“The Umbrella Academy” Episode Eight Thoughts

I am massively late with this review but I am finishing the season soon.

Not a lot happened in this episode but some important backstory is revealed. I still really enjoyed it. The series is doing a good job of filling in a lot of the blanks the comic never did. We move closer to the apocalypse by a day. Two more episodes remain in the season.

Spoiler thoughts below the cut

Allison using her power on her child is not something I expected to see. In the comic(at least in the parts I’ve read) it’s vague what she did to cause her divorce. I’m not sure using her power once to put her child to sleep is irreprehensible. On the other hand, if it’s okay once why not twice or three times? How many times a week are you allowed to ‘rumor’ your child to sleep? So I can see how it could be a problem but this single scene doesn’t quite sell me on this being abusive.

“Leonard” while trying to walk out of the hospital says he’s going to be fitted for an artificial eye tomorrow. Again this feels like a really short amount of time to go from losing an eye to getting a fake one.

Okay, I looked it up and it’s like three to four months before an artificial eye can be fitted. This is let the wound heal and the swelling go down. So, yeah a day is really really fast to be getting an artificial eye.

I kept expecting Allison to ‘rumor’ the cop to get him to help her even though she’s shown a lot of restraint in previous episodes. This episode has the most number of times we see her use her power. Once in the bedtime story, then on her child, in the flashback on Vanya, and almost at the end on Vanya again.

Vanya’s training was interesting but I was expecting an escalation like blowing all the windows out or cracking the wall. The Professor saw something that was the tiniest bit out of his control and he squashed it immediately because he was afraid.

I was surprised to learn that “Leonard” had orchestrated the fight with the men in the previous episode.

“I heard a rumor that you think you’re ordinary.” This doesn’t feel like an effective mind wipe. Something like “I heard a rumor you don’t have powers.” might have been more effective. I do realize that the first rumor ties into Vanya feeling overshadowed by extraordinary her brothers and sister. I think she repeatedly describes herself as not special or ordinary in the early episodes so that character trait would be orphaned by my change. There’s probably a middle ground that isn’t coming to me right this second.

The fight between Vanya and Allison is a little contrived. Allison says they were four and the Professor made her ‘rumor’ Vanya which to me puts the blame squarely on the Professor. I could definitely see Vanya getting out of control and angry but blaming Allison for being ‘ordinary’ and making the leap to her wanting to be the ‘alpha’ seems unfounded.

I knew Allison gets her neck cut from reading the comics but with all the changes to the series it caught me by surprise.

Pogo is once again the emotional cornerstone. His expressions are so well animated. In the scene where Allison ‘rumors’ Vanya, I ached at the conflict and pain on his face.

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