The cast of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy will be expanding for season 2, with three new additions set to join the returning cast of regulars. The stars of the show include Ellen Page, Robert Sheehan, Tom Hopper, Emmy Raver-Lampman, David Castañeda, Justin H. Min, and Aidan Gallagher.
The Umbrella Academy is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Gerard Way, former lead vocalist of My Chemical Romance. The story concerns an alternate history in which 43 women instantly and inexplicably become pregnant and give birth in a single day in 1989. Seven of the resulting children are adopted by billionaire industrialist Sir Reginald Hargreeves, who cultivates their mysterious powers to combat evil in the world. The first season centered on the death of Hargreeves, which brought his adopted children together after years of estrangement, just in time to combat an oncoming apocalypse. Produced by UCP for Netflix, with Steve Blackman serving as showrunner and executive producer alongside Way, Gabriel Bá, Jeff F. King, Mike Richardson, and Keith Goldberg, the show was met with positive critical and viewer reception, leading Netflix to quickly greenlight a second season.
For season 2, The Umbella Academy’s sophomore class will benefit from some new recruits. THR reports that Ritu Arya, Marin Ireland, and Yusuf Gatewood have been cast as new characters that don't hail from the comic. Arya, best known for her work on AMC’s Humans, will play Lila, a chameleon who can be in turns brilliant or dangerously insane. Ireland, star of the highly anticipated Y: The Last Man on FX, will play Sissy. She's a fearless, no-nonsense mom, despite her ill-decided marriage at a young age. And finally, Gatewood, of Amazon Prime’s Good Omens, takes up the mantle of Raymond, a born leader with confidence and gravitas. He's a devoted husband with the innate ability to disarm you with a look.
Details of the plot of The Umbrella Academy's second season are scarce. Way has released two follow-ups to the original graphic novel, with more planned, but whether either of them will tie into this season is unknown. What's likely is that the show will pick up not far from where it left off last season. While the heroes in the book managed to prevent the apocalypse, the show ended with a major cliffhanger when the team failed in this endeavor. Their actions brought on the very cataclysm they sought to prevent all season. Their only choice, then, was to travel back in time and try again.
The show’s sophomore run will no doubt deal with the implications of that failure, as well as the siblings’ further attempts to thwart the end of the world. Despite a similar backward time jump happening in the pages of the second Umbrella Academy graphic novel, the ongoing struggle with the apocalypse will be new ground for the show. How the new cast members and their characters will figure into all this is anyone’s guess. Suffice to say their additions are welcome, filling out an already great line-up with more talent.
Source: THR