The Umbrella Academy Season 1 - Ending Payoff

Today, we’ll discuss the Ending Payoff of the television series The Umbrella Academy.

Important Notice:

Since we've changed the format of our podcast, the episodes about the beginning hook, middle build and ending payoff of the Umbrella Academy - Season 1 will just be released as a blog post. 

The 5 commandments of The Umbrella Academy - Ending Payoff

Inciting Incident: 

Melanie: (causal) They learn that Leonard Peabody is Harold Jenkins and the mark is dead. (Protect Harold Jenkins), (episode 9)

Parul: For me, the ending payoff's inciting incident is the flashback to understanding that Vanya was always dangerous.

Turning Point: 

Melanie: Vanya tears down the building. (episode 10)

Crisis: 

Melanie: (Best Bad Choice Crisis Decision): Killing Vanya or spare her life but not save the world.

Climax: 

Melanie: Allison shoots the pistol close to Vanya’s ear. 

Resolution:

Melanie: A light ray of energy tears a part of the moon off that crashes down to earth. (episode 10)

The end of the world happens, but Five has rescued his siblings taken them to another time/place. (episode 10)

Value Change: From hope with the discovery of the man that ended the world to world ends (but family survives (+/--)

Ending Payoff of the Comic Book

Melanie:

Okay, let me just finish up with summarizing the Ending Payoff of the comic book to see how much the story has differed from the original ending of volume 1:

1. When the members of the UA are faced with their sister wanting to destroy the world
2. and they cannot convince her to stop
3. ... they have to decide if they are going to kill her or find another way to make her stop her performance.
4. Number Five shoots his sister in the head.
5. Even a failed performance comes to a finale, but Séance saves the world.

Isn’t it interesting to see that even though the readers of the comic book (I talk about myself here particularly) have that huge feeling that the TV series has strayed away from the original story, but we still can see the same kind of template underneath?

But once again, it’s the art of how you implement a story, portray the characters, show who they are by the decisions they make in crisis moments as well as having a clear primary global genre as well as hitting the expected moments is what makes a story work or not.

Comments

Randall: There are way too many coincidences here. 

The Time cops are horrible, they miss all of the siblings, even when they run straight down the bowling alley. 

I don’t understand why Vanya was knocked unconscious by the pistol shot that didn’t hit her.

Five thinks about traveling with everyone spontaneously, but not before? 

The ending isn’t totally satisfying for me.

And we still don’t know where Sir Hargreeves came from and why all these children were born on the same day and if the other children had powers (Harold obviously didn’t). 

Lots of unanswered questions and Deus ex machina moments.

Melanie: I felt cheated by the ending.

It’s not only that we had one complete episode in the TV series (‘The Day that never was’) that was almost pointless when you consider the task of an episode/chapter to move the global story forward.

And now we have watched an entire series that could have been ‘The first attempt to save the World that never was’ because we assume they travel back in time and try it all over again.

Now, this portrays the depth of the dysfunctional family at its best, and having an apocalypse at stake can’t go higher than this.

So I understand why they want to exploit that threat in the next season again and show the character’s growth and development to a more satisfying ending.

Parul: Unanswered questions: Why did the eye make up a huge part of the beginning hook? 

Harold never used that fake eye - so how did it get there in the end?

I like the idea of ‘what if’, but I was confused by The Day That Never Was.

The hero at the Mercy scene compared to Killing Eve (Eve vs Villanelle), X Men (Jean vs Wolverine) and Game of Thrones - is weaker. 

Bonus:

Melanie:

I have prepared the entire spreadsheet for the first episode of Season 1.

So if you want to dive into the microanalysis of this series, just start with that spreadsheet. 

Furthermore, I have done a full analysis of The Umbrella Academy - Apocalypse Suite Comic Book.

Six Core Question Analysis, Foolscap, Spreadsheet as well as the Story Grid Graph. You find it on my website: editing-comics.com