Umbrella Academy Season 3 - 2022, Netflix
Young Justice: Outsiders (Season 3) : - 2019, Bluray
Locke & Key Season 3 - 2022, Netflix
It feels like we've hit a point in media saturation where season 3 of a TV/Streaming series means it's starting to get long-in-the-tooth, and perhaps should think about wrapping things up, versus the olden days of television where season 3 of a series tended to be where things just started getting good.
Or maybe that's just me, and my increasing discomfort with the glut of content being force-fed out into the world. Sure, more than ever creatives of all different backgrounds are finding opportunity to have their voices heard, and having more and more control over their projects, but, at the same time, all these productions are, in a way, competing for resources -- mainly money and behind-the-scenes talent -- and I feel that in the end the creative visions in a lot of cases are having to make sacrifices. Or perhaps it's just COVID productions.
Season 3 of Umbrella Academy came, and went not that long ago. I know I enjoyed the hell out of it, but at the same time, I struggle to recall exactly what the season was about. Time moves so fast now, and content gets consumed so quickly. A Netflix binge means we didn't exactly savour the show, but consumed it rapidly over three or four days knowing that the next thing was coming down the pipe.
(Often this forgetfulness is also from a lack of reviewing. As I started typing, the memory centers got triggered and things started coming back to me)
This season, which picks up where season 2's cliffhanger left off, finds the Umbrella kids winding up in the present day but in a reality altered as a result of their meddling back in 1963. Their home, no longer the Umbrella Academy, is instead the Sparrow Academy, and there's a whole different batch of birthday twins (and a totally alive Ben) for them to contend with.
Things get fighty, then dancey, then weird, weirder, and even weirder still. But as usual with the Umbrella Academy it's all grounded with real emotions and tumultuous family dynamics which should be getting tired by now, but haven't really.
A tremendous amount happens this season, but perhaps the biggest is the meta-story of Elliot Page's transition and how it affected his character, who also transitions into Victor this season. The show handles it very tactfully and brilliantly, and then moves on without making it out to be any more an issue than it needs to be. Victor is Victor now, and everyone is accepting, because, really, transgender is one of the least unusual things to happen on the show.
But Victor is still reeling a bit from his ill-fated 1963 romance, and the young boy with a shard of his powers he left behind. Alison, though, more than anyone, has the most trauma from going back in time and returning, having faced segregation and entrenched societal racism, getting married, but returning to the present because she missed her daughter only to find that in the fallout of their interference, her daughter no longer exists. It understandably turns Allison's heart to something close to stone, having really nothing left to give from a world that only seems to take. As understandible as her nihilism and selfishness is, she's very unpleasant to watch this season.
Luther and one of the Sparrows fall in love and they carry on an expectedly absurd Romeo and Juliet affair under the noses of their respective families. Diego learns that he has sired a son with Lila (though it's been only weeks for him, it's been 13 years for Lila and she drops the boy on his lap) and has to come to terms with this deliciously droll kid (seriously, he should have been really annoying but I liked him a lot, the right mix of vulnerability and apathy and snark). Klaus learns more about his powers thanks to the help of a somewhat different Hargreevs (leashed by the Sparrows), and Five is just ready to hang up his hat after living a lifetime of saving the world from apocalypses.
Of course there's another apocalypse brewing which ultimately will mean that the Umbrella kids and the Sparrow kids will have to figure their shit out before fixing everything, though, things get really, really, really dicey there pretty much until the last minute, and it kinda seems like everyone's given up on doing anything at all.
Also there's this crazy hotel with a whole pile of secrets, most of which lead back to ol' Reg Hargreevs. The magical mystery tour element of this season was fantastic. While I felt that 10 episodes was a little too long (maybe 8 would have been more the sweet spot), none of the episodes are duds. Each one has a pile of entertaining story and character moments that are totally worthwhile, but I think at a certain point, once we know the apocalypse is looming, and pretty much everyone save the Umbrellas and Sparrows are obliterated, there really shouldn't be another two episodes. And there's another cliffhanger. It's a pretty grand season overall, and leaves me hoping there's at least one more to come that can maintain the same daffy tone. It's a sweet sister series to Doom Patrol.
