There’s a lot going on in the Netflix series “The Umbrella Academy,” including an apocalyptic threat, space travel, time travel, assassins, flashbacks, flashforwards, six living siblings, one dead ghost sibling and a robot mother, to name a few story details. So it’s really saying something that the character who left one of the most lasting impressions on me was Klaus Hargreeves, who as played by Robert Sheehan is perhaps the most dysfunctional of his super-powered family, but the one who binds the show together.

Klaus was one of several children mysteriously born on the same day to women who hadn’t been pregnant before the day they gave birth. He and six of the others were adopted by a billionaire industrialist (Colm Feore) who honed their special powers in order to make them a superhero team. But he wasn’t a particularly good father or superhero trainer. For instance, Klaus is able to communicate with the dead, and his dad’s tutelage included locking him in mausoleums against his will — not exactly a recipe for strong mental health.

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As an adult, Klaus is a drug addict (he self-medicates to keep the ghosts at bay), but he’s not just a tragic character, and he’s not simply comic relief either. On a show that juggles a variety of tones, Sheehan performs the trickiest balancing act, invigorating the show with a shot of humor and wild manic energy, while also keeping Klaus grounded in humanity. In that way, he becomes the show’s connective tissue, keeping it from taking itself too seriously but not letting it veer into self-parody either.

It’s also important to note that Klaus is gratifyingly, matter-of-factly queer, which adds an important layer to his self-isolation and loneliness but never becomes his sole defining trait. He also gets to find love … in an odd, indirect way I won’t spoil. Like I said, there’s a lot going on in “The Umbrella Academy.” Amid all that, Allison Keene (Collider) says Sheehan gives a “sweet and vulnerable performance here, and one that is full of comedic physicality,” while Rachel Leishman (The Mary Sue) says he “shines” in the role. Fingers crossed for a second season with plenty more Klaus encounters.

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