Why The Sparrows Think The Umbrella Academy Are Villains

The Umbrella Academy poses a threat to all of existence - and their father's new Sparrow Academy - in the latest season of the Netflix series.

Why The Sparrows Think The Umbrella Academy Are Villains

Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy has the Hargreeves Family facing a new threat: Reginald and his newly-introduced Sparrow Academy who see the Umbrellas as villains. Set to The Sweet’s song “Ballroom Blitz,” The Umbrella Academy season 3 trailer highlights the stakes of the new season and reveals some potential twists the new installment may introduce. Though the specifics are unclear, the Hargreeves once again find themselves at the center of a potentially world-shattering problem and have to find a way to save themselves without dooming the rest of existence.

Season 2 ended with the Umbrellas returning to a very different timeline than the one they’d left behind at the end of Season 1. The first clue that things have changed in this new continuity is that Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) is alive and living in the family mansion. Shocked to see him, Luther (Tom Hopper) says that he’s just glad to be home. Reginald tells the Umbrellas that this is not their home and introduces his Sparrow Academy, a new group of superheroes that include Ben (Justin H. Min) among their ranks. The season ends with the Umbrellas staring at Ben, looking shocked to see their brother alive again.

The Umbrella Academy trailer suggests that the Umbrellas’ very presence in this new timeline threatens the existence of the entire world, if not all of reality. In traveling to this new timeline, they’ve created a paradox because, in this new timeline, these versions of themselves never existed. As a result, the Umbrellas are being cast as the primary problem to be solved in this season – and positions them as the Sparrows’ natural villains for season 3. In fact, their presence in this timeline is so wrong that it creates a threat called a kugelblitz, which will further amplify the Sparrows’ distrust towards the Umbrellas, particularly given Reginald’s clear dislike for his former children and pupils.

Reginald’s past encounters with the Umbrellas and his resulting disdain for his children further explain why the Sparrows see the Umbrellas as villains. When Reginald met the Umbrellas in Season 2, he expressed distaste for them and made it clear that he found them to be poor and dysfunctional heroes. It’s likely for this reason that he actively chose different children in this timeline—save for Ben, who he couldn’t have met—and cultivated a completely different group than before. In this way, his dislike of the Umbrellas likely feeds into the Sparrows’ enmity with them.

With the Umbrella Academy being set up to be the problem of the newest season, the Hargreeves will have to fight for their lives to justify their continued existence in this timeline. Whether their enmity with the Sparrow Academy is because of the kugelblitz or because of Reginald’s pettiness—or both—remains to be seen. Regardless, The Umbrella Academy season 3 is sure to explore the academy’s origins and reveal more about the Sparrow Academy’s goals and motivations.