After Elliot Page came out as a trans in December 2020, Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman was anxious to bring the actor’s transition to the screen. There was only one problem: season 3 had already been designed and the scripts were more or less ready. Filming was due to begin in just two weeks.
Against all odds, they made it work: this season, Umbrella Academy will once again present Page’s character with a new name, Viktor Hargreeves.
To help bring Viktor to life, the production brought in Page’s friend (and writer / journalist), Thomas Page McBee.
“By necessity, this was an opportunity to show such an organic transition, so fundamental to the character, that it could only work in conjunction with the existing character arcs, not eclipse them,” Page McBee wrote about joining Umbrella Academy specifically to help shape. The transition story on Viktor’s screen, in an essay for Esquire earlier this month.
“In this story, being trans is a context, an approach, a sharpening of perspective that will only deepen the connection that millions of viewers already have with Viktor and his family.”
Viktor’s output is, as Page McBee says, “economical” in his execution, though that’s not necessarily bad. The only twist in the plot here is that such a well-executed maneuver would happen on Netflix, a streamer that is increasingly believed to be both anti-trans and also, too often, lately, comically incapable of distinguishing the good development of the character from ‘an absolute rubbish.
At the start of Season 3 of the Umbrella Academy – which finally premiered on Wednesday – Viktor is feeling the loss of Sissy Cooper (Marin Ireland), who stole his heart after hitting him with his car . “She saw me as I really am,” she tells her Hargreeves adoptive sister, Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), at one point. “I’m not willing to give that up.” When they break up, Allison calls Viktor a “good sister,” at which point the camera stays in her thoughtful expression.
In the second episode of the season, Viktor confronts Sparrow Academy member Marcus (Justin Cornwell), one of the Hargreeves that Viktor and the band’s adoptive father, Reginald, adopted in an alternate universe instead of Viktor and his brothers. Although Marcus makes a lantern as if he has the advantage — and perhaps even thinks he does — Viktor Cooly calls his enemy “spandex meat,” before reminding him which of them had already ended up with the world twice. (Hint: it wasn’t Marcus.)
Elliot Page as Viktor Hargreeves and Tom Hopper as Luther Hargreeves in “The Umbrella Academy.”
Christos Kalohoridis / Netflix
This conversation sets the stage for a confrontation between Viktor and his brothers, who are unsure of who anointed him as the designated Marcus wrangler. Brother Tiff also becomes the stage for Viktor to tell them who he really is, but only after reviewing Sissy Cooper’s memory for the last time.
While reading old news in the library, Viktor comes across one that reveals that Sissy, whom he left behind on a different timeline, has died in it. He remembers telling her that he had given her the greatest gift of his life: “You let me feel alive for the first time. You helped me find hope again. That’s a wonderful thing. “
After leaving the library, Viktor is seen looking at a poster of men’s haircuts in the window of a barber shop. Sissy’s voice rings in her head: You don’t even notice the box you’re in until someone arrives and lets you out.
When Viktor approaches his brothers with a new, shorter, more masculine “gift,” his brother Diego (David Castañeda) pauses what he said in half a sentence. Hargreeves pansexual brother Klaus (Robert Sheehan) keeps things informal: “I love the haircut.” Five (Aidan Gallagher), the brothers’ deceptive, young-looking five-year-old, says nothing but nods approvingly.
It’s not until someone asks who “chose” Viktor to talk to Marcus, however, that he makes a more important point of his transition. When someone uses his old name, he corrects it: “It’s Viktor.”
“Who is Viktor?”
“I am,” he says. “He’s been who I’ve always been.” Viktor’s voice crackles with a touch of fear as he asks, “Is it a problem for anyone?”
Aidan Gallagher as number five, Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison Hargreeves and Elliot Page as Viktor Hargreeves in “The Umbrella Academy.”
Christos Kalohoridis / Netflix
Diego and Klaus approve, as do Five, albeit with a warning. “Really happy for you, Viktor. But the last time I checked it out, you don’t speak for this family.”
At that moment, the soft piano music that quietly set the fragile mood moments before the breaks, and back in business as always.
Let’s get back to the subject once again before episode 2 ends. When Viktor arrives at Allison, she scolds herself for not knowing it before, a show of self-flagellation that Viktor shakes gently, albeit with fun. barely repressed. “You wouldn’t know,” he says, “because, I mean, I didn’t know at all.”
Sissy, Viktor continues, “opened something in me. It showed me that I would never be free to hide from who I really am. And after losing her, I realized that I can no longer live in that box. .I won’t.
“You know, I’ve always hated mirrors. I thought everyone felt so weird on their skin. I guess that’s not true.”
And when Allison asks him what he sees now in his own reflection?
“Jo. Just me.”