Beyond that, the show descends from the cliffhanger of its second season into a more complex world of shifting timelines, battling super-teams and existential threats, presented with lots of goofy humor and silliness, but as- As strange new elements keep piling up, growing rapidly. Aimed at what felt like a rigid band of loyalists with the patience to keep pace.
Distracted members of the original team essentially engage in a season-long dance with their alternate-time brothers and sisters on various fronts, including an actual dance sequence that underlines the show’s playful tone. Interactions range from hostility and fights to a relationship involving Luther (Tom Hopper) and a Sparrow (Genesis Rodriguez), who refers to one of his siblings as “Gravity Barbie”.
Yet once the latest blueprints are established, assorted subplots yield diminishing returns, with amorphous danger making strange detours building towards the inevitable faceoff. Adding a new band of characters is a challenge, and the show often wrestles with the pitfalls associated with jumping through time and tinkering with those consequences and events.
Without spoiling anything, the ending of the third season leaves plenty of room for the fourth, which reinforces the feeling that it’s time to start planning for a proper conclusion. Because when an ambitious show like “Umbrella Academy” starts to look like it has its best days behind it, well, when it rains, it rains.
The third season of “The Umbrella Academy” premieres on Netflix on June 22.