Story line / plot

The Umbrella Academy is set in a universe where 43 women around the world give birth simultaneously at noon on October 1, 1989, despite none of them showing any sign of pregnancy until labor began. Seven of the children are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves and turned into a superhero team that he calls "The Umbrella Academy." Hargreeves gives the children numbers rather than names, until all but one are eventually named by their robot-mother, Grace, as Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, and Vanya.^[7] While putting six of his children to work fighting crime, Reginald keeps Vanya apart from her siblings' activities, as she supposedly demonstrates no powers of her own.

The first season is set in the present day, where Luther is part ape and has lived on the Moon for four years, Allison is a famous actress, Vanya is a violinist, Klaus has a drug addiction, Five disappeared sixteen years earlier, Ben, now deceased, is a ghost able to converse only with Klaus, and Diego has become a vigilante with a penchant for trouble. The estranged siblings learn that Reginald has died and gather for his funeral. Five returns from the future, revealing that a global apocalypse is imminent, but is chased by time-travelling operatives Hazel and Cha-Cha. Meanwhile, the reunited siblings try to uncover the secrets behind Reginald Hargreeves' life, as their dysfunctional relationships are strained further.^[8]

The second season technically takes place fifty-six years earlier, but each character has experienced a different amount of time since the events of the first season. Failing to stop the apocalypse, the siblings are forced to travel back in time, but it goes awry, scattering them between 1960 and October 1963 in Dallas. Five arrives there on November 25, 1963, minutes before a nuclear doomsday linked to JFK not being assassinated, but with the help of Hazel manages to travel back ten days. While being hunted by a trio of Swedish assassins, Five finds his siblings, who have each made new lives, and attempts to reunite them in order to stop this new apocalypse.^[9]