Season two of Umbrella Academy is a period piece. When the gang lands in 1960s Dallas, just days before the assassination of JFK, they face a whole new set of challenges. We’ll hear from writer Rob Askins about the rules of time travel, and from writer Aeryn Michelle Williams and actor Emmy Raver-Lampman about how going back in time as a modern black woman can have dangerous consequences.
Season two of Umbrella Academy is a period piece. When the gang lands in 1960s Dallas, just days before the assassination of JFK, they face a whole new set of challenges. We’ll hear from writer Rob Askins about the rules of time travel, and from writer Aeryn Michelle Williams and actor Emmy Raver-Lampman about how going back in time as a modern black woman can have dangerous consequences.
Emmy: I heard a rumor… that you watched all of The Umbrella Academy before listening to this podcast. Otherwise, things will be spoiled.
Five (clip): Hold on, this could get messy.
At the beginning of season two of the Umbrella Academy, a vortex of blue light opens up in the sky and tosses Klaus and his ghost brother, Ben, next to a dumpster. We don’t know where they are. And, as Ben puts it...
Ben (clip): I think the question is when are we?
The year is 1960, at least for Klaus and Ben. Shortly after… another flash of blue light… same spot… different year.
Luther (clip): Diego, Five? Allison!!
And that blue light flashes again... and again, and again. Until…..
Five: Luther! Diego! ...What the hell did we do now?
The Umbrella Academy’s time travel plan experiences a small hitch.
While all seven members make it to the same exact spot -- a back alley in Dallas, Texas -- they don’t end up there at the same time. Instead they find themselves spread throughout the early 1960s.
Steve: The problem with them arriving together was...I wanted to complicate their lives.
This is Steve Blackman, the showrunner and executive producer on Umbrella Academy.
Steve: I wondered, you know, what would Klaus do with three years? What would he do with his extra time? He has no constraints from the family. But he also has the benefit of knowing the future. So what does one do? And in Klaus' case, he starts a big cult. But also, you know, I thought it would be interesting to have somebody who doesn't remember who they are, which is Vanya and then Alison who can't speak. So everyone's sort of had something. And they bring all that wonderful baggage with them.
Vanya (clip): How do you guys deal with all this?
Klaus: I get really high. Allison, Allison lies to herself, and you suppress all your emotions deep deep down until you blow shit up.
This entire season is based on the second volume of the Umbrella Academy graphic novel. And, like the graphic novel, it's all building up to one specific historical moment... the 1963 assasination of President John F. Kennedy.
But taking the Academy back in time also means taking the writers, the crew, and the actors back as well. Which means that the team would have to create an entirely different kind of show from season one… The Umbrella Academy is now a period piece. And as Steve says:
Steve: It’s a nightmare.
I’m Brandon Jenkins, and this is Behind The Scenes: The Umbrella Academy.
This week we’re going behind the scenes and breaking down what it takes to make a time travel show. We’ll meet some of the writers who had to invent the rules of time and space and we’ll talk to them about what it meant for their characters to end up in the south in the 1960's. And then, we’ll talk to Emmy Raver-Lampman—the actor who plays Allison—about what it was like for her to bring some very real, very relevant historical experiences to life.
Mr. Briefcase (Clip): Oh, hi there. I’m Mr. Briefcase. If you’re watching this presentation, that means that you’ve made the best decision of the rest of your life. You’ve decided to join the Commission.
In the world of Umbrella Academy, nothing is arbitrary. The rules of time are not just haphazard… you can’t simply change or rearrange the past. In fact, there is an entire organization set up to keep time flowing smoothly.
Steve: The timeline has to exist. It's already been predetermined and preset. And this big corporation's sole job is to make sure that time isn't messed up, just a working class place where people go to work, but they just happen to monitor time. Time isn't perfect. So this organization has to watch over it.
Mr. Briefcase (clip): In these rooms, we monitor the entire timeline and report any anomalies we see along the way. Keeping the correct timeline, at all times.
Brandon That's interesting because It makes the feelings about them a little more dynamic, that they're not just necessarily an evil organization, but they're here to maintain some version of order.
Steve: Oh, no, they're not an evil organization in my mind. The commission itself does this great role. It's sort of a stabilizing role in the existence of the universe. It's a good place, the Commission, not a bad place.
Brandon: I can see that like them having a LinkedIn page and it's like, you know, the commission may be a tough place to work.
Steve: It's definitely a tough place to work, but it's trying to do good in the world.
