Now that we’ve all had time to digest the doomsday-causing shenanigans of our favorite dysfunctional brood of superpowered weirdos, it’s time to do some hunting … for Easter eggs, that is. The Umbrella Academy creator Steve Blackman told us (before season two premiered) that he’d hidden plenty of gems throughout this wild sci-fi ride for fans to dig up. Some of them are instantly noticeable — like Klaus quoting TLC lyrics and naming his cult after popular R&B group Destiny’s Child — but others are inspired by the original comics from My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way.
It’s those clues we’re paying attention to now because they offer an early glimpse at which storylines might pop up in season three. Here are five of the biggest nods to the show’s graphic-novel roots that might hint at where this f*cked up family is going next.
1. The Dark Side of The Moon
Look, the moon is important. It controls the tides. Werewolves howl at it. But The Umbrella Academy has a specific fixation with that celestial body, and it creeps up throughout the show’s second season. When we get our first glimpse of Allison’s life in the ’60s, her new husband, Ray, gifts her with Jules Verne’s From the Earth To Moon with the reasoning that his wife loves to stare at that illuminated orb in the sky every night. Of course, Ray couldn’t know that’s because her half-human/half-ape brother, who she’s secretly lusted after, used to live up there. Or that her sister once destroyed it and caused an apocalypse that wiped out all of humanity. But still, it’s a romantic gesture.
The thing is, the moon pops up again and again in season two, most notably when a noticeably younger Reginald Hargreeves meets with The Majestic 12, a clandestine group of power-players influencing history. He’s made a deal with these men to help them win the space race in exchange for their help in covering up his experiments on “the dark side of the moon.” Now, in season one, fans were led to believe that Luther’s time up on the old rock was just a way to keep him busy and out of his old man’s hair. But what if Luther’s work was actually part of a bigger plan Hargreeves had in play, one that connects to the comics and possibly teases a conflict in future seasons of the show?
The latest installment of The Umbrella Academy comic series is titled Hotel Oblivion, and it revolves around Hargreeves’ secret prison, somewhere in space, for all of the monstrous, supernaturally-powered villains his academy defeated over the years. Perhaps Hotel Oblivion is actually positioned on the dark side of the moon. Perhaps, as in the comics, we’ll see the consequences of jailing these baddies, who eventually break out and wreak havoc on the world, in season three? After all, with The Commission no longer a threat, the show will need some new antagonists to keep the siblings on their toes.
2. The Sparrow Academy
Speaking of throwing a wrench in the family’s “happily ever after” plan, the season ends with yet another callback to the comics, one that was teased throughout multiple episodes if you knew where to look. In Hotel Oblivion, an alternate Umbrella Academy was introduced, one with a new set of powerful siblings supposedly trained by the group’s robotic mother, Grace. They wear nearly identical uniforms to what the children did years earlier, except their outfits feature a bird emblem. Creator Gerard Way announced that the next installment in the comic series would be titled The Sparrow Academy, which is what Hargreeves calls the house when the group finally makes it back to 2019 at the end of season two.
But we should’ve seen that twist coming long before the final episode. Bird imagery was scattered throughout the show’s second run, most notably in some of The Handler’s more outrageous outfits and in one of the closing shots of Harlan levitating a wooden figurine shaped like a sparrow. Some fans think he may be one of the members — although age-wise, he’d be considerably older than the rest of the children. Our bet is he could be a villain by the time the team figures out what the hell happened after their time jump.
3. Alien Origins
Late in season two, The Umbrella Academy delivered an out-of-this-world reveal. It turns out, Reginald Hargreeves is… not of this world. We suspected his alien origins in season one when the show teased a bit of the character’s mysterious past. He was fleeing a dying world that looked markedly different from Earth. But there’s “hinting,” and then there’s slapping fans in the face with a human skin suit, which is what happened in the show’s season two finale. Angry over being betrayed by his partners following the assassination of JFK, Hargreeves quite calmly unzips his homo sapien exterior, folds it over a chair, and delivers what we can only assume is a terrifying form of punishment for crossing him, off-camera. If they thought having a cruel, unforgiving parental figure was traumatizing, just wait until the Academy kids realize their dad’s an extraterrestrial.
4. Vanya’s Heroic Moment
Speaking of alien phenomenons, this season, Vanya managed to avoid blowing up the planet with an assist from her siblings, finally proving she’s not the villain in this story. In fact, she may be the hero. Vanya gets a chance to use her abilities for good when Harlan accidentally falls into a pond on the farm and drowns. The kid was dead, or nearly so, until Vanya channeled her powers and breathed life (and some tiny balls of light that signaled a transfer of her gifts) back into his corpse. She took all of that back, though Harlan was clearly changed after the encounter, but the specific visual of those illuminated orbs bestowing supernatural abilities on an otherwise normal human being felt like a foreshadowing moment.
When we were treated to Reginald Hargreeves’ origin story, we saw those same bright lights lifting into the atmosphere of his home planet. What if those lights passed from his world to ours, finding a home in the children and giving them their powers? What if that’s how Hargreeves knew where and when to look for the kids? There’s obviously some connection between Harlan and Vanya after she saves his life. Maybe that’s how the Academy members will be able to find the rest of their “siblings,” should they need/want to in season three?
5. The Televator
If you were able to look past how completely bizarre Hargreeves’ romance with Grace — a woman he would later model a robot after whose sole purpose would be to raise his adoptive children — was this season, you may have noticed some blueprints for an invention called a Televator when she went snooping through his office. Perhaps will get a full-sized replica of this time-traveling device that comic book fans should recognize, but either way, its inclusion was a nice nod to readers of Gerard Way’s graphic novels.
‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.