If you want a show with an amazing soundtrack, fantastic costumes, an intricate storyline, a diverse cast, lgbt+ rep, and superheroes, look no further than The Umbrella Academy. I finally picked it up now that season two is out and watched all of season one yesterday. I’m actually glad I waited because now I have a whole other season to dive into!

The show is based on Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s comic book and follows seven siblings with special powers. The story begins when a bunch of seemingly random women around the world give birth all at the same time – only they weren’t pregnant the day before. A billionaire goes out of his way to adopt the children and manages to collect seven. (I say collect because there’s absolutely nothing paternal or fatherly about him, at least from what I’ve seen, and he uses all of them for his own ends.) The children are trained to be superheroes, at the cost of their childhoods, and it badly impacts them.

Years later, the siblings come home when their father dies, only everything’s changed and no one gets along. One of the siblings vanished into time (Five); one of the siblings died (Ben); one was experimented upon (Luther); one was ostracised (Vanya); one is on drugs (Klaus); one is fighting for custody of her child after her marriage crumbled (Allison); and one has a lot of anger management problems (Diego). (Actually, most of them have anger management problems.) They are also reunited with Pogo, the chic, talking ape, and their Mom, who’s a robot.

In the midst of saying goodbye to their father, the sibling that went missing in time falls out of the sky, the same age he was when he vanished. And there are assassins following him. Oh, and the world is going to end in eight days. Should have led with that.

My favourite characters were Klaus, who can talk to the dead and uses drugs to avoid talking to the dead, and Vanya, a violinist who was told by their father that she would never be special, and whose siblings belittled her as a result. The two are so endlessly supportive of their siblings and have so many layers and I just felt for them at every turn. I adored Ben, Five and Diego, but I did struggle with Allison and Luther. Allison did win me over by the end, but Luther really lost the plot. Every choice he made frustrated me and I feel like everyone should have questioned him a lot more than they did.

The music was sooooo good in this show. You get Sinnerman, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), Exit Music (For a Film), Dancing in the Moonlight, and so many others. It’s seriously so good! I loved the costumes, too. ALTHOUGH WHY THIS IS SET IN 2019 AND THERE ARE NO MOBILE PHONES WAS A HUGE EYE TWITCH FOR ME. Like, if it had been explained, okay. But half the time the characters were using rotary phones and landlines, and I’m like, we are still in 2019, yes? I looked it up and it’s definitely intentional, so that’s cool, but it was a bit confusing at first. The vibe reminds me of A Series of Unfortunate Events, actually.

This is a show for anyone who loves family dramas or superheroes, but wants more diversity and character development than is often shown in movies. Definitely recommend!