Speaking taking its time, the long-awaited (and long-ago-ran) third season of Young Justice runs at a whopping 26 episodes! I don't remember the last time I watched 26 episodes of any series in a single season (probably Arrow?). It's a lot, and it felt like a lot.
YJ was resurrected from its early demise (in 2013, after 2 incredible seasons) by the short-lived DC Universe streaming service (which only lasted about a year before HBO Max took over). Subtitled as Outsiders we catch up with the Young Justice a number of years after we last saw them, to find that many of the team members we know are now running the Justice League, and that there's a whole new YJ team. But some internal strife over having to take orders from a Lex Luthor-led United Nations council (restricting their ability to act on certain information or events) leads to a slew of people quitting the teams.
In the fallout of this Nightwing sets up an independent task force, drawing Tigress and Superboy out of retirement, and recruiting a reluctant Black Lightning, as there's been a slew of metahuman teenagers being kidnapped, brainwashed, and transported on and off world, sold as living weapons. In the process of investigating, the roads lead to the tiny European nation of Markovia, which is facing its own crisis as the reigning monarch is murdered.
This is all part of a much larger conspiracy which unravels in great (and intricate) detail over the course of 26 episodes. As was hinted way back in season 2, the galactic evil of Apokalypse has taken an interest in earth, and these events are just one part of the story. Along the way we catch up with many of the old crew of Young Justice, and just like prior seasons, there are side tales that feature random characters like The Guardian or Bumblebee which don't directly relate to the main story but really fill out the world like no other superhero show.
Spilling out from the Markovia incident, Nightwing's side team winds up taking in a few strays: the exiled prince of Markovia codenamed Geo-Force; an amnesiac muslim girl found in a gravesite in Markovia, codenamed Halo; and an exiled creature from rival New Gods territory New Genesis, named Forager, the bug. This trio winds up staying with Superboy and Miss Martian at their farmstead, with Nightwing and Black Lightning helping train them with their powers, and ultimately lead them on covert, off-the-books missions that YJ or Justice League can't touch. This is sort of the core crew for the season, which is only a problem in that each one of them has vocal frys or affectations that get somewhat annoying given the amout of (over?)exposure they get. Geo-Force is a total hothead with a fakey-fakey non-descript European accent. Halo has a vaguely middle eastern accent, but is too full of naivete. Forager always refers to himself in third person, and makes a lot of clicking noises.
The show has an on-the-nose parody of a right wing news broadcast in G. Gordon Godfrey, who is a totally boorish media personality of the Piers Morgan type, getting away with slander by phrasing everything as a question. It's totally aggravating basically because of how spot on it is.
Also aggravating is the slow-burn lead in to Beast Boy joining the team, voiced by the same actor who has been performing the character across Teen Titans/Teen Titans Go! for 20 years, only instead of being a fun goofball, Gar is now a sanctimonious TV star using his platform to speak out about metahuman trafficking. It's not really that it happens, but how it is executed, and it's not executed very well. By the time Gar actually joins the series as a member of the team we're already kind of exhausted by him, and he only gets worse. Also, Cyborg becomes a cast member, and I think between my decades of reading comics, Snyder's Justice League, the DC Animated Movie universe, and the Doom Patrol show, I'm really, really tired of mopey Cyborg. Not that he doesn't have a right to mope, mind you, but I feel like that ground is well trod. I don't need Vic being a big, boisterous cartoon like in Teen Titans Go!, but I miss the spirited character of the 00's Teen Titans series who has already gotten comfortable with who he has become and excited for what he can be.
It's strange praise, but the absolute best thing this season has going for it are its end credits, different each episode. A tranquil, if slightly haunting lullaby plays over a still shot or barely animated loop - sometimes it's of Wolf sleeping, or Sphere "sleeping", or Atemis' dog "Brucely" sleeping (it's mostly things sleeping but with different backdrops), or catching up with what's going on with Lobo's severed finger. It kind of reminded me of the end credits to Twin Peaks: The Return.