In order for The Commission to keep time in check, there need to be rules they follow. And those rules... are invented in the Umbrella Academy writers’ room.
And at the beginning of production, they all have to sit down and hash out… How does time work? What rules do we follow?
Steve: There's endless battle in my writer's room about how the rules of time travel should be, whether or not if you went back in time, could you exist with your own self? If I went back 10 years ago, could I go visit myself? Or are you only just changing your own physical timeline?
Also, there’s the historical implications to consider:
Rob: The choice of, like, whether or not to save Kennedy or do we save him. And does that change the timeline?
This is Rob Askins, a writer on the show.
Rob: You know, that's sort of the implicit buy-in of a time travel show around a major historical event, especially one that's so traumatic and deadly, is that you're like, OK, do we get to change time?
When most of us think about time travel --- there’s a couple rules we tend to assume are set in stone. For example, the idea that if you change something in the past, it has a butterfly effect on the future. Or that you can’t change the future --- some things are just bound to happen no matter what you do. For Rob and the other writers --- all of these just felt like made up roadblocks.
Rob: For a long time, we've just been laboring under the Back to the Future rules. The notion that every change in the past is gonna change your future. A sort of basic cause and effect notion. Time is messier than that, matter is messier than that. So you can go back and change things and you won't necessarily be changed …. the picture in Marty McFly's hand is not necessarily going to erase slowly. We spend hours and hours and hours trying to fact check our own...paradoxes.
Paradoxes… things you can’t quite wrap your brain around. And in the Umbrella Academy time travel bible… there is one particular paradox that can get really out of hand… Meeting yourself in another time. It can actually make you sick. The writers call it: Paradox Psychosis.
Steve: We came up with Paradox Psychosis, which is you should never be in the same time as yourself in any other time frame. It's not right. It doesn't end well.
Five (clip): Well, according to Commision handbook, Chapter 27, subsection 3B, the seven stages in Paradox Psychosis are: stage 1, denial, 2, itching, 3, extreme thirst and urination, 4, excessive gas, 5, acute paranoia, 6, uncontrolled perspiration, and 7, homicidal rage.
The time travelling brother, Five, winds up meeting his 58-year old version of himself as a last resort to get the family back to the correct timeline. ...It does not go well...
Five (clip): He’s gonna kill me isn’t he?
Luther: What?
Steve: And as paradox psychosis comes in seeing the two of them together, you know, behind the grassy knoll, scratching, itching and farting is sort of my favorite moment of this season’s time travel.
The whole thing culminates in a battle between both Fives --- young Five and old Five --- each very sweaty, very paranoid and very homicidal, convinced that the other Five is going to try and kill him.
Five (clip): Now, where were we?
STEVE: So all those rules had to be thought through to at least make a cohesive story that the audience is looking at us saying, wait. That's not the rule of your world. So it is very important that our rules stay firm throughout the series. And hopefully for seasons to come, you know, we will hold to the same set of rules and not just bend them because it helps us write a story one day. We want to keep to the rules and say that's how time travel works to us.
Aeryn: I will say that Umbrella Academy season two was my first staffing job as a writer.
Aeryn Michelle Williams is one of the writers on the show.
When it comes to first writing gigs… a time travel show is not the easiest place to start. It takes a ton of forward thinking… trying out stories and piecing things together in this incredibly complex puzzle.
Aeryn: So there's like a there's like a season arc board where it's like just imagine large, colorful, sticky notes. So it's like episode one through 10. And then we have a bunch of other boards that we write stories on. We get really in depth. And then we blend it all together, meaning we take all of the individual scenes and then we put them on another board in order of how they would go in the story.
But the difficulty of time travel shows is not limited to manipulating rules and playing with physics. When a character travels to the past, they have to actually be in that moment… with all of its cultural implications and politics.
Aeryn: So when I got to the room and it was like the 60s. Dallas, my immediate go to in my mind is like, so our characters, you know, they can drop into the 60s and possibly, you know, fit in. That's a very different story for Allison. Right.
you know, this is a black woman in the 60s. And they're in like the South. So for me, immediately we have to talk about this somehow, like her experience is just different from her siblings.
Emmy: From the moment I was told that, you know, for the second season, we are going to place you right in the middle of the civil rights movement. And I was like. I love that. I am I am scared of that in a good way.
Emmy: My name is Emmy Raver-Lampman and I play Allison Hargreaves on the Umbrella Academy.
Allison: I heard a rumor that I blew your minds.
