The Umbrella Academy's Moon Plothole Fans Can't Ignore
Contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy's first season
The first season of The Umbrella Academy was a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre, with its focus on its heroes' interpersonal problems at least as much as their attempts to save the world. The dysfunctional, adopted Hargreeves children are set to return for season 2, and it will be genuinely interesting to see where — and, for that matter, when — the time-hopping, expectation-topping Netflix original show will take us next.
The first season of The Umbrella Academy gave us a shocking twist when the supposedly powerless Vanya (Ellen Page) turned out to be the strongest Hargreeves of them all. With her ability to convert sound waves to dangerous energy, she gave in to her destructive powers and became the terrifying White Violin. The rest of the Umbrella Academy proved unable to negate her energy attack, which ended up destroying the moon and causing the apocalypse. Fortunately, Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) managed to use his time-traveling powers to save the Hargreeves family, and took them back in time to just before the world ended.
Yes, The Umbrella Academy certainly knows how to go out with a bang. Still, some people have pointed out that the first season's whole moon-exploding ending may just come with a major plothole, if you've paid attention to the rest of the show. Let's take a look at the Umbrella Academy's moon plothole fans can't ignore.
The Umbrella Academy's time-travelling Number 5 should have known that the moon was in danger
Every member of the Umbrella Academy had plenty of do in season 1, but the most proactive member of the team was Number Five. His powers of time-jumping and teleporting defaulted his physical age to 13, and also trapped him in a gloomy post-apocalyptic future for years. With his powers, knowledge, and an acquired skillset as a dangerous assassin, Five has a keen sense of his surroundings, and an iron will to stop the impeding apocalypse. So, why did he fail to warn everyone that the end of the world would be moon-based?
As one fan put it in a Reddit thread, "In the future, when Number Five is trapped there, how did he not notice that the ENTIRE MOON was gone and still not know what happened to the Earth, and how did he not come [across] any fragments of it?" Another Redditor concurs, asking, "He lived for so many years in the post-apocalyptic Earth and didn't notice there was no moon in the sky?"
The way Five was seemingly unable to put two and two together is even stranger, since as several commenters in these threads point out, he did actually very briefly remark on the moon still being in the sky in the show's present day. Did he just assume that the missing moon was some strange side effect of the apocalypse? Did the world end differently in the future he visited? Or does Five know more than he lets on? This being The Umbrella Academy, the answer could be anything — and we can't wait to find out how the situation develops.
The Umbrella Academy season 2 drops on Netflix later this year.