There is a lot going on across the 26 episode season, and a lot to like, but a lot of it I found aggravating (mainly in the choice for lead characters this season... the show makes them all kind of challenging to like in their own way, and it does make some of the episodes feel like a slog to get through as, you know, Prince Brion erupts in fury yet again, or Halo gets murdered and resurrected yet again or forager laments his outsider status yet again. But by the very end, despite not thoroughly loving the season, I was eagerly scouring for the just-completed-in-June season 4 of Young Justice, subtitled Phantoms. It's not available on physical media yet, but I want and am ready for more. I love spending time in this world, maybe just not with the Outsiders, specifically.
Where the third season of Umbrella Academy really felt like the show operating at peak, and the third of Young Justice felt more like it was awkwardly finding its footing again, the third season of Locke & Key, at a reduced 8 episodes, felt downright redundant at best, cliche at worst.
When we ended last season Tyler had turned 18 and decided not to use the Alpha key to remember the magic of the keys, while the kids used the Alpha on their mom, Nina, to let her remember. Ellie had returned from behind the Omega door, and the kids had found victory over Dodge, but unaware of a greater evil in Frederick Gideon, who also was freed from behind the Omega door. Oh, and a whole slew of teenagers died.
So this season has a lot it could deal with, and it does, but in a largely glib and off-handed way. Ellie's trauma of being on the other side is hardly touched upon, and they disappear her until she's useful to the Locke family again. Nina seems to enjoy the bonding she's having with Bodie and Kinsey over using the magic of the keys, but missing Tyler who is off finding himself or whatever. There's not a lot of parenting going on from Nina, no restrictions seem to be set around key use, no discipline in place. And there seems to be very little interest in searching for missing keys (presumed, I'm sure, washed away in the climactic seaside house destruction of last season), now in Gideon's posession. Oh and the town should be reeling over the deaths of so many teenagers, but, again, it's barely touched upon. Likely due to COVID restrictions, there's no in-school scenes, nor anything like a town hall or any sense of the town of Matheson as a character.
Tyler returns home, and we're once again in the territory where one of the characters doesn't know about the magic keys and the others have to hide it from him, which we've seen so much of already with Nina (and others in the prior season), and it's an inevitability that Tyler will get Alpha keyed and get his memories back. Meanwhile Gideon makes his moves (Kevin Durand just sneering, snarling and Brit-talking his way through the role, chewing up everything around him), but they too feel so similar to what Dodge did in the prior season. Except Bodie finds a new key which enables temporary time travel, and he accidentally brings Dodge from the past back to the future. Dodge tricks Bodie out of his body using the ghost door, and then we spend a couple very tiresome episodes of Dodge pretending to be Bodie whilst the family just scratch their heads wondering why the kid is suddenly so ornery. There's a whole thing in Locke & Key where 90% of the show's problems would be solved if characters just talked to one another about their problems and they so rarely do, and it's damn annoying the way these conversations are avoided. Naturally the Lockes need to team up with Dodge to stop Gideon, and that goes about as well as you would expect. And the way the season plays out seems pretty telegraphed and unsurprising.
Overall, this season was a drag. It felt rushed, and confined, both likely a result of being a COVID-era production. The real joy of the show is the discovery of the keys, both the whispering secrets treasure hunt, and then learning how to properly use them. I think I would have preferred it as a more of-the-week show that trying so hard to find some grand plan to tie the whole thing up with a bow. No character this season gets a real story arc, except maybe Ellie. The Lockes don't really grow much this season as characters, they don't feel much different than they did in seasons prior at the end of it all.
In the comics, there's a lot more use of the time key as well as exploring the history of the keys over time, which really deepened the mythology. The series takes the cheap route out and only gives us two very brief sojourns into the past, amounting to little except for Bodie's carelessness. As well, the comics had a pretty grand final battle that employed the keys on a massive scale, and here they're used as tritely as they always have been. I mean, sure, the Lockes aren't warriors or soldiers, but their ability to think strategically seems hindered by the writer's need for certain events to happen which is truly frustrating. It takes any of the real menace out of the villain(s) for them to so easily defeat characters who don't pose them any challenge.
I liked the series overall, but a little less with each passing episode.
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