While we’ve only just received the second season of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, plans for a third block of episodes are already underway, at least unofficially. Showrunner Steve Blackman has recently shared some thoughts with The Wrap about what he wants to do with the Hargreeves siblings, too, and it apparently involves more personal growth for the super-powered team.
For those who haven’t yet finished the latest run of the series, click away now. For those of you who’ve seen it, though, you’ll know that the finale saw the main cast return to 2019 from the 1960s, only to find that the world has changed. The Umbrella Academy has been replaced by the Sparrow Academy, and Ben is back with a different persona and, well, not dead.
According to Blackman:
“They’re all sort of growing up. I like to think as we go forward that their powers are also evolving. They’re learning new things. They were trained until they were 14 or 15 by a very dysfunctional dad but then the family blew apart before they could finish their training. … They might even discover in the future that their powers are stronger when they’re together.”
So, we’d expect there to be more time spent on developing the team that we briefly saw work together as a functional unit in season 2. There’ll also be a lot more for Justin H. Min to do with the character of Ben, especially now that he’s separated from having Klaus translate for him.
As Blackman points out:
“Wonderfully for Justin, he’s flesh and blood, so he can interact with characters other than Klaus. The fun of that relationship is that Ben is the most insightful, the most beloved sibling, but he has the worst translator of all time in Klaus, who is just a terrible narrator. But this Ben is flesh and blood and he exists. So that will be some new ground for Justin to dig into next season, and I think he’s very excited.”
Okay, so there’s not a lot of detail to go on at the moment, but Blackman’s comments do suggest that we’ll see more of the Hargreeves using their powers in a positive way, which may be necessary if they’re fighting against the other children that Sir Reginald recruited and trained in the new timeline. Indeed, Blackman hints that we’ll be gaining a better understanding of what happened to the 36 babies with unusual abilities born at the beginning of the show.
“I think it’s fair to say that we will definitely meet more of them going forward. It’s established within the show that there are others. There’s Lila, and if there’s Lila, then there are more.”
Given that the television series has incorporated elements of the first two books in the comics, we may also be getting parts of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s Hotel Oblivion storyline in the adaptation, including a lot more villains. There’s also been talk of spinning off Klaus for his own show, which we’d certainly like to see happen.
With a third season announcement hopefully being just a formality, we’re looking forward to learning more about what Blackman and co. have in mind for The Umbrella Academy going forward. Although the program set a pretty high bar for itself this year, there’s no question that the talent in front of and behind the camera can deliver a special experience.