(Should they get renewed.)
- Reggie's Memories and the Mystery of the Sparrow Academy
- Allison's Big Reset and Her Rocky Relationship with Viktor
- The Powerless Academy
- What the Future Holds For The Umbrella Academy
Warning: This post contains full spoilers for The Umbrella Academy Season 3. If you're not finished yet, check out our The Umbrella Academy Season 3 Review.
The Umbrella Academy has returned for its third season, and this new storyline has brought the Umbrella siblings to an alternate timeline that saw Reggie adopt six different children and turn them into the Sparrow Academy. Throughout season three, the Umbrella siblings have had to not only deal with the “freaking Kugelblitz,” but also Allison being the one to reset the universe once more and causing our heroes to lose their powers.
To breakdown all the wild moments of Season 3 and to tease what's in store for The Umbrella Academy in a potential season 4 that has yet to be confirmed, IGN spoke with executive producer Steve Blackman, Emmy Raver-Lampman (Allison), Tom Hopper (Luther), and Robert Sheehan (Klaus) to get all the details right from the source.
Reggie's Memories and the Mystery of the Sparrow Academy
As previously mentioned, Reggie did not choose to adopt the Umbrella siblings, and instead would adopt new kids in 1989 and help them become the Sparrow Academy. In the finale, we also learn that Reggie told Luther that he put him on the moon for a reason. However, did this version of Reggie share the memories of himself from other universes, or was he just assuming that sending Luther to the moon would help save his wife, Abigail?
“This is the same Reggie from season two,” Blackman said. “The only difference between this Reggie is he didn't adopt this family. He has the same memories up to '63. He didn't adopt these kids. He adopted new kids in '89, but his plan has never changed. What he wants to do with his wife on the moon has been consistent since the day he arrived on the planet. It's just now a different family that he thought he could control. Unfortunately, Sparrows have turned on him, sedated him, and shoved him in an office, which he wasn't planning for.”
Speaking of the Sparrow Academy, most of its members met untimely ends in Season 3, and this new timeline our heroes find themselves in may not even have a version of the Sparrows in it. We do get a glimpse of Ben in the mid-credits scene, meaning they may still be out there, but we get no hint of Sloane or anyone else making it through.
If Sloane is really gone, this could be a huge problem for Luther, who was murdered by his father after he married her. Now, Luther is somehow back, but Sloane is nowhere to be found. If this remains, this could put Luther at odds with Allison – the person responsible for this latest reset.
Allison's Big Reset and Her Rocky Relationship with Viktor
Allison and Viktor have always had a strong relationship, but this latest season turned it upside down. While Allison was more than supportive of Viktor's transition, she still couldn't forgive him for protecting Harlan, the young boy who would go on to kill their mothers with a blast of power he couldn't control.
Despite it being tough to watch on screen, Raver-Lampman enjoyed the challenge of exploring this new dynamic between the characters.
“I really enjoyed it,” Raver-Lampman said. “Viktor and Allison have always been on the same page and in the same corner for the most part, and have been really, really close, but it was so, so, so, so exciting as an actor to dive into a different dynamic between these two characters. Elliot and I are really, really close friends in real life, and so it was really hard to go to work and pretend like I hated him for six months. But I think we found a great balance of making it as real and grounded and authentic as possible. And it was fun.
“We kind of saw such opposite sides of that relationship in the same season,” she continued. We have this really intimate, private moment between the two of them where Victor explains the journey that he's going on with Allison and lets her into where he is and what he wants and what he's exploring for himself. And then a couple episodes later, they hate each other. And so the pendulum swing was so extreme, but it made for really fun days at work and hopefully really good TV.”
For those hoping for a big reconciliation between the two characters in the future, Raver-Lampan gave a spark of hope while also admitting it is pretty fun to be at odds with Viktor.
The Umbrella Academy: Season 3 Exclusive Gallery
“I think we see some magic dust of that at the very end, when Allison asks Victor, 'Do you trust me?' And he kind of powers himself down,” Raver-Lampman said. “So I think it will always be love there somewhere underneath all of the shenanigans that are afoot. But I think maybe. Maybe? I think, yeah, I don't know. I can't tell what's more fun to play, them not liking each other or them trying to get back to being on the same page again. But who knows. With this show, the world is our oyster. We can literally do whatever we want. So that's what's so exciting.”
