What Umbrella Academy Fans Never Noticed About Luther And Pogo
"The Umbrella Academy" contains an unusual family unit. None of the siblings are biologically related (which Allison and Luther want to make very clear), but they also didn't choose to belong to each other. Their mother figure is a robot, their father figure is a cold-hearted alien, and what you could call their uncle figure is a pocket watch-wearing chimpanzee who can speak.
However, one member of the Academy has a few things in common with the talking chimpanzee, Pogo (voiced by Adam Godley). Born human and with super strength, Luther (Tom Hopper) later takes on some great ape characteristics: a torso reminiscent of a gorilla, and a set of very large, hairy arms. Pogo, on the other hand, was born as a chimpanzee, apparently in Congo, and later develops a human kind of consciousness.
It's not just appearances that they have in common. This is what Umbrella Academy fans never noticed about Luther and Pogo, and what it could mean for the series in the future. Or the past. Or in a parallel universe...
Pogo and Luther underwent the same treatment
In Season 2, viewers saw more of Pogo's backstory, although it may have opened up more questions than it answered.
Within the show's contextual history, in 1962, Pogo was sent to orbit the Earth as part of the Mercury space program. Pogo carries out the tasks he's been taught, but something in the capsule malfunctions, and when he crash-lands back to Earth, he's horribly injured. When Grace (Jordan Claire Robbins) cannot revive him with CPR, Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) injects the dying ape with a mysterious red serum. The serum heals Pogo's injuries — but also gives him a human personality.
Viewers will recall a parallel scene from Season 1, which took place a few years before the rest of the season's episodes. When Luther is injured on a solo mission, and robot Grace can't revive him, Hargreeves injects him with the same serum. However, the results are different for Luther: His wounds heal just like Pogo's, but he also grows huge gorilla-like arms and a massive torso.
Hargreeves' reaction is also different. After Pogo healed, Hargreeves started treating the chimp more like a human child, dressing him in pajamas and reading Homer to him. After giving the serum to Luther, Hargreeves dispatches him to the Moon, alone, for four years. The Moon may be more significant than we think, but Luther feels that Hargreeves just wanted to get rid of him.
What was in that serum?
All of this leads to a question: What was in the serum, and why did it manifest so differently in Luther and Pogo? Did Hargreeves know what would happen? Did Pogo know what would happen to Luther?
One theory is that the serum was made of blood Hargreeves took from Pogo, and Hargreeves experimented with it to alter the chimp's DNA and give him improved cognitive abilities. Maybe he was planning to save it for a later date, but was driven to use it when it looked like Pogo might die. However, it's equally viable that Hargreeves created the serum before Pogo arrived at the lab.
Grace may have the answer. Human Grace was in the lab when Hargreeves injected Pogo, and the look she gave Hargreeves when she saw him holding the serum suggests she knew what it was. However, the siblings don't know that, and it's unclear how much connection there is between human and robot Grace.
Pogo was murdered by Vanya (Elliot Page) in Season 1, but he may be back in the Umbrella Academy's parallel universe after time traveling from 1963's Dallas, and he still made it into Season 2. Season 3 still leaves many unanswered questions from Season 2, including a huge mystery that needs to be solved. Hopefully, the show finds time to address this mysterious serum that links Pogo and Luther.