The Umbrella Academy – Season 2 Episode 2 Recap & Review

The Frankel Footage

The Handler

After being shot in the head last season, episode 2 of Umbrella Academy Season 2 sees two men take the dead body of The Handler to the incinerator. Only, she suddenly begins stirring and eventually opens her eyes. “Get me to the hospital,” She pleads as the two men do just that.

Three months pass and The Handler is alive and kicking. She meets AJ, the big boss of The Commission who happens to have a goldfish bowl for a head.

It turns out the metal plate in The Handler’s head is the reason she’s still alive. Itching to work, The Handler is shocked to learn she’s been given a demotion to work in Lot C. What happened to Five and the others was the tipping point and the damage is just too great.

Even worse, Herb is made her supervisor and she’s forced into doing desk work. Ironically, her workstation happens to be Five’s old desk.

The Swedes

The three men silently rent out a guest house and work together as they receive a message from headquarters. That message comes in the form of Vanya’s picture. They have their instructions to kill and head out to track down the amnesia-stricken girl.

Luther & Five

It turns out Luther is working for Jack Ruby; that same retired-cop who shoots Oswald after Kennedy’s assassination. Telling Five no one needs him, Luther decides to keep working and rejects the Umbrella Academy.

Excusing himself from Five’s company, Luther moves a drunk Carl (the same one married to Sissy where Vanya currently is) out the building after seeing him harassing Ruby about politics.

Up at the bar, Five notices that Hazel has stashed some undeveloped photos in his pocket. This prompts him to race off and get these deciphered.

Vanya

Sissy gets her keys and picks up a drunk Carl from the bar. Only, when Harlan kicks off and starts losing control, Vanya takes the keys and leaves instead. She finds him slumped outside Ruby’s club and she bundles him into the car.

Just before she drives off, Vanya and Luther lock eyes. Unbeknownst to him though, Vanya obviously doesn’t have her memory intact.

That evening, Vanya starts to experience fragmented memories of her past. For now though they remain just that – echoes of a time long gone.

Vanya & Luther

The next day, Vanya starts playing hide and seek with Harlan. While she wanders around, Luther pulls up in his car with a gun. When he confronts Vanya, he finally understands that she has amnesia. After apologizing to her, he decides against shooting and leaves.

That evening, Sissy talks to Vanya about Luther showing up. Telling her to stay away as he’s trouble, Vanya settles back into her gentle rhythm of farm life.

Allison & Klaus

Dallas Police arrive and arrest Allison’s husband Raymond for arrest and battery. Only, Allison was the one responsible and she pleads with them to take her instead. They ignore her of course, just as The Swedes pull up at the house and watch from afar.

Allison heads to the police station to pick up Raymond. While she waits outside patiently, Klaus happens to be in the jail cell opposite. As they sit together, Klaus winds up talking to Raymond until he receives a call from the Governor, allowing him to leave.

While Klaus makes a nuisance of himself, Allison is allowed to see Raymond. After saying her goodbyes, he notices one of the men has “Hello” and “Goodbye” on his hands and starts to understand that this is Klaus’ handiwork.

Diego & Five

Five takes the photos back to Elliot and asks him for help developing the Frankel Footage. Midway through though they receive a code 3-15 (fugitives on the run) and Five realizes that this could well be about Diego.

As we cut across to them, Diego and Lila hurry away from the psychiatric hospital and hide from the police. Despite initially rejecting her offer of teaming up, he’s eventually forced to do just that as the police edge ever-closer.

Diego waits outside Oswald’s house as Lila learns that his plan involves chopping off the assassin’s trigger finger. Midway through discussing this, Five suddenly appears and takes them both with him to Elliot’s place. 

With the footage now ready, they sit and watch the film. The footage captured happens to be from the grassy knoll just as Kennedy is shot. On the footage, they find Reginald standing in the distance with an umbrella.

Diego immediately suspects their father was the one responsible for the assassination but Five is not so sure. Instead, Diego and Five decide to find Reginald and track down his family.

A Family Reunion

As Diego and Five head out together, they find D.S. Umbrella Manufacturing and decide to take a look around. While they do, someone sneaks out the back wearing a hat. Diego notices and follows in hot pursuit.

Back inside, Five uncovers an envelope on the table inviting Mr Hoyt Hillenkoetter and the Consulate General of Mexico in Dallas to the Mexican Consulate. The date? 18th November 1963. Realizing they’re not alone, Five suddenly finds baby Pogo but the chimp lashes out and escapes.

Diego is ambushed and immediately starts fighting the shadowy man he’s been following. The duo trade blows until he realizes he’s fighting his Father.

Diego lets his guard down and this is just the opening Reginald needs. He plunges a knife in Diego’s belly and walks away with baby Pogo hand in hand, seemingly unaware that he just stabbed his son.

The Episode Review

With the timelines starting to converge together now, this episode ties the past to the future in a pretty fun way. While Klaus is kept to the sidelines for much of this episode, Diego, Five and Luther step forward with much bigger roles.

There’s some nice editing between the different timelines to allow these characters to share scenes and so far the show has done an excellent job with this.

If there’s one blemish here it comes from Vanya’s amnesia. It just feels like such a cliched way of dealing with her powers and we’ve seen this done numerous times before. For those who remember, Heroes Season 2 did this with Peter Petrelli and the results were pretty poor, to say the least.

On a side note though, it is nice to see the familiar violin motif return for the Vanya scenes. Hopefully this storyline improves as the rest of the Academy have some solid ideas running through them.

The fight at the end in the warehouse is a definite highlight and seeing Baby Pogo (a recurring trend in media right now to show babyfied version of characters!) is almost certainly going to please fans.