#tuactober

Looking back on season 1 - we see first hand how much the abuse inflicted by Reginald has seeped into the Hargreeves’ lives. Luther is denying his abuse and clings to his role as Number One, claiming to know what is best for the family. Diego is clinging to it in a different way, but tries to pass it off as active rebellion and is angry - at his father, Cha Cha, his siblings, the world. Allison’s life has been wrecked apart by using her powers on everything, costing her marriage and her daughter. Klaus is an addict, who then suffers from PTSD and is told that he’s a disappointment to his face. Five has been stuck in an apocalypse for decades, Ben is well, dead, and Vanya is repressed both emotionally and with her powers. 

We see a lot of discord within the family here - sometimes, of course, there’s kind and good moments, whether it be Diego helping Klaus get clean for an episode, or Klaus (and Ben) trying to help Luther when he spirals, or Allison’s continuous insistence on helping Vanya. We see that they love each other, we know that they love each other. But we also see that no one reallizes that Klaus is missing for a long time, that Luther decides to lock Vanya up, that Allison needs to ask Diego if he murdered Patch. The love that they have is also marked by the distrust they have, the fact that they haven’t been in the same place together since their father, their abuser, was alive, the fact that they’re still trying to be a family and that they all feel so, incredibly alone in their traumas. That isolation is even shown in the way they go about trying to solve their problems - they all have individual storylines that they try to solve on their own (Diego with Patch, Allison with Vanya, Five with the Handler, etc.) and it just continuously doesn’t work out. It’s when Allison is with Diego that he’s reminded that Patch wouldn’t want this revenge plot to work out, it’s when Klaus and Five work together that they start getting more answers, it’s when all the siblings decide to gather around Vanya and decide that they need to solve this as a family that they avoid impending doom. 

In season 2? They start out apart, of course, but they very quickly come together and continue to stay together.  They freely get happy seeing each other for the first time and there’s such a stark difference in (most of) their reunions - Luther is so close to taking Vanya down until he realizes that she’s okay, that she’s happy and safe and that he doesn’t need to do anything and he apologizes to her and tries to keep her away from everything in their lives because he doesn’t want to disrupt her happiness. Allison says that she knew the rest of her family would find her one day; she shows that trust and willingness. Diego freely embraces his siblings, a stark contrast with him greeting them all with anger in the pilot. He forgives Vanya when she apologizes and tells Luther that he has him by his side, Five trusts Diego in the endgame with Lila, Klaus (who himself said in season 1 that he’s not a fighter and again in season 2 that he’s not someone to fight) runs headfirst into danger to try and save his sisters when he sees Allison in danger at the protest and Vanya in the FBI building. They’re a much more cohesive unit than they were in season one, more free with their affection and support and trust with one another.

This isn’t to say that they’re perfect with it, of course they’re not - they’re still putting those pieces of themselves together and they’re struggling with all their traumas. They’re not going to go from how they were in season 1 to a flawless family unit with perfect communication within the span of a season. And we see that it does fall apart, a bit, after Reginald has the supper with them. We see them backslide into how they were as kids, we see bad habits/coping mechanisms/decisions popping up for them all over again (Ben + possession, Diego feeling angered by his siblings, Allison using her rumoring ability, etc.).