"Not everyone in this world can be powerful."
"You were never just kids. You were meant to save the world."
— Reginald
"The Day that Was" is the seventh episode of The Umbrella Academy's first season.
Harold Jenkins grew up a big fan of the Umbrella Academy who spent twelve years in the slammer for killing his abusive father. He fished Reginald's notes out of the dumpster after Klaus tosses it away.
Diego, Five, and Allison retrieve Jenkins's file, and Allison realizes that Jenkins is Leonard. They break into Leonard's home and discover his obsession with the Academy, but are distracted by Five's shrapnel wound and bring him home. Diego is arrested for Eudora's murder, so Allison goes to Leonard's grandmother's lake house by herself.
Klaus is left to comfort Luther when the latter spirals after realizing Reginald never looked at the data from the moon. At Ben's advice, he follows Luther to a club and hits his head. Klaus makes contact with Reginald, who reveals that he killed himself to bring the family together.
At the lakehouse, Leonard is testing Vanya's powers. Later that night, Leonard is attacked by a few men and Vanya, in her anger, conjures a force field that pushes them away. Leonard is hospitalized and loses an eye.
Hazel outsmarts Cha-Cha and refuses to kill her, instead leaving her cuffed in the motel so he can run away with Agnes.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Age-Gap Romance: Hazel and the about thirty years older Agnes start a romance.
- Asshole Victim: No-one can feel sympathy for Leonard's father getting killed after seeing the abuse he inflicted on his son. Nor the three drunk dudes who beat up Leonard in the parking lot, at least one of them is killed.
- Big Brother Instinct: Klaus's concern for Luther's wellbeing gives him the Heroic Willpower to suffer withdrawal willingly to summon Reginald.
- Broken Pedestal: As a kid Leonard was a big fan of the Umbrella Academy until he got rejected harshly by Reginald Hargreeve. That incident turned Leonard against the academy members. Nice job, Reginald.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The Umbrella Academy survivors don't remember Harold Jenkins because they were shoved inside before they could see Reginald humiliating him.
- Curtain Camouflage: Hazel successfully hides behind the curtains of the motel room when Cha-Cha comes looking for him.
- Deadly Bath: Cha-Cha tries to kill Hazel in the shower.
- Deadly Force Field: Vanya kills two of the men who injure Leonard with a force field.
- Death by Childbirth: Harold/Leonard's mother died in childbirth, as the opening narration explains.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Luther gets drunk over the reveal of his pointless moon mission.
- Dumpster Dive: Harold/Leonard retrieves Reginald's notebook this way.
- The Freelance Shame Squad: In his kidroduction, when little Leonard attempts to join the kid heroes, he is Getting the Boot by Reginald Hargreeves and everyone around starts laughing at him.
- Get It Over With: Cha-Cha begs Hazel to pull the trigger on her. However, he is too much of a Hitman with a Heart to go through with it.
- Heroic Willpower: In the first timeline, Diego tied up a willing Klaus to help him fight the withdrawal, to see the man he loved. In the second timeline, Klaus powers through with Ben's encouragement and concern for a Heroic BSoD Luther, to see the father he hated.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Vanya tries to apply her new-found powers but still fails to make it work.
- In Spite of a Nail: Some events still occur despite Five interfering; namely, Luther finds out his trip to the moon was a Snipe Hunt and he suffers Heroic BSoD because of it.
- Intoxicated Superpower Snag: After suffering a Heroic BSoD, Luther gets drunk, goes clubbing, and does a shitload of party drugs as well. Klaus, jittery from withdrawal, fears that being high will have nullifying effects on Luther's super-strength and is forced to go to the rescue when his brother's drugged-up antics end up pissing off some local tough guys.
- Kick the Dog:
- It takes a certain type of Jerkass to humiliate a desperate kid that shows up in a makeshift costume begging for an escape from his life, and wanting to be special. Reginald was that man, and Vanya pays for it.
- Cha-Cha tells Hazel she will find him and Agnes, and she'll kill her first, very slowly, in front of him if he doesn't shoot her. When he couldn't and just walks away, she repeatedly screams that he's dead.
- Little Miss Almighty: God turns out to be a teenage girl.
- Little Miss Snarker: At least towards Klaus, whom she really doesn't like.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Apparently the reason Harold/Leonard's dad beats him.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The episode begins with flashbacks to Harold/Leonard's childhood.
- Montage Out: The episode ends with a Thom Yorke songnote over images of all the main characters in their current circumstances, like Diego in jail, Vanya at the hospital and Allison in her car.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Patch's partner tells Diego he is a suspect because, due to hugging Patch's corpse after finding her dead, Diego left his fingerprints all over the crime scene before leaving in tears. And even if he's innocent, he still interfered with a crime scene (again) which is enough for jail time.
- Once More, with Clarity: Hazel and Cha-Cha's interactions from the previous episodes are cast in a different light after the revelation that Hazel also received an assignment to terminate Cha-Cha.
- Removed from the Picture: The pictures of the kid heroes in Leonard's attic have their eyes gouged out.
- Repeat Cut: God pointing with her hand to the hut in the wood is shown three times at different zoom levels.
- The Reveal: Klaus learns from Reginald Hargreeves that the old man committed suicide in order to reunite his children to prevent the apocalypse together... which he caused to happen in the first place.
- Secret Stab Wound: Five sustained some shrapnel to the torso when he blew up the Commission's stash of briefcases last episode (in a Freeze-Frame Bonus moment). This doesn't make itself obvious until the siblings are investigating Leonard and he collapses, though he is visibly wincing earlier and notably not drawing attention to it.
- Self-Made Orphan: Harold/Leonard killed his abusive father with a hammer.
- Skewed Priorities: When Reginald meets Klaus in the afterlife, he spends most of the time berating him and his siblings, and only gets to the important part of why he wanted to talk with Klaus seconds before Klaus is revived.
- Splash of Color: In the afterlife(?) where Reginald meets Klaus, everything is Deliberately Monochrome save for the colors on his tank top.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Up to his point Vanya was unable to access her powers. However, things change when Leonard's life is threatened.
- Underestimating Badassery: The three drunk dudes in the parking lot who give Leonard a beat down and harass Vanya don't realize who they are dealing with.
- Unreadably Fast Text: As Harold/Leonard fishes Reginald's journal from the dumpster trash, he opens it to an entry dated June 16, 2001 in which Reginald locked Klaus in the mausoleum overnight. Notes from that entry include Klaus attempting to squeeze through the gated bars and trying to see if he had any unknown other superpowers.
- We Have the Keys: After Diego shows his manliness by breaking through the door to Leonard's house, Five points out that the door was actually unlocked.
- Wham Shot: Vanya enters Leonard's room in the hospital. He turns around to reveal one of his eyes is injured and covered, implying he's the owner of the glass eyeball Five has been trying to find.