Alongside dealing with Viktor, Allison also had to contend with PTSD from being a Black woman in the south in 1963, the loss of her daughter and husband, and being the one responsible for the most recent universe reset. These issues could lead to a lot of anger for a character, but Blackman explains that it was something more for Allison.
“Allison's story came from a place of PTSD, having been in Jim Crow south in 1963 and having no voice because her throat was literally cut and she was in a place where nobody wanted to listen to her because she was a woman of color,” Blackman said. “Having her daughter ripped away and now her husband gone, Allison goes on a dark road this year.
“And I talked a lot with Emmy who plays Allison, and we really wanted to challenge Allison to come apart at the seams, not from a place of anger, but from a place of pure pain and loneliness, and she does not know how to place that pain. And she unravels this season.”
In regards to the choice of having Allison reset the universe instead of Viktor, Blackman shared that it was in part because they “didn't want Viktor to end the world again.” However, “there is a connection with Viktor and ending the world that we'll learn in other seasons.”
The Powerless Academy
The finale of The Umbrella Academy's third season has left our heroes without their powers, and that will obviously have to be dealt with in a potential season 4. Even though a new season has not been officially announced, Blackman has plenty of ideas on how to deal with the new development.
“I can only say I have a pretty good idea what the fourth season is,” Blackman teases. “It hasn't been picked up yet, but I know where I want to go with it. I think one of the themes will be, are we better off without the powers? I mean, in some ways this is a gift Reggie's given to them because he was the one who programmed the machine.
“He didn't hit the reset buttons, Allison did. But in many ways, I think Reggie thinks, look, you complained about your powers, your whole life. Now you're normal. Quote, unquote, stop your bitching and get on with your lives. But is it like missing an appendage to lose your power? I think that's a fun place to go next year.”
Having no powers will be a big change for The Umbrella Academy's characters, but it looks to be a positive one for Luther actor Tom Hopper as he won't have to spend so much time, at least for a short while, in wardrobe getting his muscle suit on every time he has to go on set.
“Going to set, I always get called earlier because they're, 'Tom, we've got to get the suit on you.' And I've been trying to get that down and down and down, all the time,” Hopper joked. “But just the heat element, I think, will be nice, to get rid of. And also, I get to choose nice clothes. I don't have to be stitched in every season and have clothes made to fit the suit, not fit me.”
On the other hand, Sheehan thinks it is going to be a tough go for Klaus, a character who has recently been defined by his immortality.
“It's a shame because I think the issue for him is his immortality, or the conquering of it, had everything to do with the newfound self-respect,” Sheehan said. “And so now, I think he feels fragile again. He feels like a little baby bird; like a stiff breeze could knock him over. So, I think now he has to find himself in absence of that. Yeah.
What the Future Holds For The Umbrella Academy
In closing, Blackman shared with us his hopes for a fourth season of The Umbrella Academy, and he teases that fans of the graphic novel will have a lot to look forward to.
“Well, I will only say this: I think obviously there's a way they're going to get their powers back because they need their powers,” Blackman said. “I think we want to dig deeper into some of the unanswered questions within the graphic novel. There are some big, big story points and I don't want to say them out loud, that the fans are crazy and know the answers of. We're going to do that next year.
“We're going to come full circle with some things that the fans are like, please just tell us the answer to this. That's what next year's going to be about, is really coming to the end of certain things.”
Oh, and don't think we didn't take the opportunity to talk about Dr. Phinneus Pogo, the advanced chimpanzee that has taken a hold of our hearts, and ask why we didn't get more of him during this season.
“We love Pogo. I would put Pogo in every scene,” Blackman said. He's so expensive. He's millions and millions of dollars for every scene, so we have to be limited. But Pogo is a delightful, fun character. If we could do more of him we would.”
For more, check out our review of The Umbrella Academy's third season, our explainer of the ending, and who exactly the Sparrow Academy are.