Netflix has begun promoting season 2 of The Umbrella Academy with the first teaser posters, asking “when” are the Hargreeves siblings – and here’s every time period they could have traveled to. Based on the comic book series by Gabriel Bá and Gerard Way, The Umbrella Academy was one of the biggest releases of 2019 on Netflix, introducing a different type of superheroes with a very complicated backstory.
The Umbrella Academy follows the dysfunctional family of adopted siblings, the Hargreeves. All seven of them were born on the same day (October 1, 1989) under the same mysterious circumstances: none of their mothers were pregnant when the day began. They were quickly adopted by the equally mysterious billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves, who turned them into a superhero team known as “the Umbrella Academy” when the kids began to develop unique sets of superpowers. Reginald wasn’t the best father, and the siblings ended up going on their own ways, reuniting years later for Reginald’s funeral and to stop the fast-approaching apocalypse.
One of the siblings, Five (Aidan Gallagher), disappeared when they were 13 as he jumped to the future and couldn’t go back until many years later, and he did so to warn the rest about the apocalypse and do his best to stop it. Little did they know, their sister Vanya (Ellen Page), who was believed to be powerless, was the one behind the end of the world. The ending of The Umbrella Academy season 1 saw the Hargreeves jumping through time to save themselves, and were seen to be reverting to their 13 year-old selves, just like Five. The biggest question now is where and when they traveled to, and there are a couple of possible time settings that could be explored in season 2.
1960s
When Five got trapped in the post-apocalyptic future, he spent decades alone (well, he had his mannequin companion, Dolores) until the Commission offered him a job. Five then spent years trying to solve the equation on how to go back to his time, and he finally figured it out during a mission in Dallas, Texas, in 1963 – the assassination of John F. Kennedy. With that in mind, and given that Five repeated the same time-traveling method albeit with a “blind jump” as he didn’t really know where and when they were traveling to, it’s very possible that they will land in his last jumping point: Dallas, 1963.
1989
Another big question that The Umbrella Academy season 1 left was what happened to the other 36 kids born on October 1, 1989, to mothers who weren’t pregnant when they woke up that day – are they still alive? Do they also have powers? One way The Umbrella Academy season 2 could answer that is by taking the Hargreeves back to 1989, which would also allow them to track the other kids down in case they need some help in the future. Depending on the exact day the land in, season 2 could also confirm if Reginald’s jar of lights were the 43 children or not. There’s a lot the series could do if it sends the Hargreeves to 1989.
Late 1990s/early 2000s
If what the siblings want to do is fix their relationship with Vanya and thus prevent the apocalypse, they could travel back to the late 1990s/early 2000s in order to help her with her powers and her relationship with her siblings and father. By making Vanya an active part of the team, the Hargreeves could avoid the apocalypse – unless, of course, the Commission continues with its mission of making sure all events happen as they should, in which case they would at least have their most powerful sister on their side this time.
1920s
A popular theory among fans is that about the Hargreeves going back to the 1920s. In the flashback exploring a bit of Reginald’s backstory, the (Earthly) setting looked like the 1920s/1930s, so the siblings could go all the way back to when their adoptive father bought the building that would become the Umbrella Academy. This theory adds that this is how Reginald knew about the kids with superpowers being born on the same day under the same circumstances, the dangers of Vanya’s powers, and when the apocalypse was going to happen. This clashes a bit with the theory about the jar of lights, but at this point, anything can happen in The Umbrella Academy.
The Umbrella Academy and the Multiverse
Maybe it’s not so much “when the Hargreeves are” but in which dimension they are going to land. As noted by a Reddit user, The Umbrella Academy already introduced the concept of the multiverse, though very subtly. The author explains that episodes 1 to 6 took place in “2019 Dimension A” and the rest of the season in “2019 Dimension B”, and episode 6 is key to this. The episode is titled “The Day That Wasn’t”, and at the end of it, Five takes viewers to the beginning of that day, changing the course of it and thus setting episodes 7 to 10 in Dimension B – which is why episode 7 is titled “The Day That Was”. Dimension A still exists, which means that Allison and Luther’s dance happened, Vanya found Reginald’s notebooks at Leonard’s house, and Klaus was able to “summon” Dave, but this timeline isn’t visited again.
Five’s process to go back in time involved displacing his consciousness, which allows him to jump from timeline to timeline (or, in other words, from one dimension to another). This is the same method he used to bring his siblings with him, meaning they could all jump to another dimension/timeline. This leaves the door open for a lot of possibilities, as there are countless alternate dimensions the siblings could land in – some where Leonard Peabody is also alive, others where he isn’t, and even some where they are not siblings. The rules of time-travel change from writer to writer, and The Umbrella Academy surely has its own explanations on how this works, but for now, these are the possible time periods the Hargreeves could travel to in season 2.