The Umbrella Academy – Season 2 Episode 8 Recap & Review

The Seven Stages

Vanya

Episode 8 of The Umbrella Academy Season 2 sees Vanya captured and held in an FBI building. Unfortunately with a name like “Vanya” Special Agent Gibbs assume she’s Russian. As the agent speaks the Mother tongue to her, she replies to his questions in Russian too. It certainly doesn’t look good for her and the stress of this sees Vanya suddenly start to use her powers. However, the quick-thinking nurse behind her sedates the girl and knocks her out.

When she awakens, Vanya finds herself in an electric chair and succumbing to shocks and hallucinations. Only, this happens to be just the (no pun intended) jolt she needed to see more of her past.

Reginald

Marie stumbles upon Reginald’s hidden room and within finds plans about Dealey Plaza. As she looks over photographs and schematics linked to Kennedy’s arrival, Marie questions him. When he dodges her question, Marie turns and walks away.

The Commission

The final remaining Swede looks set to cut his hand off until he receives another message down the chimney. Only, he suddenly realizes this message isn’t an official one sent from The Commission on account of it smelling like lavender. This, combined with meeting The Handler at the sauna, causes him to realize she’s set him up.

Lila argues her point to The Handler over the fact Diego is an asset and can be used to work with them. Eventually she agrees but reminds Lila that if Diego steps out of line, she’ll be forced to kill him.

It’s here Diego learns more about what The Commission do and how they maintain the timeline. As Diego is forced to sit in orientation, Lila tells him not to screw things up and leaves. While she does, Diego watches part of an educational video. When they mention the switchboard though, Diego perks up and takes his opportunity to leave.

In the Switchboard room, Diego starts messing around until Herb show up. He mentions how they’re being usurped by The Handler and sets to work actually helping Diego. When they check the footage for The Kennedy Assassination, all is revealed.

The FBI building that Vanya is being kept in explodes just as Kennedy’s car turns the corner. Oswald never shoots Kennedy in this timeline and instead, Kennedy assumes the explosion is an attack on American soil. As things escalate between countries, it causes nuclear war to rain down on Earth and thus, prompt the apocalypse.

Just like in 2019, Vanya is the bomb. She’s always the bomb it seems and Diego realizes he needs to head back to Dallas to try and fix this. Herb has just what he needs too, and shows him his very own resistance hiding in the basement. With a small group huddled around a briefcase, they allow him to take it and get back to 1963.

Allison

The death of the Swede – especially in this time period and at the height of the civil war – causes serious problems for Allison and Ray. Thankfully Klaus shows up at the door to help with the dead Swede.

Only, as Raymond and Allison start strapping the body up and moving it, Diego and Herb suddenly jump through time and appear before them. There, Diego reveals that they have 1 hour to try and stop Vanya and prevent the apocalypse from destroying the world.

Five & Luther

With doomsday coming and Five giving up on the plan, he decides to “do the unthinkable.” It turns out he does have a plan and that involves meeting and stopping his older-looking self (that’s actually his younger version from an earlier timeline, of course.) With paradox psychosis a very real threat, Five decides to get Luther involved to help.

As they head out together, Luther goes first and breaks the ice with old-Five in the bar. After some brief introductions, the two versions of Five see each other for the first time. There, he speaks to his other-self and gives him the calculations needed to get the jump right. Old-Five doesn’t believe him though and remains suspicious.

The effects of psychosis start to show themselves as the two Fives continue to distrust one another. As they sit down to eat, Luther finds himself stuck in the middle of these two.

The FBI Building

Diego, Klaus and Allison race to the FBI building but when they get there, find out that they’re too late. Vanya’s power starts to grow and threatens to explode at any moment. However, the final shots of the episode cut across to Harlan who appears to have an essence of Vanya’s power growing inside him, which is where the episode ends.

The Episode Review

With the familiar Vanya motif picking up inside the FBI building, The Umbrella Academy starts to bleed through elements from the first season into this one. There’s a nice focus on Vanya here too and although she’s been the weak link this season, episode 8 gives her a fair amount to do.

Seeing more of The Commission and understanding the inner-workings of this organisation is definitely the highlight of the episode. The siblings are now all together too and seeing them working to stop Vanya certainly brings up a familiar sense of deja vu.

With two more episodes to go, The Umbrella Academy has so far delivered a really impressive second season. Hopefully this will continue and deliver a show-stopping end.