The IRL JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories Behind ‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 2
The Umbrella Academy picked a heck of a time to drop in on Dallas in the ’60s. As if they didn’t have enough problems, season 2 is all about the Kennedy assassination and draws on some real-life conspiracy theories about the tragic historical event.
The show is big-time fictional, obvs, but it’s messing around with the JFK what-ifs that have plagued historians and fanatics for decades. There are tons of wild theories about the assassination that range from Fidel Castro’s involvement to “magic bullets” and inside jobs. But The Umbrella Academy focuses on the Grassy Knoll school of conspiracy theories. Let’s get into it.
Why is JFK’s assassination such a hot topic in the first place?
Well, like any true-crime drama, there is a lot of conflicting information about the bullets that killed Kennedy and where they could have come from. The fact that the guy they arrested for killing Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was shot and killed days later by Jack Ruby (who, incidentally, is Luther’s new boss on The Umbrella Academy) doesn’t help matters either. It all seems a little convenient and fishy. In the years following the incident, as more reports were released, large swaths of the public stopped accepting the government’s official story that Oswald alone killed JFK by firing three shots from a window.
What’s the deal with the *grassy knoll*?
Kennedy’s motorcade was driving through Dealey Plaza when he was shot at three times—and a particular area of that park known as the Grassy Knoll has become so infamous that the phrase is now synonymous with conspiracy theories and cover-ups.
The reason everyone is so obsessed with that bit of Earth is that 34 of the 105 earwitnesses from the day reported that they heard at least one of the shots coming from the direction of the Grassy Knoll. Five people, in fact, were certain that shots came from multiple directions. Secret service initially responded to shots they thought were coming from the direction of the Grassy Knoll as well. Thus, theories that there were multiple shooters began to form.
What, pray tell, does this have to do with the Hargreeves?
Smack at the beginning of season 2, Five receives video footage of Kennedy’s assassination that shows a man who looks a heck of a lot like Reginald Hargreeves standing on the Grassy Knoll waiting for the parade. It leads him and Diego to believe that their dad killed JFK. The evidence starts to pile up in later episodes, as ol’ Reggie takes meetings with a suspicious organization bent on taking Kennedy out and Grace finds maps of Dealey Plaza in his notes. Is The Umbrella Academy trying to allege that the patriarch is the second shooter that conspiracy theorists have been searching for all this time? If you haven’t already binged the series, you’re going to have to keep watching to find out.
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