Some tidbits of information about the eagerly awaited season 3 of Umbrella Academy have surfaced. Throughout this post, we’re gonna be breaking down everything we know so far and what we’ve managed to gather from interviews on the upcoming entry. This includes which characters are returning, what the plot could be and a lot more.
There will be Heavy Spoilers here so if you don’t want anything ruined then off you go!
The Umbrella Academy Season 3 Release Date
Firstly the release date for Umbrella Academy Season 3 has not been announced yet. Normally Netflix shows take about a year to turn around and we typically expect shows to release between 12 to 18 months after their prior entry.
However, the pandemic has pushed everything back and it’s unlikely that we will be seeing the third season before the mid-point of 2021.
With filming on shows slowly starting again across the industry and the script being near complete, I can see the third season dropping Christmas 2021 at the earliest.
Netflix tend to drop production information one month after the release of a season, however with a lot of things still shut down, don’t expect to see any updates before September.
Season 3 Plot & Cast
So what about the story and cast? Well, firstly showrunner Steve Blackman has dropped several notable things about what could be happening.
Season 2 ended with the academy returning home to find their father and Ben alive, however, they had been replaced by a new team called the Sparrow Academy. This was a big WTF moment but from interviews and material that we’ve had released after this reveal, there is a lot that we now know.
When discussing what the return of their father meant for the group, Blackman told Tyla.com:
“If you look carefully, he’s our Hargreeves, but he looks a little different. It would be a good guess if we get another season that they have a chance to try to work out their issues. They did try in season two to some extent, but obviously that Hargreeves knew nothing about them. And you know, this Hargreeves is an older man, but they have a chance to sort of talk to him again, and hopefully, they do better than they did in season two.”
This would not only delve deeper into why Hargreeves made the choices that he did but also what actually happened to the Academy in their youth. The younger years of the Hargreeves’ siblings have been hinted at but we’ve never had it fully fleshed out what the breaking point for them all was.
From video interviews with the cast we also know that there will be several more easter eggs added that hint towards the big twist on Hargreeves. At the moment the Academy doesn’t know what he really is but hopefully, we get some My Parents Are Aliens-inspired moments that showcase what’s actually going on with the character and what that mysterious season towards the end of Season 10 really meant.
Blackman further went on to state:
“Trying to understand their origin is one of the themes we are going to address next year. The first season was meet the family. Season two was [getting] to know the family. Season three is, who are we and where did we come from? What are we as superheroes? [That] is really a story I’d love to think about more in season three.”
So it does look like we will be getting a big focus on this aesthetic and I think the questions surrounding superheroes hint at other things.
Superpowers
I actually re-read the entire Umbrella Academy run in the lead-up to this post. Hotel Oblivian, the third volume, deals with a lot of Superpowered criminals running around after escaping the titular hotel which was used as a prison by Hargreeves to hold them.
I think that this will be reflected in the world that we will see in Season 3 and there will be a greater emphasis put on the 43 children that were all born on the same day in 1989.
Throughout season 2 there were also hidden 43 sparrows and thus we can tell that the creative team are putting a lot of thought into this.
Justin H. Min who plays Ben also stated that season 3 will be the first time that the Academy has really had to deal with people that have supernatural abilities. Outside of Lila and Vanya, the group have never fought a large number of Superhumans and for Season 3 they will be going toe to toe with other teams that have these powers. So expect an Umbrella vs the Sparrows showdown at some point with Ben likely leading the charge.
Now we still know very little about the 43 beyond Lila and the Sparrows and thus I think we will get to see what happened to the children that weren’t adopted.
After we discount the Umbrella Academy, Lila and the Sparrows we’re left with 29 superpowered beings on the planet that the show could definitely explore.
So expect some big superhero showdowns and a lot of cool characters going head to head.
What About Lila?
Well, it does seem like a certainty that she will be returning.
When discussing the character with Seventeen.com, Blackman said the following:
“We’re hopeful, but I think Lila’s story is definitely not finished yet. There are feelings between her and Diego and unfinished business with the family. She got her briefcase and got out. But I would say safely this is not the last we saw of Lila Pitts.”
Now it is possible that the time briefcase could be the key to setting things straight but that all depends on whether Lila wants to help them or not.
Either way, I think she was a great addition to the roster of Season 2 and I can’t wait to see her back soon.
Who Won’t Be Returning?
As for people we probably won’t see back soon…I pretty much think that Grace and Pogo will not be reappearing in the show for a long time.
During Season 2, Diego had an interaction with Grace which eventually led to her discovering his work with the Majestic 12. She took Pogo with her and we didn’t see her again.
If you cast your mind back to Season 1, you may remember that the Grace robot was only created to take care of Vanya after she killed the rest of her Nannies.
The fact that Vanya wasn’t at the Academy in this timeline likely means that Grace had no need to be made and thus I do think it’s unlikely that we will be seeing her pop up again unless it’s the real ones from the ’60s…though at this point she would probably be in her 90’s.
Tom Hopper also stated that Ben may not even be called Ben because he was of course named by their mother but if she’s absent then this wouldn’t be the case and thus he may have a totally different name as the leader of the Sparrow Academy.
Yup, things could change that much.
Sparrow Academy
Now I’ve already done a full video breaking down the entire Sparrow Academy, so if you wanna know more about them then make sure you check it out after this.
In summary, they’re basically the same as the current characters and there’s a number 1 like Luther person who wasn’t turned into an ape. A woman named Carla who is similar to Allison can bend reality with her voice and a box guy…box guy that…is a box.
Time Theory
In regards to what they bring and what it means for the overall show, the cast actually gave a lot away in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Now we have to prefix this interview by saying that the Umbrella Academy actually subscribes to the multi-world time travel theory. Similar to its use in Endgame, this states that when one travels back in time that the person doing so actually creates branched realities in which alternate timelines play out.
This was seen at several points throughout the show namely at the beginning of Season 2 in which we saw an alternate timeline in which America went to war with Russia and of course at the end of the season when the group stepped into the Sparrow Academy timeline.
Robert Sheehan, who plays Klaus, confirmed that the group were actually in an alternate universe and that the next season will discuss how multiple versions of the timeline exist.
I definitely recommend that you check out the entire interview as it goes massively in-depth into it and the idea of the shattered glass theory is brought up too.
This states that the universe works similar to the shattering of glass.
Captain Obvious here.
When a big event happens it’s meant to shatter the universe and create multiple branching timelines that expand away from the original and the Academy have likely found themselves in a version of this in which they were not adopted by Hargreeves.
This could lead to the group potentially jumping from timeline to timeline in the hopes that the next jump will be the one that finally takes them….home.
So it’s likely they’re gonna have to deal with the repercussions left behind by introducing superpowered beings into the world back in the 60s through Harlan and this brand new timeline may be a worse one than the one they escaped from.
Though I doubt it because the apocalypse happened and meh…still better than the 2020 that we actually got.
Season Summary
There are still a lot of things that could happen but in conclusion, Lila will be back and she will be getting explored in more detail. We are dealing with alternate realities and may be getting more time travel-focused elements. It’s unlikely that we’ll be seeing Grace again but who knows if we’re exploring Hargreeves’ past she may pop up here.
We also know for definite that we’re gonna be having one hell of an adventure with the Academy and though the show might not return for a long time, there’s still a lot of things to look forward to.
Anyway, that’s our full breakdown of everything we know so far about the third season. I’d obviously love to hear what you think is going on and what you wanna see from it.
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