Biggest Unanswered Questions In Umbrella Academy Season 2

The second season of The Umbrella Academy may have answered some of our biggest lingering questions from season one, but it raised a bunch more of its own. After the disastrous events of season one, the seven Hargreeves siblings (including the Klaus-tethered ghost of Ben) spend much of season two in the early 1960s, trying to find their way in a society that looks vastly different than the one they left, and doing their best to prevent yet another apocalypse. 

By the end of the season, we know what causes the 1963 apocalypse, the fate of the Handler and the Commission, and how the Hargreeves family eventually makes it back to 2019, but there's still quite a bit left up in the air. For every mystery that's resolved by the end of the season, it feels as though three more unspool — which is, of course, part of the appeal of this wacky, unpredictable show. Here are some of the biggest questions we're still looking for answers to after finishing The Umbrella Academy season two.

In the first season of The Umbrella Academy, we meet the Hargreeves siblings' "mom," Grace (Jordan Claire Robbins), who we quickly learn is actually a robot. It swiftly becomes evident that "mom" is malfunctioning, and ultimately it's a heartbroken Diego (David Castañeda) who winds up deactivating her.

However, in season two, Diego runs into Grace again at a gala in 1963 — only this time, she's a real, flesh and blood person. Diego is shocked and emotional to come face to face with his "mom," even if the human Grace is not the same as the robot who raised him, and has no memory of him. It turns out that Grace is dating Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), the enigmatic Hargreeves family patriarch, and has no knowledge of any of his shadier dealings or proclivities.

Diego urges Grace to look closer at "Reggie's" business in Dallas, telling her that he's planning to assassinate the President. Although Grace insists that Diego is mistaken, she does in fact take his advice, and finds evidence of the assassination conspiracy. She confronts Hargreeves, who doesn't refute any of her suspicions, asking her, instead, to trust him — and she refuses. The last we see of Grace, she's walking away from Reginald, seemingly for good. It raises a lot of questions, including how the robot version of Grace eventually came into being in the original timeline — did something happen to the original Grace? — and whether Diego's interference in this timeline has changed Grace's fate, as well as that of her eventual robotic counterpart.

A huge part of season two of The Umbrella Academy revolves around the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy, and Diego's attempts to prevent it. However, when the fateful moment finally arrives, the identity of the shooter remains a mystery. Diego spends much of the season convinced that his father, Reginald Hargreeves, is the shooter, based off of a grainy video of the event given to Five (Aidan Gallagher) by Hazel (Cameron Britton). But when he tackles a man he assumes is his father during JFK's motorcade, it turns out to be a decoy, sent by Hargreeves to throw Diego off the track.

Likewise, although the adult version of Five (Sean Sullivan) is sent by the Commission to carry out the assassination, he winds up distracted, thanks to an altercation with his future self and Luther (Tom Hopper). Yet someone still fires those shots; we simply never see who it was. Was it Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, as history suggests? Perhaps, but the involvement of the Commission and the Majestic 12 both suggest that the plot was far more complex than a lone gunman.

When Reginald Hargreeves arrives to confront the shadow organization the Majestic 12 following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he seems deeply upset about the events that have transpired, arguing that Kennedy was not to be touched. However, despite Hargreeves' frustration with the organization, the leader of the Majestic 12 smugly informs him that he will continue supplying the Majestic 12 with his advanced (presumably alien) technology, or else the 12 "[will] tell the world who you really are."

Of course, as has been hinted at several times throughout the series, he's almost certainly referring to the fact that Hargreeves is an alien, as demonstrated just a few moments later in the same scene, when Hargreeves takes off his human mask to reveal his alien form underneath. But before Hargreeves strips off his skin suit, the leader of the 12 also mentions that Hargreeves' "interests on the dark side of the moon" will remain secret, as compensation for Hargreeves' supplying the 12 with the rocket technology that will allow the U.S. to win the space race. This isn't the first we've heard of Hargreeves' dealings on the moon — after all, that's where Luther started season one — but we still don't actually know what the father of the Umbrella Academy is actually doing up there, nor do we have any idea what his eventual endgame might be.

It's been a revelation hiding right in plain sight since the beginning of season one, but season two finally confirmed it: There are other superpowered "siblings" out in the world. This shouldn't come as a shock; after all, 43 babies were spontaneously conceived and birthed on October 1, 1989, and Hargreeves only managed to adopt seven. The other 36 had to have been out there, somewhere. Yet for the members of the Umbrella Academy, the revelation that there might be more of them takes them by complete surprise. It's never entirely clear what Hargreeves told his adopted children about the others who shared their unique origin story, but whatever excuse he made, it appears to have been far from the truth.

