| “ | War. Such a fascinating concept. A temporary salve for a permanent human flaw. | „ |
| ~ The Handler to Five |
The Handler is the secondary antagonist of the Netflix TV Series The Umbrella Academy. She serves as the overarching antagonist of the first season and the main antagonist of the second season.
She started as an executive for the Temps Commission, an organization dedicated to ensuring no changes in the timeline occur, before soon rising to its head in the second half of season 2. She first sets out to prevent Five from saving the Earth from devastation and then later aims to further her position in the company.
She is portrayed by Kate Walsh.
What Makes Her Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Although she claims to be acting in the best interests of the Temps Commission by protecting the timeline, this couldn't be further from the truth as she has no problem performing blatant acts of malpractice if it suits her best.
- While she acts nice towards Five, even giving him a second chance to work for her, this is only because he's a competent employee.
- She is extremely manipulative, managing to keep up a facade of caring for Lila Pitts for most of Lila's life despite only using her for her abilities.
- Choosing to hire Diego as part of the Commission was only done to appease Lila and keep her subservient.
- She behaves seductively towards Five to hold power over him as shown with her looking at him over a toilet stall and caressing his cheek inappropriately. This is especially disturbing considering Five has the body of a 13-year-old.
- From comments made by Hazel and Cha-Cha, it's indicated that she and the rest of the executives treat the employees of the correction division quite poorly.
- While she has her fair share of comedic moments, none of them particularly detract from her villainy and usually just emphasize how sadistic she is.
Background[]
- It's implied she was once a Commission assassin herself from her competence with guns, the fact that she has a metal plate in her head from a previous assignment, and how she has a collection of historical souvenirs from her travels in the past.
- Over her time working at the Temps Commission, she likely organized countless assassinations of random individuals who’s deaths may prevent changes in history.
- She recruited Five into the Temps Commission and turned him into a ruthless assassin.
- She forged the approval certificate of AJ Carmichael to have Five assassinate Ronnie and Anita Gill before kidnapping their now-orphaned daughter Lila to use as her own personal weapon.
- At some point she had Lila kill an unnamed man during a date.
Season 1[]
- She ordered Hazel and Cha-Cha to assassinate Five after he abandoned his post while on an assignment.
- She had Five manage an assignment to prevent the Hindenburg from landing safely. It was done by having a butcher called Karl Weber killed, resulting in a chain reaction leading to the crash.
- Although she rejected Five's request to fire Gloria before her retirement, this was only because she didn't want to cause an outcry from the employees who liked Gloria.
- Upon discovering Five was trying to stop to apocalypse, she set an assignment for Hazel and Cha-Cha to protect Harold Jenkins, preventing Five from interfering with the cause.
- She attempted to kill Five when he tried to change the assignment.
- She assigned Hazel and Cha-Cha to protect Viktor so the apocalypse could still happen while giving them no briefcase to return back to the Commission, meaning she intended for them to die during the end of the world. While Hazel was able to escape, this is exactly what happened to Cha-Cha.
Season 2[]
- She sent Lila to spy on Diego in a mental asylum and even suggested that she kill him.
- She set a trap that led to the death of Swedish Commission assassin Oscar and planted one of Diego's knives at the scene of the crime to blame it on him.
- She had Five murder the Temps Commission board of directors and capture AJ Carmichael in exchange for a briefcase to take his siblings back to 2019.
- While she seemingly honored her side of the deal, it's revealed later on that she was fully aware that the Umbrella Academy wouldn't be able to regroup in time before the briefcase activated.
- She kept AJ as a pet and confined him to a small bowl, arguably subjecting him to a fate worse than death.
- When AJ attempted to inform Lila of the Handler's true nature, she swallowed him whole.
- After taking over as the head of the Commission, she pinned the death of the board of directors entirely on Five, bringing Lila and an army of Temps to have him assassinated. She made no effort to save her employees when they were killed in an attack by Viktor despite being more than able to do so through Lila.
- Her act of severely depleting the Commission's manpower left them too weak to prevent the Kugelbitz caused by the Grandfather Paradox of the Umbrella Academy's presence in a reality they were never born.
- Before setting off on her mission, she murdered a Commission technician to keep him silent.
- She tried to abduct Harlan Cooper after he was gifted with Viktor's powers, planning to repeat the process she went through with Lila.
- She murdered Lila and the entire Umbrella Academy aside from Five before her actions were reversed with time travel.
Trivia[]
- She is the only character from The Umbrella Academy to be Pure Evil.
- In the series finale, after the broken timelines merge into one, an alternate version of the Handler is seen living a peaceful and normal life. However, this is a completely different version of the Handler as the series has established how different alternate timeline versions of characters can be, as evidenced with the two versions of Ben Hargreeves, and thus this version of the Handler is a completely different individual and does not act as a prevention for the original version.
