The Umbrella Academy S3 (2022) Review

The Umbrella Academy S3 (2022)

Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy follows the Umbrella’s, now stuck in an alternate timeline where they never existed, putting them at odds with their inverse, the Sparrows, as a grandfather paradox threatens to swallow the whole universe. 

The successes of season’s 1 & 2 admittedly set expectations pretty high for The Umbrella Academy’s third season. Sadly however, COVID seems to have had other plans and it’s obvious the effect the pandemic had on this latest season, swapping out the show’s usually vibrant locations and effects with stale writing and a pretty stationary plot that tries to distract us from it’s shortcomings with dance montage after dance montage and loads of pointless bullshit/fighting that just send us in circles for 10 episodes. 

So many of this season’s problems lie in Allison though, who, with every waking breath, has never been worse (saying something for consistently the worst character on the show). Between killing Harlan and sexually assaulting Luther against his will, on top of just being a royal bitch, her character ends up completely irredeemable, and yet she comes out the end with all she lost, while everyone else loses everything. 

The idea of the Sparrow Academy did have some promise, but they sadly existed just to fall into the pointless bullshit category and reintroduce us to an alive version of Ben. In the end, every character’s motivations can be summed in a sentence or less, and due to such dog shit writing this feels like another apocalyptic story meant to set up the next season, though after this mess, I’m honestly afraid to see more. 

We get an alright cast, starring Justin Cornwell, Jake Epstein, Cazzie David, Jordan Claire Robbins, Britne Oldford, Genesis Rodriguez, Ritu Arya, Justin H. Min, Elliot Page, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Colm Feore, David Castañeda, Robert Sheehan, Tom Hopper, and Aidan Gallagher. Between her acting and her arc, Raver-Lampman REALLY brings this season down a lot, but it’s not without some classic, fun performances from the likes of Gallagher, Sheehan, and Hopper, who seem to work overtime in keeping things light or interesting. 

The Umbrella Academy S3, directed by Steve Blackman, is a huge step backwards for what I considered one of the most refreshing comic book properties out today, and while it’s not a total disaster, its distracting story with one note characters leave much to be desired. 

5.3/10