As a part of Netflix’s Geeked Week event, The Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman (Fargo, Legion) whet fan’s appetites for the third installment of the series by revealing all ten of the upcoming season’s episode titles. According to Games Radar, production on the highly anticipated third season of Netflix’s dysfunctional superhero family dramedy kicked off in February 2021, with Blackman’s Tuesday announcement marking one of the first major news items regarding season three since filming got underway.
Blackman spoke on day two of the inaugural Geeked Week, a Netflix “fan-facing event taking place through June 11, which serves to celebrate all things geeky in film and TV” (Deadline). While unveiling the episode titles, The Umbrella Academy showrunner sprinkled in some light commentary without revealing much, by way of spoilers, for season three. The season three episode titles include “Meet the Family,” World’s Biggest Ball of Twine,” “Pocket Full of Lightning,” “Kugelblitz,” “Kindest Cut,” Marigold,” “Auf Wiedersehen,” Wedding at the End of the World,” “Six Bells,” and “Oblivion.”
The Umbrella Academy later posted the season three-episode list to their social media pages, giving fans more time to sit with the titles and begin their theorizing. As the series is based on the Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) graphic novel series of the same name, fans have traced episode titles such as “Marigold” and “Oblivion” to their comic origins.
According to Games Radar, Blackman even indicated that readers would be excited by the prospect of “Marigold,” a possible origin episode as the term refers to the mysterious source of the Hargreeves’ siblings powers. “Oblivion” may refer to the comic-book location Hotel Oblivion, a prison-of-sorts for the Hargreeves’ enemies. It’s fitting that an ominous title such as “Oblivion” would serve as season three’s finale, as The Umbrella Academy has often set-up new threats and cliff-hangers at the end of their seasons.
Season two’s final cliffhanger, that saw the Hargreeves arrive at an apparent alternate reality version of The Umbrella Academy known as The Sparrow Academy, has been festering with fans since last year. For this reason, many assume that the season three premiere “Meet the Family” refers to the Hargreeves meeting the alternate version of The Umbrella Academy. “There are some very big surprises with the family this year,” Games Radar quotes Blackman “there are some amazing changes that people will love to dig into, and there’s a lot of growth for this family this year in a way that people are just not gonna expect.”
Blackman commented that episode titles like “Six Bells” would make more sense to fans with in the context of The Umbrella Academy’s third season once they began to watch. Even though Allison, Vanya and Klaus left romantic interests behind 60s’ Dallas, there are still many ongoing romantic storylines in the series that could culminate in an episode title like “Wedding at the End of the World,” as love and apocalyptic stakes have always gone hand-in-hand for the Hargreeves.
With season three of The Umbrella Academy given a rough outline in the form of episode titles, fans are likely to scour any forthcoming trailers for clues and Easter Eggs that further contextualize the titles Blackman provided on Tuesday.