‘The Umbrella Academy’: Number Five Abandoning JFK’s Assassination Could Have a Big Impact on Season 2
The Umbrella Academy Season 2 will hit Netflix on July 31. As fans speculate what teasers could mean for the upcoming season, there’s one scene with Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) from season 1 that could have massive implications for season 2.
Number Five is a contract killer
As one of the 43 children born with powers on Oct. 1, 1989, Number Five can travel through space and time. Despite Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) wishes, Number Five makes a leap that gets him trapped in the future, where the world is in ruins. In season 1, Five travels back in time to warn his siblings and attempts to save the world.
While trapped in the future, Number Five became a contract killer for the Temps Commission. Their sole purpose is to ensure history remains unaltered by making “corrections” whenever someone’s timeline takes a different direction. Simultaneously while working for the Commission, Five tries to find a way to jump back in time so he can save his family — and the world. He finally figures out the jump just before completing a mission related to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy (JFK).
What was Five doing at JFK’s assassination?
In season 1, episode 5, Number Five is seen on the infamous grassy knoll where JFK’s assassin hid before the fateful shooting. Just as Number Five lines up his shot, he is transported back to his original timeline. Soon after, another gunshot is heard.
There’s a lot of speculation surrounding JFK’s assassination, both related to reality and the Hargreeves’ lives in The Umbrella Academy universe. Was Five assigned this job from the Commission or there on his own accord? In the Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s comic books, Five is tasked with JFK’s assassination. Was the same true in the show, or was he there to kill the shooter and alter history? Was the other shot the Commission’s replacement for Five when he decided to disobey orders? So. Many. Questions!
‘The Umbrella Academy’ caters to conspiracy theory
Historically, Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, fired shots from the Texas School Book Depository building. There was testimony suggesting a second shooter was there that day — on a grassy knoll hidden behind a fence, similar to where we see Number Five in The Umbrella Academy. There is speculation surrounding where the shots came from — something showrunners play into by having Five jump in time when JFK is killed. Many fans theorize the Commission sends a backup assassin to the depository building.
What JFK’s assassination means for the Hargreeves in season 2
Knowing what happened that day and what Five’s motive was will be important throughout season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. In the source material for the Netflix series, Kennedy survives, thereby altering the future. His presence in the timeline directly impacts the Hargreeves siblings, as it provides them with alternative technologies. “[The assassination] was used to explain the alternative technology,” a fan wrote on Reddit. “While they didn’t have smartphones, they did have teleporters, a race of sentient apes, and other advanced stuff invented by Reginald [in the comics]. But in the show it seems that someone else just assassinated the president anyway.”
“Everything in our lives is connected to the plot to assassinate the president,” Diego says in the trailer. In season 2, the Hargreeves are in an altered timeline where the world ends the day after JFK’s assassination 1963, proving once and for all that the scene with Five on the grassy knoll from season 1 is of paramount importance.
Will he have to go back to that moment and find out what happened? Fans will have to tune in on July 31 to find out.
