The actor's real-life journey was incorporated into his character's story with a sensitive touch.
Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched season 3, episode 2 of The Umbrella Academy.
Elliot Page's real-life transition was reflected in an early season 3 episode of Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, when his character reintroduced himself as Viktor Hargreeves.
Page publicly shared in December 2020 that he was transgender and would use he/him pronouns. In March of this year, Netflix confirmed with a photo that Page's Umbrella Academy character, who had been known as Vanya and used she/her pronouns for the first two seasons, would now be Viktor and use he/him pronouns.
Even with another world-ending apocalypse looming large within the world of The Umbrella Academy, the series dealt a sensitive hand in crafting Viktor's onscreen transition story. According to Netflix, showrunner/executive producer Steve Blackman worked closely with GLAAD, Amateur author Thomas Page McBee and Page for guidance in telling Viktor's transition storyline and ensure it be told authentically and sensitively.
In the season's second episode, following a dramatic showdown with the Sparrows that left the Umbrella crew displaced and uncertain of their place within the new world order (of their own doing), Page's Viktor made the decision to embrace his true self -- cutting his hair, the first sign of him being free.
His revelation, of sorts, came after he learned that his love, Sissy (played by Marin Ireland in season 2), later died in 1989 -- a memory of a key conversation they shared flashing before him as he pondered his purpose. (At this point in the story, he still went by Vanya.) "You don't even notice that the box that you're in, until someone comes along and lets you out," Sissy's words floating through his mind as he stepped into the barbershop.
When he later arrived at Hotel Obsidian -- the Umbrella's new HQ for season 3 -- Viktor, with a new look, reintroduced himself to his Hargreeves siblings after one of them called him Vanya.
"It's, uh, Viktor," he said. "Who's Viktor?" asked Diego (David Castaneda). "I am," Viktor replied. "It's who I've always been." A few seconds of silence passed as Diego, Klaus (Robert Sheehan) and Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) processed his life change. Viktor, sensing uncertainty, asked, "Is that an issue for anyone?"
"Nah, I'm good with it," Diego coolly answered. "Yeah, me too. Cool," Klaus agreed. "Truly happy for you Viktor," Number Five said, before they continued to go about the pressing matter of an apocalyptic, world-ending emergency that they unknowingly caused.
Later, with Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) depressed following the realization that returning to 1963 meant her family -- most importantly her daughter, Claire -- didn't exist in this timeline, Viktor took his sister out on a mission/walk to clear her mind. And to fill her in on his decision to become Viktor.
"You couldn't have known 'cause, I mean, I didn't fully," Viktor acknowledged. "Being with Sissy, I don't know, she opened something in me. Showed me I'd never be free hiding from who I really am. And after losing her, I realized I just can't live in that box anymore. I won't."
"I always hated mirrors. I thought everybody felt so strange in their sin. I guess that's not true, right?" he asked.
"What do you see now?" Allison said.
"Me," Viktor said with a faint smile as he looked into the glass window. "Just me."
Allison assured Viktor nothing has changed between the Hargreeves siblings, thanking him for trusting her with his journey. "You're family, Viktor," she promised. "And there's nothing, nothing that would make me love you less."
Raver-Lampman spoke with ET's Will Marfuggi about the season as a whole, calling it one of the "best" yet.
"I'm so proud of this season. I think it might be our best season yet. All of these characters are being thrust into situations that we haven't really seen them in before. They're venturing into the unknown in a really amazing way," she said before going on to single out Page's emotional storyline this year.
"How we've incorporated Elliot's and Viktor's transition into the season is just so remarkable," Raver-Lampman praised. "I'm so proud of Elliot and the journey for him and his vulnerability. To put that on the screen and share that with the world through Viktor as well, I think, is just so spectacular."
In the new season of The Umbrella Academy, convinced they prevented the initial apocalypse and fixed the timeline once and for all, they soon realize things aren't how they left them. Enter the Sparrow Academy, featuring an alive-and-well Ben Hargreeves (Justin H. Min). Smart, stylish and about as warm as a sea of icebergs, the Sparrows immediately clash with the Umbrellas in a violent face-off that turns out to be the least of everyone's concerns.
Navigating challenges, losses and surprises of their own -- and dealing with an unidentified destructive entity wreaking havoc in the universe (something they may have caused) -- now all they need to do is convince Dad’s new and possibly better family to help them put right what their arrival made wrong. Will they find a way back to their pre-apocalyptic lives? Or is this new world about to reveal more than just a hiccup in the timeline?
The Umbrella Academy is streaming now on Netflix.
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