I saw your tags on your Percy Jackson post and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the Umbrella Academy 👀👀👀

The tags: #i think both types of stories work#you just have to be CONSISTENT about it [side-eyes umbrella academy]

There's a lot I like about Umbrella Academy, and there's a lot that I forgive in Umbrella Academy because it's a comic book adaptation and most comics have similar problems. BUT.

In S2E9, when the Handler shoots live ammo from a real gun at a child, it's portrayed as sweet and harmless —bullets are just background noise (e.g. James Bond) and this show has slapstick stakes. In S2E10, when the Handler shoots from a real gun at six adults, they have a graphic drawn-out death scene — bullets kill people (e.g. Pulp Fiction) and this is a much darker type of show.

Klaus gets kidnapped and murdered in S1, and his siblings roll their eyes about how he's irresponsible. Klaus gets accidentally killed in S3, and his siblings react with devastation and horror. Violence is funny, when it's Five killing 20 of his coworkers. Violence is horrifying, when it's Viktor killing Pogo. So on.

You can't have it both ways. It creates mood whiplash. It makes the characters feel callous. It can feel like no events ever matter, so there's no point in caring. I can't tell how seriously to take any given scene, because the same sequence of actions is sometimes treated as comedy and sometimes as tragedy.