The Umbrella Academy season 1, episode 3 review: Extra Ordinary

“It’s going to be okay, Mom.” Minor spoilers for The Umbrella Academy season 1, episode 3 follow.

Vanya has always felt separate from everyone else because of her father’s cruel treatment of her at The Umbrella Academy. However, after meeting someone, she begins to come out of her shell and tries to connect with those around her.

Meanwhile, Luther and Allison call a family meeting after learning something new about their father’s death.

Vanya, the loner

This is definitely a show where there is a character that is used as an audience stand-in, so that we can see the world through the character’s eyes. In this case, that character is Vanya. There really hasn’t been much to that character other than the few glimpses of her being treated as “separate” from the rest of her family, but there hasn’t been much exploring of her, until this episode.

Now that the audience has been introduced into this crazy world, Vanya can become something more, and that’s what happens in this episode. We see the ramifications of constantly being treated as an “other,” even in your own household, and how that leads to a life loneliness later in life. Because of this, a lot of Vanya’s storyline in this episode is quiet and introspective, even more so than other moments involving others in this episode.

Normally, a character and story like this may be hard to get into, especially in a show involving superpowers, but thanks to Ellen Page’s performance, that couldn’t be further from the case. It’s a hard line to toe, trying to act with much emotion, because it’s easy to come off as very wooden. But Page absolutely doesn’t. She plays Vanya as someone who is simply trying to suppress her emotions and makes a lot of subtle choices in her performance that nail that point.

He was murdered

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This episode takes a relatively unsurprising twist in that we find out that Sir Hargreeves may have been murdered all along. Really, this isn’t shocking at all. What matters though is the emotional fallout that stems from the revelation. The family is at odds about what to do with the new information they’ve been presented.

The family has already been established as dysfunctional, so to throw another wrench in order to make it worse, especially when it involves someone that they character about, makes for some compelling drama, which puts an emphasis on Diego. Combine that with the flashback that occurs in this episode, which also emphasizes Vanya’s loneliness, it makes Diego’s arc in this episode very impactful.

Five on the hunt

While all this family drama is going down though, Five continues to be on the hunt for whoever’s eyeball he currently has in his possession. This part of the episode felt a bit disparate from the rest of the goings on, with Five not even being in the back half of the episode, but regardless, it led to a great fight with Hazel and Cha Cha.

The Umbrella Academy has proven that it knows how to do fight scenes so far, and with this episode, it proves so again. It’s not the best fight scene of the first three episodes, but it’s still extremely enjoyable to watch.

The Umbrella Academy continues on with another solid episode with some great family drama, character moments, and an enjoyable fight scene at the end.