With the introduction of Lila (Ritu Arya), we get our first glimpse of what might have befallen some of those other children. Like the Hargreeves siblings, Lila has superpowers — she can mimic the powers of any one of her "siblings" and hurl them right back at them — but unlike them, she was actually raised by a pair of normal, loving parents... for the first four years of her life, at least. It begs the question of how many other superpowered "siblings" are out there, if any of them have found one another, and why we haven't heard anything about them yet. Additionally, although we know there were 43 babies born that day, that doesn't mean all 43 made it out of childhood, or that they all necessarily have superpowers. All we know is that now that the Hargreeves siblings know there may be more of them, we can almost guarantee they're going to try to find the others.

Right on the heels of learning that she's actually a long-lost Hargreeves "sibling" (or whatever the term is for children who were born at the exact same moment and conceived by magic), and after seeing her adopted mother the Handler (Kate Walsh) gunned down in front of her, Lila grabs a briefcase and splits for destinations unknown. Although Luther could have stopped her, Diego intervenes, admitting that he's fallen in love with her and is therefore willing to let her escape, even if it means the Hargreeves family remains stuck in 1963 (they'd forgotten the hundreds of other briefcases right outside the barn door, all free for the taking).

So where did Lila go? With a Commission briefcase, she could travel to literally any point in history, and without a functional Commission to monitor her, she could probably get away with quite a lot. Did she go to 1993, to perhaps attempt to save her parents from the Handler and Number Five? Did she jump further into the future, to try to reunite with Diego? Or perhaps deeper into the past, to try to quietly start a new life for herself? We have no way of knowing by the end of season two, but we doubt we've seen the last of her.

Although Klaus Hargreeves (Robert Sheehan) tends to serve more as comic relief than the emotional center of The Umbrella Academy, one of the more poignant storylines from season one revolved around the eccentric medium accidentally time-traveling back to the late 1960s and spending several years fighting in the Vietnam War. It turns out that not only did Klaus become a soldier during his first stint in the '60s; he fell in love with a fellow soldier named Dave (Cody Ray Thompson). Tragically, Dave was killed in action, and Klaus spent much of season one working to come to terms with his death.

In season two, Klaus sees another chance to save Dave (played by Calem MacDonald in season two) when he finds himself back in the '60s, this time several years before his first trip. Unfortunately, Klaus' plan isn't very well thought out, and he winds up declaring his love and issuing a bizarre-sounding warning to a bewildered Dave, and getting punched in the face for his troubles. Yet despite Klaus' bumbling, he does actually manage to change something: Dave enlists earlier than he did originally. Klaus assumes this means he's doomed, but maybe not. If there's one thing the end of the season proves, it's that the actions the Hargreeves family made in the '60s have large, long-reaching consequences. Perhaps Dave's earlier enlistment date means he won't be at the fateful battle that originally took his life. Could Klaus actually have managed to save Dave after all? We don't know, but we're holding out hope.

When young Harlan (Justin Paul Kelly) accidentally drowns in a lake midway through season two of The Umbrella Academy, Vanya (Ellen Page) uses her newly rediscovered powers to lift the water out of the lake and revive him. During the process, she inadvertently passes some of her powers to him, although she doesn't realize it at the time. Later, when she's being tortured, Vanya realizes Harlan is linked to her, and that her distress has triggered the powers within him. Similar to Vanya herself in season one, Harlan's powers quickly spiral out of control, but Vanya is ultimately able to calm Harlan enough to approach him and draw his powers back into herself — or so she thinks.

At the end of the season, Harlan's mother Sissy (Marin Ireland) makes the hard choice to say goodbye to Vanya, since she worries that Vanya's abilities will put a target on her back that would put Harlan in danger. Sissy just wants a normal, safe life for her son, and decides to take him to California to start over. However, the last time we see Harlan, he's making a toy bird levitate in his hand in the back seat of his mother's car, implying that Vanya didn't drain all of his powers after all. What other abilities does Harlan still have, and how will those powers — and his traumatic experiences in Dallas — help shape the rest of his life? We hope to find out in season three.

In addition to reuniting us with the seven lovable siblings of the Hargreeves family, and bringing back a few other familiar faces from season one, season two of The Umbrella Academy introduced several endearing and memorable new characters, including the time-traveling assassin Lila, discontented housewife Sissy and her nonverbal son Harlan, and Allison's civil rights activist husband, Raymond Chestnut (Yusuf Gatewood). By the end of the season, Lila is off on her own, jumping through the timeline with a Commission briefcase, but Sissy, Harlan, and Ray all choose to remain in 1963 while their loved ones jump back to 2019. The goodbyes they say to one another feel permanent, but are they really?

