The Umbrella Academy Scene That's More Important Than You Think

Throughout Netflix's expansion into the world of original programming over the years, the streaming giant has experienced some huge hits (Stranger Things, Ozark) and moderate misses (Girlboss, Gypsy) along the way. One of the streamer's most unmitigated successes came in the vividly stylized, anti-superhero saga The Umbrella Academy. Adapted from Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá's award-winning graphic novel series of the same name, The Umbrella Academy follows the tale of a found family of supers brought together by a wealthy industrialist to become an umbrella against the evil-doers of the world. 

But there's a lot more to the story surrounding The Umbrella Academy's super-powered siblings than meets the eye. Over the course of the series' fatalistic debut season, it explored themes of fractured families, hard-fought fates, and the inescapability of human nature. As one might expect from a series that delves into such heavy topics, The Umbrella Academy season 1 offered few answers to some of the bigger questions it posed. Some might even say the show ended its inaugural run of episodes with more  questions than it began with.

The most pressing of all is not just where but also when the story will pick up following the Hargreeves' dramatic, time-slipping exit after the calamitous events of the season 1 finale. As it happens, the answer to that burning question could be tied to one of the series' other big unknowns: Number 5's involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The character's ties to the JFK assassination were briefly glimpsed on the fifth episode of season 1, via a scene that saw Number 5 nearly playing the part of the infamous Grassy Knoll gunman. Before the fateful shooting, however, Number 5 transported back to his original timeline. Here's why this scene is more important than you may think.

While it's made clear that the Hargreeves sibling didn't pull the trigger on the Grassy Knoll, no one truly knows if Number 5 — who'd spent years working as a time-traveling contract killer for the nefarious Commission — was in Dallas that day to prevent JFK's murder or to do the deed himself.

Given his contract with the Commission, it's far more likely Number 5 was there to assassinate Kennedy, thus continuing the Commission's steadfast mission to ensure histories are never altered. Since the Commission has a habit of sending in backup to ensure "corrections" occur when there are any timeline deviations, it's a safe bet the shots that killed Kennedy on Netflix's The Umbrella Academy came from Number 5's replacement. Alternately, Number 5 may just as well have been in Dallas to "correct" said assassination, which potentially opens a whole other bag of narrative daggers moving forward. 

Either way, there's good reason to believe the scene will factor heavily into The Umbrella Academy's season 2 narrative. It certainly did in the source material: In the comic series, Kennedy's survival is ultimately used to explain the alternative technologies in the Hargreeves' timeline. The keyword there is "timeline," because we don't know which one the Hargreeves' will be in when season 2 opens. Considering the Netflix series has already deviated extensively from the source material, differing from the Umbrella Academy comics in a number of ways, we still haven't a clue as to what the implications of Number 5's actions in Dallas really are.

Taking into account the uncertainty of the team's season finale jump in tandem with this, it seems likely The Umbrella Academy's second season will unfold at least partially in Dallas circa 1963, and reveal the truth about the JFK assassination scene.