Board 8 > The Umbrella Academy

(+) Yeah! (+)

Anyone else watched this? I finished it the other night and I loved it!
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Yeah, absolutely excellent show. I've watched half of it so far, but I'm definitely hooked.
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I love how crazy it gets with all the time travel and stuff.
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Finished it a few days ago.

The kid who plays Number 5 absolutely crushes his role.
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It was awesome. I really want more. Klaus was an awesome character.
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Time to rank them!

Klaus
Five
Allison
Vanya
Ben
Diego
Luther

Luther was the worst, I couldn't stand him. But I like all the rest. Idk why I like Klaus so much but I do lol.
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Gerard Way wrote this so I'm sure it's utterly incredible like everything else he's ever done.
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Waluigi1 posted...

Time to rank them!

Klaus
Five
Allison
Vanya
Ben
Diego
Luther

Luther was the worst, I couldn't stand him. But I like all the rest. Idk why I like Klaus so much but I do lol.

Klaus
Diego
Five
Ben
Allison
Vanya
Luthor

Luthor was an OK character. But he was just, there. Nothing special about him. Same with Vanya. Nothing wrong with her, but she was like Luthor. Just there. Allison was good, but kind of dragged down by being around Luthor and Vanya all the time.

Klaus and Diego were awesome and I loved the dynamic between the two. Ben was cool basically acting like Klaus's conscience. And Five just nailed it.
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Five
Klaus
Diego
Vanya
Allison
Luther
Ben

Ben was just there, and Luther could almost be mid-tier based on the rave alone.
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Rave was cringe imo lol
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I opened Netflix today to find something to watch and the trailer for this auto played. What a pleasant surprise - it looks excellent.

Watched the first episode and I'm very into his

Where did this monkey come from?

Five is interesting for a lot of reasons, but the most interesting to me is that his actor is in both the childhood scenes and the adult scenes, guess he had to play double duty.
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I love it! So excited that Gerard Way got his own show based on his comic. Been following this for a while and the adaptation distilled it into an even better form.

Klaus
Five
Diego
Allison
Vanya
Ben
Luther

Five
Klaus
*gap for obviously likeable characters*
Vanya
Allison
Ben
Diego
*large gap*
Luther

I tried to cut Luthor some slack early in but by the end he definitely ran out. Was starting to drag on Allison a bit but she quickly leaped back into my good graces from and after the Vanya confrontation.

Diego was a bit love/hate, he has some of the problems of Luther with obsession over who's the "leader" but Diego's much more tolerable for at least interacting with the other members of the group. Worse problem for Diego tho is just some really obviously stupid decisions, namely every decision that got him arrested and even the way he handled the warning and subsequent arrest was dumb.

Luther is just all about himself and Allison, and even regarding Allison he doesn't at all listen to her on what matters and it all makes his Number One shtick worse and worse. When literally everyone is against him he just strong-arms them into basically ending the world out of stubborn ignorance.

best character tho is Hazel
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My episode one rankings

Five
Luther
Diego
Vanya
Allison
Ben
Klaus

I don't even have anything to go on with Ben and I still like him more than Klaus!

My takes on Luther and Diego:

Luther knows what he wants to do and he's trying to take the lead, but just like his bumbling size makes him a bit clumsy physically, he isn't really socially savvy enough to get across what he's trying to say or get people to do what he needs them to do. He's kinda like a Steve Rogers that just isn't sure how he can accomplish what he knows he needs to do. Which I guess you could say isn't Steve Rogers, but if you applied this layer to Chris Evans I think Luther is what you would get. I like him a lot.

Diego is a bit too "FUCK BATMAN" so far. He's cool though.
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Really looking forward to watching this, I LOVE the source material. Is Gerard Way actually involved with the show, or is he just credited for his work on the original?
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How hard do you have to drink bad opinion juice not to like Klaus

I like Diego because initially he seemed like oh lord this character let me roll my eyes at this guy because hes just so badass and edgy. But as the series progressed you quickly see that he is a complete loser and its brilliant.

Klaus starts off irritating and improves over the episodes imho
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I liked Klaus from his introduction and he got better from there

And I think luther has the opposite thing happen.

Overall, I think pretty much every character is believable and serves a purpose, even if I would or wouldn't like them in real life
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

I liked Klaus from his introduction and he got better from there

That's totally fair! I'm usually biased against characters that distract from or hinder progress along the main pitch of the show

He starts out as 100% comic relief. Which is important!
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I totally agree with the assessment on Luthor and his progression being the opposite of Klaus. And I absolutely hate his romance plot. Cringe! Even tho I loved the Klaus romance, and Hazel and the waitress.

LapisLazuli posted...

Really looking forward to watching this, I LOVE the source material. Is Gerard Way actually involved with the show, or is he just credited for his work on the original?

