How does Jayme Hargreeves' spit-based hallucinogen power work in The Umbrella Academy season 3? In the madcap universe of Netflix's The Umbrella Academy (based on the comic books by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá), 43 children across the world are born with superpowers thanks to Sir Reginald Hargreeves' extra-terrestrial "marigolds." These gifts are seemingly random, and range from traditional superhero abilities like super-strength and time travel to getting repeatedly punched in the face.
Before The Umbrella Academy season 3, only the seven original Hargreeves siblings and Lila Pitts were revealed from the 43, but thanks to some 1960s temporal shenanigans, the Sparrow timeline reveals six brand-new marigold kids. With Fei spawning crows from her body and the mysterious Christopher resembling a floating paperweight, the Sparrows are even weirder than the Umbrellas, and Jayme Hargreeves demonstrates her group's strangeness perfectly. Essentially, Jayme spits on people, and they see stuff that isn't real, but how does her power really work?
The Umbrella Academy season 3 gives an unexpectedly detailed shot of Jayme's mouth mid-spit, revealing two glands on either side of her gums that spray a dark green substance. When Jayme engages these glands, black lines are shown running under her skin and tongue, suggesting this liquid pumps through her veins like blood (although her death scene proves she has regular blood too). The stuff secreted from Jayme's twin mouth-holes is a powerful hallucinogen. When it makes direct contact against someone's skin, they suffer a powerful and immediate delusion. As a drawback, Jayme seemingly can't control the nature of these visions. When her venom hits Number Five, he starts seeing Dolores (his old mannequin mistress from The Umbrella Academy season 1), who Jayme couldn't have possibly known about. This implies the hallucination is determined by the target's subconsciousness... which says a lot about Diego's inner thought process. Another flaw of Jayme's power is that the hallucination only lasts a matter of seconds before wearing off.
How Powerful Is Jayme In The Umbrella Academy?
In addition to her spitting power, The Umbrella Academy depicts Jayme Hargreeves as the Sparrows' best martial artist. Not only does she easily clean up the pizza shop goons, but The Umbrella Academy season 3 shows her defeating Ben during a flashback training exercise. While Jayme might be useful in a fight, however, she's one of the least powerful Hargreeves siblings between both the Umbrellas and Sparrows.
Without controlling what her victims see, Jayme's hallucinogenic spit can't cause any serious problems, and is best used as a distraction only. As demonstrated during her fight against Five, the one-two combination of venom and martial arts can prove potent in a scrap, but compared to Viktor's vibrational control, Five's time travel, Allison's rumoring, Klaus' death-defying antics, or Sloane's gravity, Jayme as a walking dispenser of LSD has a very narrow range of usefulness in world-saving situations.
Jayme's The Umbrella Academy power is also less effective if the element of surprise has vanished. When Diego and Stan fight her in the supermarket and Diego knows what to expect, he avoids her venom pretty easily. Just as Viktor and Klaus have unlocked new levels to their powers, maybe as The Umbrella Academy goes on, Jayme will... wait, never mind.