends up at
the library from the last episode, drinking wine he found in an abandoned
cellar that apparently no-one used to shelter the end of the world. I mean,
it’s apparently safe and you’re stocked up with booze, why wouldn’t you shelter
there?
His conflab with Dolores (one-sided as always) is
interrupted with the arrival of a strange woman.
Five is explaining everything to Luther. When asked about
it, he says it wouldn’t matter as everyone died. You know, forewarned is
forearmed, kid. Future knowledge might’ve helped avoid making the same
mistakes. He got the eye from Luther’s corpse but thanks to the fire, tracing
it is a dead end. Diego arrives, rather angry about what happened to Patch
The mysterious woman we find out is called the Handler.
Diego isn’t particularly interested in hearing the rest of the story so drives
off, hoping to use the donut receipt to track Hazel and Cha-Cha down, despite
Five half-heartedly attempting to warn him off.
The Handler makes an offer. She represents an organisation
known as the commission, a group of assassins that patrol the timestream and
stop individuals making choices that would change History. 5 is offered a place
among them. 5 years of service and he can go back to a time/place of his
choosing with full benefits. He did his time as an assassin, even being tasked with
the JFK assassination. He’d been biding his time to calculate the correct
equation to go back home, and it seemed to wok, barring the whole being trapped
in the body of his younger self. Though it seems like it didn’t save JFK.
Klaus returns to the present day, his hands covered in blood
and looking clearly upset. He smashes the briefcase against the ground, causing
a f*cking awful-looking explosion. And cries on the floor. Hazel and Cha-Cha
kill the maid but no sign of the briefcase, and the Commission have noticed and
sent a message insisting on an explanation.
Cha-Cha tasks herself with digging more up about the family
to be better prepared for them whilst Hazel tracks down Klaus to get the
briefcase back. Allison stops by Vanya’s place. She’s noticed her lack of meds
but apparently Allison has lost her short-term memory, she was there when Vanya
asked Leonard out for breakfast. Flowers and breakfast, really jumping into a
relationship with those offerings. I’m sure that took months for you and your ex.
She meets with Leonard, and she’s feeling a lot happier not
taking her medication. She also got a call saying the girl in first chair
didn’t show up, and now they’re holding auditions to replace her. Leonard encourages
Vanya to audition for it. Back at the house, Klaus is taking a bath, and
getting PTSD flashbacks. We’ll have to wait to see those though.
Five, who’s now back at the house, notices the blood and
talks to Klaus. We still don’t get into any details, aside from the fact that
Klaus has been away 10 months but Five is not happy to hear the briefcase is
destroyed as it’s his one chance to start over. He begins writing a note to
Hazel and Cha-Cha.
Diego is back in the house now too, thinking about how he
encouraged Patch to try things his way and it got her killed. Meanwhile Pogo
appears to be fiddling with Grace. Klaus and Diego meet up and Klaus
begrudgingly agrees to head out. Allison is doing some digging around Leonard
whilst right behind her Cha-Cha is reading Vanya’s book to find out more about
the family.
She finds a potential connection to him and writes down his
address. Hazel is at the donut shop. “Long time, no see” – it was literally
yesterday you last saw him! Klaus is drowning his sorrows with booze and is
dropped off at a place for Veterans of Foreign Wars. He begins helping himself
to the booze in a good way to get kicked out. He finds an old photo of ‘Dave’
who apparently died during the war. Diego decided to stick around and tries to
get Klaus to open up. Of course, being a vets bar means they’ve attracted
attention… Klaus makes things worse and it becomes a brawl. We zoom in the
photo and see that Klaus was indeed a part of it.
Hazel and Anges sit outside as she has her lunch. She’s a
birdwatcher and he finds her simplistic view of the world fascinating. Hazel is
feeling tired of everything. Agnes says she’s saving up to get herself a nice
place in the country where she can do whatever the f*ck she wants, she’s got
about another year to go but with the apocalypse imminent, Hazel subtly
suggests speeding things along.
Klaus is trying to go back to drugs but Diego is stopping,
demanding to understand wtf just happened. I think from the audience’s
perspective, it’s fairly obvious. Diego points out that Klaus is able to see
the people he loves whenever he wants. And he has his eye on Hazel as he exits
the donut shop.
