In season 2 of The Umbrella Academy, we learn that Five’s plan to time travel his siblings
back in time in order to prevent the apocalypse doesn’t quite go as planned. The Hargreeves
children are randomly teleported to different points in time between 1960 and 1963. Klaus is
transported to 1960, where he becomes the leader of a spiritual cult, using his powers to keep
his deceased brother Ben at his side. Allison is transported to 1961, where she regains her voice,
joins the civil rights movement, and marries an activist named Raymond. Luther is transported to
1962 where he becomes an underground fighter and bodyguard for the gangster Jack Ruby.
Diego is transported to September 1963, where he is locked up in a mental hospital after trying to
warn the world of President John F. Kennedy’s imminent assassination. Vanya is transported
to October 1963, where she is hit by a car and loses her memories. She’s taken in by the family
who hit her, Sissy and Carl Cooper, alongside their young son Harlan. And then there’s Five,
who is transported to November 25, 1963 where everything has devolved into pure chaos.
The world is mere minutes from a nuclear doomsday and Five’s siblings are all there,
fighting Soviet soldiers. An elderly Hazel arrives to warn Five that this was another apocalypse that
the Academy would need to stop, but before he can explain more, three assassins known as the Swedes
kill him. Five manages to teleport back in time ten days, giving him a very short
amount of time to reunite his siblings and figure out how to prevent a new apocalypse.
But reuniting the Hargreeves siblings was much easier said than done. Vanya,
still suffering from amnesia, is content living her new life with the Cooper family. She and Sissy
enter into a secret love affair, while Vanya also grows close and protective over the young Harlan.
When Harlan nearly drowns in a lake, Vanya saves his life. While giving the boy CPR, some of
Vanya’s powers somehow transfer over to Harlan, giving him powers of his own. The Hargreeves
siblings try to remind Vanya of who she is, but she decides to stay with the Coopers instead.
Klaus reunites with his long lost love Dave and tries to prevent him from going to war,
which Klaus knows will lead to his death. Ultimately,
Dave joins the army and a depressed Klaus returns to his siblings.
While locked up in the mental hospital, Diego befriends a fellow patient named
Lila who helps him escape. As Diego tries to stop the JFK assassination
and prevent the upcoming apocalypse alongside Five, he and Lila develop romantic feelings for
each other. Unfortunately, Diego is unaware that Lila worked for the Commission and
was actually the secret adopted daughter of the Handler, who was still very much alive.
The Handler instructs Lila to remain close to Diego and protect Five at all costs.
As the siblings begin to come together to prevent the apocalypse, they also run
into the past version of their late adoptive father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves. They discover
that Reginald was a member of the Majestic 12, a secretive shadow government that controlled the
United States who were somehow involved in JFK’s assassination. Believing that saving JFK was the
key to preventing the apocalypse, the Academy make it their mission to stop their father.
The Handler arrives to make a different deal to the Academy. She had been demoted
in the Commission following her failures in season one, so if Five agreed to assassinate
the Commission’s board, she would give them a briefcase to travel back to a non-apocalyptic
2019. Five agrees to the deal, killing the Board and making the Handler head of the Commission.
Unfortunately, Five only had 90 minutes to gather his siblings together to time travel.
While Allison and Raymond attempt to reach the others, they are confronted by the Swedes.
Allison uses her powers to defeat them and flee with her husband. Things don’t work
out quite as well for Vanya. She convinces Sissy to take Harlan and leave Carl behind,
traveling with her to the future. But Carl calls the police who show up and apprehend Vanya.
With Vanya under arrest, the briefcase’s timer runs out and the Academy were stuck in the past.
Because Vanya can speak Russian, the 1960s police officers believe that she must have
ties with the KGB and turn her over to the FBI where she is drugged and interrogated.
This torture makes Vanya start to remember her past and lose control of her powers.
Meanwhile, Lila kidnaps Diego and takes him to the Commission, trying to convince
him to join so that they could continue to be together. While at the Commission headquarters,
Diego is saved by a kindly analyst named Herb, who shows him the cause of the apocalypse. Vanya will
destroy an FBI building and in turn, JFK will be saved. The Soviets will be blamed for the attack,
leading to World War III. Herb helps Diego escape in order to stop Vanya and save the world.
Diego reunites with the Academy, who race to stop Vanya. With her powers out of control,
none of the siblings are able to reach Vanya, except the ghostly Ben, who enters her mind.
Ben manages to calm Vanya, preventing her from exploding the FBI building, which in turn stops
the apocalypse. Having saved the world, Ben’s spirit finally enters the afterlife.
Because Vanya’s explosion was prevented, historical events happen as they should,
resulting in JFK’s assassination. Reginald visits Majestic 12, revealing that not only had he not
been a part of the assassination plans, but he had also been trying to stop it. Furious,
he reveals himself to be an interdimensional being and kills the other Majestic 12 members.
Vanya senses that Harlan is in trouble, and her siblings, finally united, travel with her to the
Cooper farm to investigate. As a scared Harlan loses control of his powers, Vanya helps calm him
down. Unfortunately, that’s when the Handler arrives, with Lila and an army of Commission
agents by her side. Vanya uses her powers to kill all of the Commission agents, but the Handler and
Lila survive. It’s then revealed that Lila was another superpowered baby born on October 1, 1989,
and her superpowers allowed her to mirror the powers of others. Lila fights the Academy,
using their own powers against them. Unbeknownst to Lila, the Handler had ordered for her parents
to be killed so that the Handler could adopt her and manipulate her into using her powers.
And now, the Handler wanted to take Harlan to add another superpowered weapon to her arsenal. The
Academy manages to show Lila that the Handler was just manipulating her and offers to take her in
and love her as a member of the Hargreeves family. But that moment of revelation is
abruptly ended when the Handler arrives and shoots everyone dead. Before succumbing to his injuries,
Five manages to travel back in time by a few minutes to save his siblings.
And that’s when the last surviving Swede, Axel, arrives and murders the Handler,
blaming her for setting in motion the events that killed his brothers.
In the aftermath, Herb, the newly appointed head of the Commission,
arrives with a briefcase to give to the Academy, which would allow them to travel back to 2019.
Lila decides to take her own briefcase and run, leaving Diego heartbroken. Raymond stays behind
to continue his fight for the civil rights movement. And Vanya and Sissy end their
relationship, as Vanya’s life in the Academy was too dangerous to involve a young child.
And so, the Umbrella Academy return to 2019, having successfully prevented the apocalypse.
As they enter their childhood home, the siblings realize that they might be in 2019, but it wasn’t
their 2019. A still-alive Reginald greets them, but reveals that in this timeline he
adopted a different set of superpowered children and formed a group known as the
Sparrow Academy. As the Umbrella Academy look up at the Sparrows,
they only recognize one familiar face: the very much alive Ben, who has no idea who they are.