At last, the truth behind the Jennifer Incident has been revealed, and — who would have guessed it? — it’s all Reginald Hargreeves’ fault. In the October 14, 2006 flashback that opens the episode, we see the adolescent Umbrellas lining up for yet another mission: A raid on an arms dealer who possesses an unspecified but extremely deadly weapon. Reginald has just one instruction for the kids: When they find the weapon’s container, don’t open it.
But kind, compassionate Umbrella Ben can’t resist when he approaches the container and hears knocking from the inside. When he opens the container, he finds Jennifer. The energy between them crackles (literally), and for a moment, we get to enjoy a superheroic meet-cute … until Reginald steps out and shoots them both in the head.
This is the memory that had been erased from the rest of the Umbrellas: the sight of their father murdering their brother in cold blood. And now that they know what happened, they need to decide what to do about it.
Of course, “what to do about it” is an unusually literal concern for the Umbrellas. Since this timeline contains both Ben and Jennifer — a “Bennifer,” if you will — one simple solution would be to give them the happy ending they were denied.
There’s just one problem, according to Reginald. Ben’s body contains marigold; Jennifer’s body contains a different element, synthesized by Abigail, called durango. If the two come together, he warns, it’ll result in a chemical reaction that could wipe out the entire timeline. That’s the “Cleanse” Jean and Gene have been chasing, and given the Umbrellas’ extensive experience in preventing the end of the world, it’s probably on them to make sure it doesn’t happen.
This is a bit of a retread: season one had basically the same stakes but with a different sibling, Viktor, at the center of the moral conundrum. Maybe that’s why Viktor is the one who stands up to Reginald, insisting he isn’t running the show anymore. But if the solution isn’t as simple as killing Jennifer and/or Ben before they can touch in this timeline, what will work? Lila and Five have one idea: Going back to the original Jennifer Incident and preventing it, which could theoretically result in a happier timeline in which neither Ben nor Jennifer dies. (You’d think Five would know by now the perils of mucking around with the timeline, but whatever.)
If that’s the best plan they’ve got, they’ll need to act fast. Now that Ben has sprung Jennifer from Gene and Jene’s farm, they’re holed up at a cheap motel, doing their best to avoid their intensely magnetic attraction to each other. Call it love, call it chemistry, call it some kind of unconscious death wish, but these two can’t keep their hands off each other. When they finally touch, it sets off an extremely gnarly set of consequences: Lights flickering, car alarms going off, water boiling in a fishbowl, and a hotel clerk vomiting blood as the eyes melt out of their face.
This seems bad. But also … familiar? In some ways, The Umbrella Academy suffers because of the show’s consistently apocalyptic stakes. Earlier in the episode, when Five mentions that the end of the world is a possibility, Lila shrugs, “Saw that coming.” As Allison snorted earlier this season, the Umbrellas have already prevented the end of the world three times over the course of the series. What’s one more?
The difference, I suppose, is that The Umbrella Academy is almost over. There are only two episodes left in the series and no real reason for the show to hold anything back anymore. I would definitely be surprised if The Umbrella Academy’s creative team decided the most fitting ending for this series is for all of our heroes — and, uh, the entire universe — to be vaporized in a single terrifying shockwave, but there’s something to be said for going out with a bang.
Raindrops
• Klaus watch: Still stranded in his own wacky/depressing story, paying off his debt to Quinn by working as a medium who lets ghosts possess his body so their bereaved lovers can get another roll in the hay. As a part of this process, Klaus sees an opportunity to sneak off and grab a cache of money one of the ghosts left in a pet cemetery, but gets caught by Quinn and gets buried alive as a punishment. All of this is diverting enough; I’m just not sure why Klaus warrants his own storyline, which, so far, is totally disconnected from the main narrative, with just a couple of hours left in the series.
• I’ve always assumed Pogo was largely dropped from The Umbrella Academy due to the expense of convincingly animating a walking, talking CGI chimpanzee, so kudos to Netflix for coughing up enough money to give us what might be our last glimpse of Pogo flying the helicopter in the flashback.
• With the exception of the long (and very funny) road trip from episode two, The Umbrella Academy has grown extremely disinterested in the practicalities of its own geography, with characters just sort of zipping around North America wherever they’re needed without any real nods toward the time or hassle that it would take to get around.
• It doesn’t look like we’ll be spending any more time with the Phoenix Academy, but showrunner Steve Blackman posted a look at their stained-glass window for anyone who felt Five and Lila blinked out of there a little too fast.
• “Do you know why my dog is called Rolex?” “Because he’s a watchdog.”
