In the face of this bizarro-world that 2020 hath spawned, Netflix's The Umbrella Academy gave audiences a head-scratching release via the time-jaunting Season 2, which boasted a tighter story, shorter episodes and a revived sense of fun and excitement, the second set of episodes brought the eccentric Hargreeves family closer together while also making their lives ever more complicated upon their return to the present. The season finale ended on the whopper-sized cliffhanger reveal of the still-alive Reginald Hargreeves' Sparrow Academy, as led by Justin H. Min's also-still-alive Ben. And now we have our first confirmed detail about Season 3!
It was only recently that fans learned The Umbrella Academy is heading back into production in February, meaning showrunner Steve Blackman and the rest of the creative team are hard at work figuring out what to do with Vayna, Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben and Five for the upcoming arc(s). Blackman took to Instagram to kick off Thanksgiving weekend by giving fans something to be thankful and speculative about. Check it out!
So let's start digging way too deep into this relatively simple reveal, shall we? It's what Five would want us to do, or at least one timeline's version of Five, anyway. First, if not foremost, is the fact that the Season 3 premiere will be Steve Blackman's first shared writing credit on an Umbrella Academy episode. He penned this opener with former Lost Girl and Killjoys writer/producer Michelle Lovretta, who held a consulting producer role for Season 2's debut episode. Not a whole lot to pull out from that particular detail, but it's awesome for Lovretta all the same.
Now to focus on the meatiest detail, the Season 3 premiere title: "Meet the Family." That title could have a few different specific meanings that Umbrella Academy fans will no doubt grasp. Perhaps the most obvious takeaway here is that both the Umbrella Academy characters and the show's viewers will be meeting Reginald Hargreeve's "new" family (as it were) with the Sparrow Academy squad. This updated group clearly came together due to some timeline rift caused by the O.G. group's actions in Dallas in 1963, and I suspect it had a bit to do with everyone introducing themselves to Colm Feore's Reginald many years before he went found them all on his baby-attaining mission. It should be quite interesting to see how everyone gets along with this new iteration of Ben, too.
The second way to read into that episode title is to consider that not only will the Umbrella Academy siblings be meeting the Sparrow students, but the Sparrows will be meeting the Umbrella peeps. That may sound overtly simplistic, but it's a fully different situation for Reginald's alt-timeline group to cross paths with other Academy students that they'd never met before and didn't even know existed. As opposed to Five and the rest returning to what they thought was a familiar location, only to realize their existences have been warped.
The third way to read into "Meet the Family" is also quite literal. What if the Umbrella Academy siblings' timeline changes made it so that Jordan Claire Robbins' human version of Grace was still both alive and also romantically involved with Reginald Hargreeves. It's possible that the couple had their own biological children in the intervening years, and THAT is the actual "family" represented in the Season 3 premiere title.
While comic book fans already have an idea for where Umbrella Academy's story might be heading in Season 3, Steve Blackman & Co. have expanded upon the source material in a plethora of ways that makes me think they're going to go to some truly unpredictable places with "Meet The Family" and beyond. While we likely won't know any further details in the nearest future, let's all celebrate The Umbrella Academy's plan to return to production in early 2021.
The first two hyper-popular seasons of The Umbrella Academy are available to stream in full on Netflix. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more Season 3 updates, and check out our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule and our Winter and Spring 2021 schedule to see what new and returning shows are on the way soon.