Him and Gabriel are executive producers.....so not like, fully fully involved but at the very least was aware of what was going on. He would actively talk about it in the past as it was developing.
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CelesMyUserName posted...

Five
Klaus
*gap for obviously likeable characters*
Vanya
Allison
Ben
Diego
*large gap*
Luther

I tried to cut Luthor some slack early in but by the end he definitely ran out. Was starting to drag on Allison a bit but she quickly leaped back into my good graces from and after the Vanya confrontation.

Diego was a bit love/hate, he has some of the problems of Luther with obsession over who's the "leader" but Diego's much more tolerable for at least interacting with the other members of the group. Worse problem for Diego tho is just some really obviously stupid decisions, namely every decision that got him arrested and even the way he handled the warning and subsequent arrest was dumb.

Luther is just all about himself and Allison, and even regarding Allison he doesn't at all listen to her on what matters and it all makes his Number One shtick worse and worse. When literally everyone is against him he just strong-arms them into basically ending the world out of stubborn ignorance.

best character tho is Hazel

All this is literally exactly how I feel! Wow kinda creepy almost... O.o

Hazel the fucking best. Forgot to mention him, I am ashamed.
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Do we have any idea when season 2 might come?? Just assume a year prolly?
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Hazel would be better if the actor was better.

Some of his line deliveries are straight-up bad.
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

I totally agree with the assessment on Luthor and his progression being the opposite of Klaus. And I absolutely hate his romance plot. Cringe! Even tho I loved the Klaus romance, and Hazel and the waitress.

yup, agree on the spoilered part, although it's a little unfair because, just as in real life, it's easy to make a romance look amazing when you're always wistfully looking back on it and not actually in the middle. i still believed in it 100%

in some ways i'm glad i didn't read the graphic novels, because it sounds like they changed a few characters.

i personally find luther and vanya close to unredeemable by the end- but hopefully they can be "fixed". For some reason, different types of selfishness and betrayals feel unequal in family stories. Apparently, luther wasn't so bad in the novels, and Allison was less scrupulous.

Again, I found every single character super believable in their varying types of shittiness. Maybe diego was a little bit of a stretch or caricature, but at least I thought his arc with 'mom' was worthwhile.

There were a few parts that took me out or had me confused about the tone of the show. How many times did they casually decide to run through hails of deadly gunfire only for the dozens of mooks to miss wildly? Creative license and all that, but I feel like the writers should have to try a little harder, ha. Finally, allison refusing to use the power on the super-powered agents attacking the mansion? I suppose it's in character, but it still had me shouting nooo inside...

And I thought the rave was great.
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Yeah the tone was kinda all over the place but that's kinda what I love about it lol.
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In terms of ranking, I tend to have like three different ones for a tv show.

One, likability. Literally just how much I would be on their side or want to hang out in real life.

Two, usefulness to the show. Sometimes you need an asshole to propel the plot, or a boring character to get things back on track. Like... pirates of the caribbean would not be successful if every single character was jack sparrow, even if he was the most interesting, you know what i mean?

Three, execution of the role- not just acting, but also believability of the character and their actions in general.

It can create some interesting situations where there's a character I *hate* but is a necessary foil to prop up the likable ones. Or a character I like but I feel like isn't that believable.
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I don't necessarily find Vanya irredeemable yet...I needa know more context about her powers and if she's like possessed or what.

Can we talk about the end of ep 8 though?!? I'm still fucking not over it. It literally just wrecked me lol.
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ep 8 spoilers below. it's a little risky to talk about because IIRC one of the series' main twists is in that ep

i personally felt vanya was being super unreasonable in that scene. how can you get that angry at a four year old child? but i get it, she's mentally ill, so it was believable. plus, the plot and conflict have to keep moving along

at the start of the show, i assumed some variation of that twist- the one with no magic unwittingly having the big magic- just because some other fiction i've consumed had that kind of trope and it seemed like it would fit. imho this show pulled it off pretty well. i just didn't know what form it would take and what the plot results would be- that, i was a little slower on
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[up to ep 8] Vanya is honestly given a lot of reasons to react the way she does, from growing up left out from the others who could embrace their powers and writing the tell-all book that soured much of the family about her. Doesn't help that when the family gets back together, her siblings are still nowhere close to being over the book and continue to both ostracize and shelter her which just furthers her distance.

