The Haunting and Subsequent Growth of Klaus Hargreeves
/A dead father, addiction and the power to speak to the ghost of your dead brother. What could go wrong?
[Spoiler Warning for both seasons]
In The Umbrella Academy (so far only two seasons, season three has been announced), we are brought into the Hargreeve children’s lives. Forty-three children were born in 1989 on the same day to mothers who had not been pregnant before their births. There is a lot to say about this phenomenon, especially that all of these children had unimaginable powers. Reginald Hargreeves adopts seven of these children and forms a team of super-powered children. While I’d love to go into all of these characters and their unique powers, I will be focusing on one in particular that I believe had the most character growth within both seasons of The Umbrella Academy.
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We meet Klaus Hargreeves, played by Robert Sheehan, in episode one; We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals. After 30 days of sobriety, Klaus is released from rehab. Of course, the eccentric and troubled man immediately purchases drugs once he is on the streets. Upon overdosing on the pre-purchased drugs and then being revived in an ambulance, Klaus found out that his father had died. The funeral brings all of the siblings back together after years of being apart and reflects how much of a black sheep Klaus is in a family full of other black sheep.
The same episode tells us one of the seven children Reginald had adopted had died years before, and Klaus’ superpower, or curse in his mind, is also revealed. He can communicate with the dead, and Ben, the sibling that had died, can speak with Klaus. Their relationship can be seen as comedic relief throughout the show.
Klaus has been struggling with his powers for many years, along with the trauma that came with Reginald’s poor parenting skills, such as locking young Klaus in a mausoleum for days as a punishment since he was at least eight. During these times, at 13, Klaus realized that drugs could repress his powers so that ghosts would no longer haunt his days and nights.
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Throughout the first season, out of all of the siblings, Klaus had the most development. He reconnects with his siblings while battling with the throes of addiction. Klaus starts to accept his powers rather than repress them with drugs, especially after it got him kidnapped by Hazel and Cha-Cha, two time-travelling assassins, after a comedic towel dancing scene. He’d escaped the two and stole their time-travelling briefcase, jumping back in time and joining the Vietnam War. Klaus meets Dave, a fellow soldier, who he fell in love with. Dave was shot on the battlefield, and Klaus held him in his arms as he died, only returning to the present after Dave’s death, having spent 10 months in the war.
Near the end of season one, we see an emotional scene just after he momentarily dies during a rave, where he is seated in a barber chair, and Reginald is shaving his face. It was theorized before season two was released on Netflix that the act of shaving was a metaphor for Klaus getting clean and overcoming his addiction to both alcohol and opiates.
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Come the second season the Hargreeve children are time-jumped to different times in the 1960s. Klaus arrived on February 11, 1960, having started a thriving cult, or in his words “an alternative spiritual community,” by 1963. He called his followers, ironically, destiny’s children—most of his mantra lyrics of songs that don’t exist yet.
Ben and Klaus’s discussion reveals that Klaus had been three years sober, from alcohol and opiates, before the third episode, Swedish Job. The episode goes over how Klaus returned to Dallas and tracked down Dave, his partner in season one, to try and prevent him from signing up for the war at all. However, it doesn’t go as planned, and a confused younger Dave punches Klaus—this causes Klaus to seek out alcohol as a coping mechanism, setting him back substantially.
While his addiction is once again relevant, and it seems like the show threw out all of his character growth from the past season, it does shine a light on how easily an addict can slip, no matter how far they’ve come.
Despite this slip-up, more of Klaus’ powers are revealed throughout the season, such as having a ghost, Ben, talk and move as him. Along with this, he can also conjure up a corporeal army of spirits. The end of the season shows this off very well as all the siblings come together to fight against outside forces and stop the world from ending. Again.
In the end, Klaus, despite his forthcomings, is a stronger character by the end of season two. He has come a long way from his traumatized past, and his powers have grown more than even he could understand—which is why I will stand by my claim that Klaus Hargreeves has grown the most out of all of The Umbrella Academy’s characters.
Dez
Bienvenidos! My name is Desirea, aka Dez. I am a 20-year-old Professional Writing student who has the heart and likes of a 10-year-old. As a Disney and Pixar fanatic, along with any kids movie that's not mediocre, my childish heart often fixates on animated characters. I frequently latch onto relationships that have not and never will be confirmed canon due to homophobic production studios and TERF writers. But alas, I let myself suffer anyways; this is precisely why I will be dragging said production studios and TERF writers in my articles.