Five has been working on a probability map on discovering
whose death might prevent the apocalypse. Spoilers from someone who’s seen the
ending, his math is a little out. Anyway, Luther sees what he plans to do and
given that the people on his hit list are civilians, he’s not going to let him.
He holds Dolores out of the window to force Five to concede. There may be
another way, but it’s ‘impossible’
Vanya is practicing for her audition when Allison comes in
with more suspicions about Leonard, she can’t find any records of him outside
of one photo. Vanya has had enough and asks her to leave. The Motel room
stopped being a crime scene quickly, didn’t it? Diego places a tracker on Hazel
and Cha-Cha’s car and lets himself be seen by them from window. They receive a
note from Five, telling them to meet him.
Diego decides to face Hazel and Cha-Cha, but it’s a
distraction as they slash his tires and drive off. Vanya begins her audition as
Allison investigates the address she found earlier. She breaks into the house.
Something strange begins to happen as Vanya plays, getting the attention of
those listening. Leonard comes into the house but Allison begins to sneak her
way our. Luther and Five arrive for the meeting.
In exchange for the briefcase, Five wants to be put in
contact with their superiors. But things go awry as Diego and Klaus arrive. As
the shooting starts, time seems to stop, Five was successful in his main
objective in summoning the Handler. The Handler doesn’t give a sh*t, believes
Five’s efforts are futile and instead offers him a position in management,
impressed by his continued survival. She even promises to see what she can do
about having his family survive. Five agrees to the deal, before fixing it so
everything would work out fine in the shootout.
Hazel and Cha-Cha get the case but it’s a fake. Vanya comes
to Leonard’s place to tell him that she got the First Chair position. As they
celebrate, some invisble force makes its way into the attic and we see the body
of the previous first chair, Reginald Hargreeves’ diary (was that the artefact
from the box Pogo said was priceless?) It makes its way back to the manor as
Pogo finishes reactivating Grace, asking her to keep a secret. Something that
surely she could do more easily if she deactivated.
There are a few dumb moments, particularly early on, and at
an over an hour long it does begin to drag, especially as they’re light with
the details regarding Klaus, but the overarching mystery is interesting, it was
good to finally get some answers with regards to 5 and Vanya’s development
continues to intrigue
Rating 7.5/10
The Day that Wasn’t
We flash back to A Shau Valley in Vietnam, 1968, where Klaus
ended up after his initial time jump. There’s an attack happening and
everyone’s called to action, with Klaus being considered a soldier and sent
with the troops. He makes the acquaintance of a guy named Dave.
It’s not all war, the troops get their time to party and
celebrate too. During this time, Dave and Klaus develop strong feelings for
each other, even kissing in a hotel room. In the present Klaus flushes away his
drugs, hoping to get some talking in with Dave. But he’s called to a family
meeting to discuss the imminent apocalypse.
Luther is somewhat hesitant to mention that they all died in
the original version of events. But they eventually force him to say it. Hazel
and Cha-Cha are naturally despondent after recent events and it doesn’t get
better when they get a message saying their contract to kill Five has been
terminated. Hazel heads off to get some sugar, as another message comes,
Cha-Cha has been ordered to kill Hazel for immediate extraction.
Meanwhile the Handler takes Five to 1955, to the management
office. He passes a room full of time-travel briefcases which briefly gain his
attention and he’s given a bit of a tour of how things work. The agency has
field agents on the ground, presumably briefed in how things are supposed to go
and when things don’t, they send reports up to management who then decide what,
if any, course of action needs to be taken. There are hundreds of people
dealing with particular events in history and Five is introduced to Dot, the
person who handles the apocalypse stuff.
Vanya enters the manor to invite the others to her first
concert as first chair, and comes in on the others having a family meeting
without her. She decides she’s had enough and cuts her ties to them. Allison
wants to go after her but Luther stops her as they still wish to discuss the
upcoming apocalypse. Luther thinks it might be related to the moon, which he’s
half-right about, but that’s another story.