Although Sissy and Ray would be in their late 80s or early 90s, it's conceivable they could still be alive 56 years later. Meanwhile, Harlan would only be in his mid-60s in 2019, young enough to still be active. Will Vanya and Allison attempt to seek out their lost loves once they return to the future? Will Vanya try to reconnect with the child she once cared for? And what will each of their lives look like after intersecting so significantly with time travelers from the future? We're especially curious about Harlan, and whether the power Vanya gave him wound up pushing him onto a hero's path... or a villain's.

One of the odder Hargreeves endeavors before they all reconnect in 1963 is the cult Klaus starts accidentally, thanks to his tendency to spout song lyrics that haven't been written yet as if they're prophecies. Egged on by Klaus' own ego and aversion to conflict, the cult quickly winds up taking on a life of its own, and by 1963, he's amassed quite the following. Although Klaus does eventually attempt to make things right, revealing to his followers that he's a fraud before leaving with his siblings to save the world and return to 2019, the cult members believe his admission is yet another pearl of enlightenment, and completely miss the point.

Despite Klaus leaving his cult behind, the closing moments of season two indicate that the group is far from dispersed. They're still driving around in a rainbow-hued bus, picking up new acolytes along the way (including ex-Commission assassin Axel [Kris Holden-Ried]), and presumably following and spreading the "teachings" of Klaus. It'll be interesting to see if the cult is still around in 2019, how it has changed over the intervening 56 years, and, perhaps most intriguingly, how the group will react to the return of their prophet, still looking exactly the same as he did when he disappeared in 1963.

Some members of the Umbrella Academy feel freer to use their powers than others, and since season one, one of the most reserved Hargreeves siblings is Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman). Allison's power is that she can compel anyone to do anything, simply by starting her command with the phrase, "I heard a rumor." However, in season one, we barely get to see her power in practice, since Allison has sworn off using it after "rumoring" her young daughter Claire (Coco Assad) and subsequently losing custody of Claire to her ex-husband, Patrick (Braden Hendrickson).

In season two, Allison begins to more confidently use her powers again, and also experiences a more healthy, honest marriage with her new husband Ray. Once she returns to 2019, her first priority is to go find Claire, since for Allison, it's been years since she's seen her. However, when the Hargreeves siblings arrive in 2019, it is a very different version than the one they left, and it seems as though none of them were ever part of the Umbrella Academy at all. Without that shared background, would the Allison of this timeline ever have met and married Patrick, or given birth to Claire? Does Allison's daughter even still exist — and if not, what lengths will Allison go to in order to bring Claire back?

The closing moments of season two of The Umbrella Academy raise a lot of intriguing questions, and one of the biggest involves the mysterious change to the name of the organization for which the show is titled. When the Hargreeves siblings arrive back in 2019, they're shocked and relieved to find their father and their previously deceased brother Ben (Justin H. Min) still alive. But their excitement is short-lived when neither Reginald Hargreeves nor Ben seems to have any idea who they are, nor what the Umbrella Academy is. "This," clarifies Reginald, "is the Sparrow Academy."

The name change is mystifying, since the Umbrella Academy was named for the umbrella factory where Hargreeves set up shop shortly after arriving on Earth many decades before the show began. Hargreeves was still operating out of this same umbrella factory in the 1963 that the Hargreeves siblings departed before jumping to 2019, so it's curious that the academy doesn't bear its name. Could someone else possibly have named the Sparrow Academy, and if so, what is their role in the organization? Is Hargreeves still in charge, or is he now reporting to someone else? And what significance does the name "Sparrow" hold? We can't help but think about how Harlan ended the season using his powers to levitate a toy bird, which could very well have been a sparrow. Coincidence? We'll see.

Fresh off the revelation that Reginald Hargreeves is alive and that the institution formerly known as the Umbrella Academy is now the Sparrow Academy comes the final bombshell of the season, when five shadowy figures assemble on the balcony overlooking the living room of the Hargreeves mansion, their silhouettes not resembling the Hargreeves siblings we've all come to know and love. A very much alive Ben — sporting a very different look than the ghost who's spent the past two seasons tethered to Klaus — is the last to join, and asks his father an unnerving question: "Who are these a**holes?"

This implies that Ben doesn't even recognize the six siblings in front of him, much less view them as family, and that the group on the balcony are five brand new characters. Which begs the question: What happened to Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, and Vanya in this timeline? The existence of Ben seems to indicate that the 43 babies were still born in 1989, but in this timeline, it appears that Hargreeves (or someone else) adopted a different group. So are there other versions of the six main characters in this alternate 2019, and will they ever cross paths with the Umbrella Academy's family of heroes? One can only hope.