Allison, also known as Rumor, is the celebrity sister of the Academy. She’s a successful actress, whose power is convincing people to do what she wants.
At the end of the first season, Allison has her throat slashed by her sister, Vanya....Which presents her with one very big challenge right at the start of season 2.
Emmy: She has no voice. She cannot speak. And I think because of that, it forces her kind of to to start over to to re-invent herself without powers. And I think it is a less complicated life for her. And it is simpler and and it feels it is truer and more real.
One of the ways the writers thought Allison could reinvent herself… was to relearn how to use her voice. She did that both physically and metaphorically... by becoming part of the civil rights movement. The writers worked with a researcher to make sure their scripts were accurate, but they also did a lot of their own digging. When it came time to capture the bravery of black civil rights activists and the violence they faced -- they decided to put the sit-ins of the 1960s on the screen.
Manager (clip): Out, else I’m callin’ the police.
Allison: I’d like to be served please.
Woman: Can’t you read, girl?
Allison: Seven languages.
Manager: Oh, you smart one, huh?
Brandon: So Emmy, what was the first scene you shot for the sit in?
Emmy: I'm pretty sure we shot it in order, actually. Stephen Surjik, who is just amazing. And he directed a few episodes on the first season as well, I think it was really important to him that we shoot it in order so that we were all on the ride together and we weren't skipping around. And so the first scene that we did shoot is, you know, me walking in, sitting down and then the beautiful scene in slow motion where everybody else kind of follows me in and then they all sit down
Allison: We’d like to be served, please.
One by one, the members of the movement sit at the lunch counter. The white customers get up from their tables—some are simply horrified, others are looking for a fight.
Woman (clip): You are not welcome here.
As the night progresses, the white customers get more and more belligerent, pouring salt on the protesters' heads. There are other black protestors outside the diner yelling “No More Back Door.” White police officers stand by their cars, with their clubs out and at the ready.
Emmy: It was like the end of the first night of shooting this sequence when the police officer, like, slams my face into the counter. And then I had to watch Ray get beat up.
Ray is Allison’s husband in the show, played by actor Yusuf Gatewood.
Emmy: And, you know, that was extremely difficult. And really just heartbreaking. And and, you know, you could feel it in the room because, you know, there was 50 plus extras and background actors standing in this diner because they needed them to be yelling and the energy was necessary.
White protestors: Get Out, get out, get out, get out
Emmy: We would cut for scenes and a lot a lot of people would come up to me and be like, apologize for doing their job. And I was like, please stop apologizing. It is your job. It is my job. We are all here. We are trying to, you know, make this thing that is it feels really important and is really important. And I'm not taking it personally. This is what happened.
Brandon: And there's a lot of responsibility that comes with getting that right. Right. You know, it's like it's tough to act through it and to be a part of it. But it's it is important. And you don't want to sort of make it PG if it’s not. You know, you want it to feel authentic.
Emmy: Right, you know, I, it was really important to me to not shy away from the reality of moments like this for so many people in the 60s. That scene in particular of, the cops slamming my head into the counter and then everybody watching and we did like four or five takes of me having to scream. And, for my husband, who's being beat up by a cop in front of my eyes and then dragged and taken away, for no reason
Allison (clip): No, no, no, Ray!
The black protestors are swarmed by the cops, as Ray is dragged outside. The camera stays close on him, moving with Ray so the audience can see exactly what he’s feeling. And that was intentional. The Director of Photography, Craig Wrobleski, he wanted it that way.
Craig: A lot of the footage that exists of these events is taken as a distance, and is observational by virtue of what they had to do, they couldn’t be in the middle of it with a camera. But we could be, and we wanted to immerse the audience in this world and make them feel like they were in that diner and that they were out on that street.
What caught Craig by surprise, was how caught up HE became in the scene. Shooting it... became a little overwhelming.
Craig: You know, that that scene when Chestnut gets hauled out of, out of the diner and taken into the street. When we shot that I was so choked up, and I still am now just thinking about it. Because it was, you were just with him, and you were just feeling it, and feeling his fear and terror and the uncertainty about what was going to happen to him when he was taken out into that street. And it was really powerful on the day. And Yusuf’s beautiful performance.
Ray (clip): What did you say to him?
Allison: We’re okay, we’re okay
Ray: What the hell did you say to him? What did you say to him?
Allison: I just told him to leave you alone.
Ray: There ain’t no way in hell that a white cop is gonna walk away just because a black woman tells him too.