Diego buggers off wanting to kill Hazel and Cha-Cha, Klaus
isn’t feeling too well and Allison, with the apocalypse imminent she wants to
be with her daughter, custody be damned. We see that Leonard stole a couple of
bits of memorabilia from the mansion before he leaves, Vanya left quickly and
as the two walk away, destruction follows in her wake. Leonard points this out
to her and she’s left somewhat confused and in denial.
Diego’s struggling with a broken arm from the car crash but
Klaus can help him, but wants Diego to tie him up, and allow him to sober up.
Five types a message, the solution to his particular problem, assuring
Hindenburg happens is to kill a butcher only tangentially related to the issue.
Five steals a file related to the case but his attempts at reading it are cut
short when the Handler talks to him from the next stall over. Lots of thinly
veiled threats there
Cha-Cha takes Hazel into the woods, claiming that the
briefcase is here. She primes her gun as the two begin walking. It seems that
she didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger and the two head back to the
Motel. Luther begins tearing Reginald’s office apart looking for his father’s
research. Pogo eventually shows him where it all is, and he finds that Reginald
never even bothered to look at his research. It was all a ploy to give him some
sort of purpose after his accident.
Allison is packing her things and flashes back to her and
Luther having a date in a rooftop greenhouse. Luther gives her a necklace but
Reginald interrupts the fun. Diego ties Klaus up nice and tight as he
reminisces about Dave. Leonard and Vanya discuss the emergence of her powers.
Five meanwhile tries to suggest that case manages send off
their own messages under the guise of efficiency, but he’s shut down. Dot comes
in with some urgent developments for the Handler and Five is left continue his
work. Luther has basically given up after this discovery but Allison, hoping to
cheer him up shows him that whilst Reginald may shut down their date, he never
cleared up their little roof greenhouse tent. They try and finish the supper
but the out of date cola is well, out of date. None the less it seems to get
him out of his funk and the two head off together. Allison has a late flight.
Cha-Cha continues to stare at her instructions, she sets it
on fire and heads to get him a donut, spotting Hazel and Agnes having fun times
out the back. After a time out so Klaus could pee, Diego ties him up again, but
this time Klaus struggles, as the rope isn’t tied as well. He forces the chair
over as we get another flashback, this time to finding out how Dave died during
the fighting.
Diego sees that Grace is up and walking and begins to ask
questions, Pogo is lurking in the background to stop her answering them. Though
it seems the last thing she remembers is from the day Reginald died. Luther and
Allison have their fun together but time is soon running against them. Luther
asks for one last dance and suddenly the scene takes on a weird filter, Luther
is less tall and they’re both wearing fancy clothes. Your guess is as good as
mine, people. But who doesn’t love “Dancing in the Moonlight” If this is what
they intended to do, they should have used the young actors. Though it ending
in a massive kiss might not have worked. Luther and Allison head off together
into the sunset.
Back at the agency, Five manages to intercept a message for
Hazel and Cha Cha. Their assignment is to protect a man named Harold Jenkins. Five
instead sends both of them instructions to kill the other, and angered after
seeing the encounter, Cha-Cha is ready to shoot, but Hazel ends up getting the
drop on her and knocking her out. He’s unfortunately discovered and the Handler
is ready to pounce.
Diego and Grace walk in the park and Grace admits that she
and Pogo have been lying about something. Vanya discovers Reginald Hargreeve’s
diary in Leonard’s room. Finding that he knew and felt she was too dangerous,
she needed to be sedated and made to feel an outcast to stop her powers. It
seems despite knocking over the chair, Klaus was able to make contact with
Dave.
All seems happy but nothing good lasts as Five’s shootout
with the Handler continues. He uses a grenade to blow up the tube room, steals
a briefcase and blows up the suitcase room too. He escapes and we cut back to
the beginning of the episode. He makes a speech about how all of them need to
get their shit together to stop the apocalypse, the ultimate irony being that
in the day he just undid they did exactly that.
This episode is basically rendered pointless by its own
design, it offers a glimpse of happiness to everyone before the other shoe
drops and the status quo is reset. I don’t particularly care for episodes like
this in other shows but here it’s done exceptionally well.
Rating 7.5/10
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