I finished season 2 of Umbrella Academy.
Is it just me, or was Carl too sympathetic? Like, I felt bad for him. Did they intend to male him a worse person then edit all that out?

He's an boar, oblivious, a braggart...but, he's also faithful, hardworking and trying his best.

His wife is cheating on him. It's not his fault she don't love him. He's providing in the only way he knows how. It's not his fault that's not what his wife wants. He loves his son, but is painfully ill equipped to give him what he needs by no fault of his own.

He's horribly reactionary, because he's not very smart and emotionally repressed. He uses alcohol to be as brave as he tells his wife he is, just so he can sell gd shower curtains...sometimes so brave he tries selling to a mob boss.

He's not the man he ever wanted to be either, but he's keeping it together, because his wife needs a pretty country house, and he's dreading the day his son needs more intervention than he can provide and he needs to afford it.

Then...his wife cheats on him. With the stranger he opened his house up to. How could he be so blind?! How could he not see?

So, he was left flailing, desperate to keep his family together-- the only good thing he has, the singular thing he's worked for all his life.

His identity is crumbling. His wife is going to leave and take his son, and leave him alone in that farmhouse.
Without his family, what is he working so hard for? He might as well let the drink take him.

In the end, I didn't see an unsympathetic monster. I sawva reactionary person, who's just barely keeping things together, who was not equipped to handle every shred of goodness in his life leaving him in a healthy manner.
He was spiraling and desperate.

And...his son killed him

Was I suppose to cheer for that?
I just felt bad for him...the hapless dope.

TL;DR
Vanya ruins everything she touches.

Yes, I'm saying all this as someone who's worked with women's shelters, and in victim's advocacy.

Which is why I'm not automatically all like "Carl's a monster"...instead I see the signs of someone in distress.