The most difficult part for Vanya being believable is just the incredible speed of her relationship with leonard. Still though that can be accepted with how important he is to the narrative, and they DO still at least provide a reason even for Vanya being so quickly swooned, not just her upbringing of insecurity but Allison jabs at her for being alone early in (which ends up into Allison investigating Vanya/Jenkins)

[full spoilers] While I'm at it about explaining Vanya's reactions, I also want to just add that I like how interpretive the Vanya imprisonment scene was. It's still a scene that greatly damages Luther for being a major d-bag, but the detail about Vanya not being able to hear the other siblings defending her, and then even Allison who COULD communicate by her notepad was still being blocked out by big-ass Luther so that the only thing Vanya could see was the whole family freaking out about her. Most shows would make that more explicit than it needs, so I just really enjoyed how the scene was largely focused from the active perspective outside the soundproofing yet still giving subtle visual cues to Vanya's perspective inside the soundproofing.
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Hm well I should be done with The Dragon Prince S2 after today so I was looking for something else to watch. Would anyone who's seen both recommend Umbrella Academy over Black Mirror?
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GenesisSaga posted...

Hm well I should be done with The Dragon Prince S2 after today so I was looking for something else to watch. Would anyone who's seen both recommend Umbrella Academy over Black Mirror?

I haven't seen black mirror but they're completely different types of shows. Black mirror has no ongoing story or narrative right?
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Right, watching Black Mirror is basically watching a bunch of short movies
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Just finished

Five
Diego
Allison
Ben
Klaus
Luther
Vanya

Ben seems like he could be top tier if he had more to work with. Vanya is last because I haaaaated Leonard and that she went along with him despite the fact that he so transparently sucked.
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What's your excuse for Klaus?
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Just finished

Five
Diego
Allison
Ben
Klaus
Luther
Vanya

But Klaus is the best
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finished it the other day. absolutely loved it

i dunno about rankings but klaus is the best, five is probably close but i don't think i like him as much as most people (still love him tho).

luther definitely at the bottom. i like vanya more than most people it seems. everyone else is kind of fighting for the middle pretty evenly.

without much thought I guess I would do...

klaus
vanya
five
allison
ben
diego
luther

honestly vanya/five are probably interchangable

i liked hazel's story a lot but i agree with whoever said his actor was bad. cha cha was fun but i would have liked to see her get a more developed arc. feels lame that mary j blige got a mostly one-note character.

pogo was p cool, and i absolutely loved mom. leonard was frustrating as fuck and his romance arc with vanya was probably the weakest part of her story. i get it/how it happened but it was frustrating to watch and not in an enjoyable way

also man is it good to see robert sheehan in a good role again. i love him so much and i feel like he hasn't had much of a good career since he left misfits. maybe I just missed it, but he really kills it in this role.
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I'm 3 or 4 episodes in. Halfway through episode 4 I think?

Move Vanya to the bottom of my list but keep the rest the same.

Vanya: I find her story about being mediocre in every way pretty compelling, but she's just so dumb, like a bit too unbelievably dumb for the plot. Completely dismissing Five's apocalypse story? Walking into the middle of a shootout at the house with no way to help? Annoyingly dumb.

Klaus: He's had a few entertaining moments like messing with that eyeball manufacturer with Five and his torture at the hands of Hazel and Cha Cha, but overall.... I find him very pathetic. He doesn't seem to be a secret badass pretending to be a useless idiot - he just is a useless idiot. Possible upside for his character though - he uses drugs to run away from the spirits of the dead he doesn't want to see? This hasn't been explored though.

How much I personally like or respect a character has a big impact on how I view them. I can really respect a character I don't particularly like for being well done, especially when it comes to villains, but these two cross too much into "I don't really want to see you that often" territory.

I'd put Hazel and Cha-Cha above them for sure.
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Waluigi1 posted...

What's your excuse for Klaus?

Hes fine. I just dont find him to be especially interesting.
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Klaus definitely gets better as the show goes on.
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what a great final 15 minutes to the season. It's refreshing to see a series end with a bang like that.
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Ranking:

Five
Ben
Klaus
Allison
Vanya
Diego
Luther

Yeah, I'm weird that I like Ben a lot, but I do.
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He just doesn't have enough development to rank well.
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i hope ben gets more to do in season 2 because he absolutely has a lot of potential.
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Ep 6 question

Klaus taking a tour in Vietnam is a great way to give this piece of garbage some backbone. But how come he needs help sobering up? He just spent 10 months in another time... he shouldn't have an immediate addiction problem anymore?
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The troops in Vietnam were notoriously drug-addled.

People whod never done drugs in their life were returning from combat tours in Vietnam addicted to heroin.
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Oh, that's really historically accurate, I guess!).

Holy fuck at that episode 6 ending though. A string of events I've been dying to see happen all happening in a row. Vanya manifesting her powers AND finding that book so she'll be on to this obvious weirdo. Hazel making his break from the organization, and massively outplaying Cha Cha while doing it. Luther realizing what an asshole dad was. Allison and Luther working out this tension. Mom coming clean with Diego on shit. Klaus getting sober.

Literally all the things I wanted. AND THEN THEY JUST TOOK IT ALL AWAY

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yeah i loved that too
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