- Title: The Umbrella Academy – 743
- wiki: link
If there’s one character the television series has done a disservice to by centering the stories on the older lives of the Umbrella Academy members while limiting flashbacks to childhood it’s Ben (Justin H. Min). “743” attempts to make up for that oversight by giving the character arguably the biggest hero moment in the entire series. Given his discovery at the Temps Commission, Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), and Klaus (Robert Sheehan) attempt to prevent the FBI’s torture of the captured Vanya (Ellen Page) from altering the past. However, when none of them can get to her, it’s Ben who steps up in a big way to save not only his sister (who spends most of the episode fighting the return of her memories) but the entire world as well. Elsewhere, the Handler (Kate Walsh) uses Lila‘s (Ritu Arya) discovery of what she thinks is the truth about her parents to manipulate her into going after the Umbrella Academy.
The rest of the episode centers around Five‘s (Aidan Gallagher) unorthodox plan to work with Luther (Tom Hopper) and his younger self (Sean Sullivan) in an attempt to make the timeline work for him. With both Fives experiencing paradox psychosis, and the attempts of each to murder each other, the best that Luther can accomplish is keeping the previous events in check and making sure Five returns home just how he did before to kick off Season One’s events. Speaking of the past repeating itself, Diego is unable to save Kennedy who is taken down by the secret cabal Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) is a part of. However, the closing reveals a couple of facts for the auidence. The first is that Reginald was unaware the President was going to be killed. The second is the reveal of why you would never, ever want to make Reginald Hargreeves angry. The tease of Hargreeves’ secret works as a great coda for the episode.