Emmy: That was a really difficult moment and a really just exhausting experience because, you know, Yusuf had all the pads on his back, but they had there like fake nightsticks and were doing the thing and they were doing their jobs and really, you know, trying to get that image caught on camera. It was really, really hard to watch.
Brandon: And I'm curious like, you know, having all the experiences you have as a black woman and having all the experiences you have on set and then looking at what's dominating the news today, like how things feel right now. What is it like to think back on that scene? Does it... How does it feel?
Emmy: You know, I think. in the moment. Last, we shot that last summer, a year ago. It still felt present. Like,it still, nothing about that felt far away for me, nothing about black bodies being brutalized by the police felt distant or something that I could not imagine living through because we we were then. We are now. We have been for centuries. It was really important to me to get that right for this show, but also specifically for the civil rights movement, because there are people that are still alive that actually went through that, that were hosed down by fire hoses in the streets, that were chased down by police dogs. Watching the news today is no different than it was watching the news in the 60s. It was not hard for me to research what it is like to be a person of color and feel hunted.
Emmy: It didn't feel like I was having to, like, reach way back in American history. And like unearth, these feelings that I couldn't find in myself or in the world that I look around and see today. It is the same thing.
Brandon: I'm curious, what were the conversations like with Steve Blackman, the DP or Yusef about those scenes?
Emmy: I think we all just wanted to get it right. It felt a little daunting. But also, you know, it felt like good work and important work. Like Netflix is, it is a massive platform. Just how many eyeballs are going to be on these scenes. And see, you know, these images and these realities play out in front of them that maybe have never seen anything like that. And granted, that was a year ago. And, you know, the moment that we're in right now, I don't know. There's probably not a country in the world that's not turning on the TV and seeing something very similar play out on their televisions right now.
Of course, Emmy’s right. The making of this podcast has run concurrent with protests against systemic racism, happening both nationally and globally, fueled by the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Elijah McClain, and countless other Black Americans.
Instagram video of a Black Lives Matter Protest: chanting “Black Lives Matter”
So these conversations, and Emmy’s storyline, feel particularly poignant right now. But like Emmy says, the injustices her character wrestles with, have always felt real and immediate for Black Americans. These stories have always been triggering.
Brandon: As someone that got a chance to watch it, one of my thoughts was sort of like, you know, you see so many things. You see so many of these images in black and white, and it's crazy to watch it. And, you know, like, 4K HD-color. And it was just you you did an amazing. Amazing job.
Emmy I I still have a hard time watching it because I did I you know, I have every actor's like I could have done more. like I, there's so much to tell. You know what I mean? There's so much to cover and so much that needs to be understood. And and I just I there are so many more lessons and experiences to share about that time period.
Brandon Look, I know that we have to wrap now. But thank you so much. I know that the talk was sort of heavy. But, I appreciate you going there with us
Emmy It’s um. It is, you know, I am kind of expecting this because of what is happening in our country right now and it is a you know, a direct there is a direct correlation between, you know, my storyline this season and what's going on now and what's been going on for centuries. And so I'm I am, I am expecting that.
Emmy But I'm glad that that it is a part of the show and and I'm honored that I got to just, you know, brush the surface of what it was like to be a woman of color in the 60s in Texas and to even try to shed a little bit of light, you know, to a broader audience is you know, it's it's an honor.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. When the writers of Umbrella Academy sat down to do a time travel show set in the 60s, they almost certainly couldn’t have known exactly how visceral a portrayal of police violence against Black people would be right now, at this moment, when the series was released.
But that’s the true value of television: it can serve as a mirror. Forcing us to reckon with our reflection. Who we’ve been … and who we are now. Versions of ourselves that might be hard to see and accept otherwise. And while it’s certainly not the only way for us to make the world… or ourselves... better. If it’s done right...maybe it can help start us on our way.
Next week on the show, we’ll be hearing about how Dallas was created in a place far far away from Texas.
Chris Burkholder: I said, you're probably going to want to mow some of this corn down soon, because once the corn reaches 12 or 13 feet in height, it's a lot harder to manage
Coralie Not: I had to call her landlord and say, hey, you know, we’re doing a show Is it OK if we put a cow on your roof a couple times a month. How's that sound?
Natasha Peschlow: And then on top of that was his conspiracy theory layer.
Jim Lambie: We’re all Elliot. We’re all Elliot now.
Behind The Scenes: The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Thanks for listening.