Umbrella Academy: What Baby Pogo Means For Season 2 | Screen Rant
What will Baby Pogo bring to The Umbrella Academy season 2? Gerard Way's tale of the Hargreeves siblings is set within a strange, darkly comic world of time-traveling assassins and doughnut shop romances, but as off-the-wall as The Umbrella Academy season 1 proved to be, the comic books hint at even weirder and more wonderful avenues to venture down. Season 2 appears to be doing exactly that, judging by the new trailer. After time traveling at the end of last season, the apocalypse appears to have followed the Hargreeves children into the past, entwining itself around the Kennedy assassination. Meanwhile, Klaus starts a cult, Diego makes a new friend and Carmichael the evil fish takes over The Commission. Just another day in The Umbrella Academy.
One of the most offbeat characters in The Umbrella Academy's first season was undoubtedly Pogo, the CGI chimpanzee servant of the Hargreeves household. Well-mannered, softly spoken and performing his duties to a standard even Alfred Pennyworth would be proud of, Pogo is the glue that holds the Hargreeves children together right up until they discover his involvement in Sir Reginald's grand deception. Pogo is ultimately killed when Vanya loses control of her powers and goes on a violent violin rampage.
Umbrella Academy fans were already speculating how Pogo could potentially return in season 2, and the new trailer confirms those theories... in a manner of speaking. The Umbrella Academy's sophomore run appears to be set largely in the 1960s, and the trailer includes a short clip of the Hargreeves children meeting a younger Sir Reginald, the man who will one day become their adoptive father. A few shots later, we see Reginald clasping hands with a small chimp wearing a diaper - almost certainly a baby Pogo from the past. He hasn't come back from the dead, he won't be the same character fans know and love, and he certainly won't be serving cups of coffee on a silver tray, but The Umbrella Academy season 2 has found a way to bring Pogo back into the narrative.
The appearance of a young Pogo opens up some intriguing possibilities for The Umbrella Academy's upcoming season - firstly, the potential for a causal loop. In the latest trailer, Number 5 rapidly introduces Reginald to each sibling, giving their future father a run down of their individual abilities. This scene suggests that Reginald seeks out the Hargreeves siblings in 1989 because the siblings themselves instruct him to do so while in the past, creating a classic time travel paradox. The same phenomenon could occur with Pogo. Perhaps the Academy tell young Reginald that he'll have a talking chimpanzee as an assistant one day, inspiring their father to go out and find said chimpanzee in the 1960s. This would create a separate loop of its own - the Hargreeves siblings know Pogo because he's their father's assistant, but Pogo is only Reginald's assistant because the Hargreeves siblings encourage them to meet. Time travel... it's messy business.
Another possibility Baby Pogo offers is the return or resurrection of his original self. In The Umbrella Academy's season 1 finale, Pogo is impaled on a wall and then crushed in the collapse of the Hargreeves mansion, with the siblings jumping into the past shortly after. With a living version of Pogo and the knowledge of Sir Reginald at their disposal, it might be possible for a clone of the chimp to be created - a creature who can go back to the future with the main group when all of the apocalypse business is sorted out, thereby placing a brand new Pogo in the present day.
Finally, the arrival of Baby Pogo in The Umbrella Academy season 2 hopefully means backstory and context into why Reginald created him in the first place. It's obvious that Pogo is very fond of his master, but there's an inescapable feeling of cruelty in turning a regular chimpanzee sentient and making them your personal butler. By showing Pogo in his youth, perhaps a more sympathetic reason for the creature's transformation will emerge.
The Umbrella Academy season 2 premieres July 31st on Netflix.