Warning: SPOILERS ahead for The Umbrella Academy season 2.
Diego finds love in The Umbrella Academy season 2, but his fellow mental institution patient Lila turns out to have a unique power of her own. It's revealed at the end of episode 3, "The Swedish Job," that Lila is actually a mole planted by The Handler, who also happens to be her adoptive mother. And that's not the most shocking reveal about Lila that The Umbrella Academy season 2 has in store.
In the season finale, "The End of Something," The Handler sends the full force of the Commission to attack the Hargreeves family, and Vanya responds by unleashing her powers and wiping them out. Just when it looks like the Umbrella Academy has emerged victorious, however, Lila's eyes turn white and she rises into the air and uses Vanyas powers to send out another wave of energy. In the ensuing fight, Allison attempts to "rumor" Lila into submission, only for Lila to turn her power back on her. And when Lila fights Five, she mirrors his ability to teleport.
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The Umbrella Academy have faced formidable threats before, from time-travelling assassins to a scheming serial killer, but this is the first time they've encountered someone else who has powers like theirs. Here's a breakdown of who Lila really is, and what she can do.
As established in The Umbrella Academy season 1, the origin story of the Hargreeves family is that they are seven out of a total of 43 babies who were born at noon on October 1st, 1989, to women who hadn't previously shown any signs of pregnancy. Many of these women were understandably horrified and wanted nothing to do with their freaky newborns, which made it all the easier for Reginald Hargreeves to swoop in, hand over some money, and adopt the children for himself. Some parents accepted their surprise babies, however, and Lila's parents were among them. She was raised in her London home until she was four years old, at which point Five - in his capacity as an assassin for the Commission - killed her parents and staged the scene to look like a break-in that had turned violent.
The exact nature of the 43 babies, why they were born and where their powers came from is one of the biggest mysteries of The Umbrella Academy. Fans have speculated that Reginald Hargreeves may actually be responsible for their conception, after the season 1 finale revealed that he is an alien. A flashback showed Reginald opening a strange jar of lights that floated away into the sky after being released, leading to the theory that these lights made their own way to Earth and created the special children. For now, though, this theory remains unconfirmed.
The original character information for Lila actually contained a hint about her true nature, describing her as, "A chameleon who can be as brilliant or as clinically insane as the situation requires." In the comics, each member of the Umbrella Academy has a superhero moniker: Allison is The Rumor, Five is The Boy, Vanya is The White Violin, Klaus is The Séance, Ben is The Horror, Luther is Spaceboy, and Diego is The Kraken. Lila hasn't appeared in the comics (yet), but if she did then her moniker would most likely be The Chameleon. She has the ability to mirror the powers of any one of the Umbrella Academy (and presumably the other 35 "siblings" as well), but can only use one of their powers at any given time. It's an ability that's reminiscent of a chameleon changing its colors to match its surroundings.
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There are hints of Lila's powers earlier in the season. In her initial fight with Five she's actually borrowing his power in order to teleport around the paint factory, making it difficult for him to keep up with her. It's unclear exactly how Lila figured out what her power was, as she didn't interact with any of the other members of the Umbrella Academy before meeting Diego. The most likely explanation is that The Handler knows where the other October 1989 babies ended up, and has previously sent Lila to investigate them.
The Handler went outside the bounds of what the Temps Commission is supposed to do when she had Lila's parents killed. The Commission exists as a bureaucratic organization that ensures history plays out as it's meant to, with some agents monitoring the timeline back at headquarters while field agents are sent out to assassinate any anomalies that threaten to throw the timeline off course. Hazel and Cha-Cha were sent to 2019 to ensure that the apocalypse went ahead as planned, and during his time at the Commission Five was sent to Dallas in 1963 to ensure that John F. Kennedy was assassinated like he was supposed to be.
Lila's parents, however, weren't anomalies; they were just in The Handler's way. It seems that, like Reginald Hargreeves, The Handler wanted one of the October 1989 babies for herself, to raise as her own personal weapon. She faked an order from A.J. Carmichael for the death of Lila's parents and made sure she was present at their execution in order to collect their daughter for herself. At the end of The Umbrella Academy season 2, The Handler switches her attention to Harlan Cooper, the little boy to whom Vanya accidentally gifted some of her own powers. Her goal appears to have been to replace Lila with Harlan, since he is more powerful (and, as a bonus for The Handler, doesn't talk). It's never explicitly stated why The Handler wanted to get her hands on children with superpowers, but presumably it was all part of the same lust for power that led her to have the Board of Directors assassinated so that she could take over the Commission.
With The Handler now gone, it remains to be seen what will become of Lila in The Umbrella Academy season 3. She jumped away using one of the Commission's briefcases, so she may return to work for the organization - or strike out on her own. Whatever she does, it's unlikely that we've seen the last of her.
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August 04, 2020 at 04:57AM
