My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s comic book adaptation receives its second season this July. The superhero web series debut in 2019 to huge applause, Netflix reported that 45 million households had watched season one during its first month of release. It stars Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Cameron Britton, and Mary J. Blige.
Netflix dropped the trailer for the season two today along with the official release date of July 31st. It will again be directed by Steve Blackman and picks up from where the last season ended – a huge cliffhanger. If you haven’t seen the first season, you might want to skip the next paragraph.
The finale saw Vanya make her complete shift from Umbrella Academy reject to a terrorising villain, as she transforms into The White Violin, dealing a fatal move that wipes out humanity. While it’s yet to be known what the story the shows second season is to be, here’s a recap of what the show is all about.
The show’s premise follows the simultaneous birth of 43 women around the world on October 1, 1989. An eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves adopts seven of the children who he develops into a crimefighting superhero team in what he calls “The Umbrella Academy”.
As the show goes, the children are each given numbers rather than names, but all except Number Five (Aiden Gallagher) are eventually named by their robot-mother, Grace, as Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Ben (Justin H Min) and Vanya (Ellen Page). In the first season, we see how six of his children are put to work to fight crime, however, Reginald keeps Vanya away from the action as she supposedly holds no special powers of her own.
Each of the characters has their own unique backstory that plays out in the first season, Luther is a part-animal who has lived on the moon, Allison is a highly acclaimed actress, Vanya is a professional violinist, Klaus suffers a crippling drug addiction, Ben is a ghost who is only able to converse with Klaus, and meanwhile Diego has become a vigilante with a penchant for causing havoc.
The estranged siblings learn that Reginald has died they gather for his funeral. Number Five comes back for the funeral from the future, only to be chased by vigilantes, and he reveals that a global apocalypse is imminent. The reunited siblings try to uncover the secret of their dysfunctional family while their conflicting personalities and abilities begin to pull them apart.
