The Umbrella Academy Season 2, Episode 8 recap: The Seven Stages

Vanya is definitely in perhaps the worst situation out of all of her siblings, as she’s taken to an FBI office and questioned. The officer in charge thinks she’s a Communist threat sent over from Russia. In the opening of The Umbrella Academy Season 2, Episode 8, Vanya is stripped of her rights and forced into a tiny interrogation room.

She tries to manipulate the sound waves from a glass of water to destroy the agent, but a nurse waiting in the wings knocks her out with chloroform before she can kill him.

Back in the alley, Klaus is still recuperating for Ben’s possession and his profuse vomiting, and Five is throwing a temper tantrum — declaring every sibling for himself. He storms off and Luther tells Klaus to get Allison before following after Five. Five locks himself in a room and says he’s going to do “the unthinkable.”

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Well, Allison and Raymond are not doing great, all things considering. They’ve got a Swede dead on their couch and Ray is freaking out. Luckily, Klaus shows up and he doesn’t even ask any questions.

“It’s gonna be one of those kind of nights, huh? So are we burnin’ or buryin’?”

I guess Klaus is officially the sibling you turn to if you need to get rid of a body.

As for the final Swede in question, he’s considering chopping off his own hand as some kind of self-penance for killing his brother at Allison’s demand. Before he can swing the ax, one of the many cats running around rattles a can and he picks up one of the canisters The Handler has been sending missions through.

He notices a familiar scent and scratches at the side, revealing the plumbing business The Handler has been using as a front. Putting two and two together, he suddenly understands The Handler is the one who has been pulling the strings of the operation that got both his brothers killed.

Speaking of The Handler, she’s not thrilled with Lila’s first choice of a team member, Diego. But Lila argues she needs some fresh blood who is loyal to them and not the old regime. Ultimately, she allows it, but basically, if Diego steps one toe out of line, Lila will have to kill him herself.

Elsewhere, Grace goes poking around in Reginald’s study and discovers a secret room hidden behind a bookcase. Inside, she finds numerous documents and photographs detailing the president’s impending address. She starts to suspect Diego was right.

When Reginald catches her, she confronts him about all of it and he doesn’t confirm or deny anything, only asks her to trust him until one day, when he hopes he can share it all with him. Tearfully, she says she can’t wait that long and walks away.

Meanwhile, Five has come up with a Hail Mary plan to save them now that their old plan went out the window. He wants to track down his old self, who formerly came to 1963 on a mission from the Commission to ensure the president was assassinated.

Five thinks if he can find his older self, he can take his briefcase and use it to get them back and restore the timeline. The only issue is that being in close proximity to another version of yourself causes seven stages of psychosis and he needs Luther to act as a “spotter” to ensure he can stay on task.

At the farm, Carl tells Sissy that they’ve arrested Vanya and she’s under surveillance. He informs her of the theory that Vanya was a sleeper KGB agent and she led Sissy astray intentionally, as it was part of her training.

He advises his wife to chat with Reverend Moore so they can work through things and then take a trip somewhere far away. In the other room, Harlan draws a picture, it looks like it might depict Carl flying through the air.

Vanya is being tortured by Agent Gibbs, who has her strapped down to a chair and hooked up to an electric machine that zaps her when she disobeys. Then the nurse puts some kind of LSD eye drops in her eye and causes her to hallucinate.

Gibbs asks her who she is and where she came from as Vanya starts tripping out, seeing a strange old scene of herself and her siblings in their school gear attire while sitting down for dinner with Reginald at the head of the table.

Cut to Luther and Five, walking into some random Irish pub to find old man Five. Luther suggests going in first to break the ice since Five is already exhibiting the early stages of psychosis. Older Five does seem genuinely stupefied by Luther’s presence, even more so when his younger self emerges.

At the Commission, Lila tries to get Diego set up in orientation. She tells him what they do at the Commission is far better than what he does down on earth. They actually maintain the correct timeline. Diego is intrigued by this, wanting to know how it is they control time.

She shows him into a new room to watch the orientation video and leaves him there. He watches a few scenes detailing specific rooms in the building before the instructor falls asleep and Diego slips out the door.

Luther and Five are in intense negotiations with old man Five, telling him exactly what happened to result in the split versions of the same guy. They ask if they can the briefcase in exchange for young Five telling his older self the correct calculation to ensure he lands in the right year.

Before giving a concrete answer, old man Five excuses himself for the restroom. Luther thinks it went well, but young Five isn’t so sure. He says he doesn’t trust himself — keeping up?

The Umbrella Academy Season 2, Episode 8 recap: What is the real cause of the second doomsday?

Diego does some digging and discovers something major at the Commission. He sneaks into the infinite switchboard room and inside he gets discovered by Herb — who is actually like, totally a fan of Number Two. That works to Diego’s advantage as he convinces Herb to show him what happens on the day of JFK’s assassination.

Well, due to Vanya being in the timeline, it turns out she is the bomb that explodes the FBI building, where she is currently in captivity. Vanya causes an explosion that results in JFK not being assassinated. Instead, it triggers a massive world war which ultimately turns into nuclear war, hence the doomsday. Diego realizes that’s what Hazel was trying to tell them.

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Once Diego sees this, he tells Herb he needs to get back to Dallas, ASAP. Herb introduces him to a small, but “resourceful” group who aren’t keen on The Handler taking over and who happen to have a briefcase I’m sure will come in handy.

Luther has his hands full between old man Five and young Five, especially as they start to turn on each other and both begin exhibiting obvious signs of paranoid psychosis. Old man Five and Luther meet up in the bathroom and he suggests they kill the young Five, who he labels a mutant photocopy, and just go back to 2019, make nice with Vanya, and prevent the end of the world from happening altogether.

The FBI is doing a great job of priming Vanya to become a bomb! They continue to torment her with electrocution and intense questioning. Vanya’s hallucination becomes more intense as her robot mom appears and the waitstaff serves her and her siblings a brain on a platter.

Vanya is forced to take a bite and starts to remember things from when she was a kid, how she grew up. As she struggles against her restraints and becomes unresponsive, Harlan starts to feel what she’s feeling, reacting physically in his bedroom. I’m guessing whatever Vanya transferred into him at the lake is the reason.

Finally, we return to Allison and Ray’s to see how they’re faring with the body removal. Klaus is busy chatting with Ben about how possession felt while she and her husband wrap the Swede in a rug. Then Diego and Herb drop in unannounced and Deigo fills them in on everything he learned from the switchboard.

Ray is obviously, totally freaked out. But he realizes this means Allison really has to go. The two say goodbye and, seemingly, Herb helps Ray deal with the body — he did say the Commission offered body removal services, after all.

And back at the Commission orientation room, Lila realizes that Diego is missing.

Allison, Klaus, and Diego rush to the FBI building, hoping they’re in time to rescue to Vanya, who is still trapped inside a nightmare where Reginald forces her to continue eating the brain, i.e. remember who she really is.

Finally, she does and yet Agent Gibbs cranks the electricity up to full power, trying to kill her, but really furthering her devolution and causing her to lose control of her powers. As the other Hargreeves stumble out of the elevator, they notice all the FBI agents are dead or tossed to the ceiling and floor, unable to withstand the massive energy spiraling out of the interrogation room.

Klaus asks a good question, who are they saving Vanya from if all the agents are down for the count? Miles away, Harlan continues to react to Vanya, his eyes open and his pupils are white, just like hers.

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The Umbrella Academy Season 2 is now available to stream on Netflix.

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