What To Expect From The Sparrow Academy In Umbrella Academy Season 3

With the third season of Netflix's hit show, "The Umbrella Academy," currently set for a 2022 premiere date, the streaming giant is beginning to give fans a steady stream of teaser content. The show follows a group of superpowered individuals who were raised by eccentric billionaire Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), and one element of the show's third season that Netflix seems eager to hype up is the addition of the Sparrow Academy, a rival group of people created by Hargreeves in an alternate timeline.

"The Umbrella Academy" Season 2 concluded with the reveal of the alternate timeline containing the Sparrow Academy, with a stinger scene that saw the show's core cast of characters returning to what they think is home on April 2, 2019, the day after the would-be apocalypse. However, when they arrive, they are confronted by their father, Reginald, who is long-dead in their timeline, before discovering that they have arrived in the same alternate timeline as the Sparrow Academy.

The new, superpowered group has the potential to make the show's upcoming season its most interesting to date. With that in mind, here's what to expect from the mysterious squad in "The Umbrella Academy" Season 3.

In Season 2 of "The Umbrella Academy," the gang of adopted siblings is thrust back in time to the 1960s. There, while attempting to correct the timeline and avoid doomsday, they make their adopted father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, aware of their existence. Unsatisfied with the children his future self will raise, Hargreeves forms the Sparrow Academy out of what he believes to be a superior selection of kids. This creates the branching timeline in which the main cast finds themselves at the end of Season 2.

Given that one member of the Sparrow Academy is literally a floating telekinetic box named Christopher, it remains unclear what Hargreeves' criteria for his new set of children were, but he saw enough of the original group to know how dysfunctional they are. While the Sparrow Academy has only appeared as a group of silhouettes up to this point as well, that brief shot certainly sold them as a cohesive team worth taking seriously.

Interestingly, "The Umbrella Academy" doesn't seem to be pitching the Sparrow Academy as villains, but rather as dark reflections of the original Umbrella Academy kids or, in other words, what they would have been like if things had gone according to Sir Hargreeves' plan.

While little is known, as of now, about the Sparrow Academy in "The Umbrella Academy" Season 3, it seems safe to say that the new group will carry itself very differently than their alternate selves do. Counting a still-alive Ben (Justin H. Min) as one of its members, the Sparrow Academy looks to be quite an arrogant group of kids. At least, that's the impression given in a new "Umbrella Academy" Season 3 teaser video released by Netflix on Twitter.

Featuring Min talking directly to the camera, the video sets up the Sparrow Academy to be a very different group than the Umbrella Academy. "On October 1, 1989, the Sparrow Academy was born," Min smugly says. "You're welcome." Indeed, it seems like the Sparrow Academy feels a lot more appreciated than the Umbrella team ever did. "While we appreciate grand gestures, we don't need gifts, mere citizens," Min says in the video, before joyfully adding, "We are the gift!"

Min's attitude in the teaser establishes a stark contrast between the upcoming season's two teams. The show's original group never seemed particularly happy with superhero work, which is what initially led them to go their separate ways before being brought back together by the death of their father at the start of the series. The Sparrow Academy, meanwhile, appears to be far happier (and more confident) in their superhero work, which should lead to plenty of conflict between them and the Umbrella Academy in the show's highly-anticipated third season.