Lauren Cisek

Crazy family? I can relate.

The Umbrella Academy focuses on 7 estranged crime-fighting siblings coming together after the death of their adoptive father. The family drifted apart after the death of one of their siblings, and none of them seem to get along at all. Each of them has a special super-power, except for one sibling.

Well, I come from a crazy family as well. My birth mother left me with my father when I was a little over a year old. She had three kids before me, and two after me. The 6 of us have very complex relationships due to the time that we spent away from each other. The three eldest siblings grew up together, and the two youngest also grew up together. I was the only one without that sibling bond for the first four years of my life. When I was five, my dad married my stepmom, and I got a new stepsister out of the deal. My sister Sam and I had a large adjustment period as we tried to manage not being only children any longer. It was rough going for awhile, but we grew pretty close toward the end of high school and during college.

Now that I’m a little older, my biological family has been slowly coming back into my life. My eldest sister MaKenna was the first to reach out to me and begin building a relationship with me. She was having a son, so I was going to be an aunt for a sister I barely knew or had a relationship with. It was certainly weird, slowly starting to have a connection with these people that I had missed so much time with.

I’ve always felt a disconnect with my biological family, and also with my stepfamily. Coming into a family four years late was certainly difficult for me to navigate as a five-year-old. I always felt like I was competing with my sister, or needing to prove myself to this new family. In reality, they loved me just like their own blood.

In The Umbrella Academy, Vanya is the one who feels the most disconnected from her family. A couple of them seemed to connect once they got back together, but Vanya was the one who was mostly left out of conversations or decisions. Growing up, she was never allowed to fight crime along with the rest of her siblings, as her father made her believe that she had no powers. Each of her siblings was special in some way, and Vanya lived her entire life thinking she was not.

The Umbrella Academy takes a good family drama and combines it with classic superhero tropes to make one of the most interesting shows we have today. It has humor (Klaus), drama (all of them), angst (Diego), and everything in between.

It’s a great watch, I definitely recommend this show to anyone looking for a good laugh and a show that keeps you on your toes!