The Swedes

The Swedes
Affiliation	Temps Commission The Handler
Biographical information
Marital status	Axel - married to Damien
Date of death	November 1963 (Otto and Oscar)
Place of death	Dallas, Texas (Otto and Oscar)
Physical description
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Other information
Played by	Otto - Jason Bryden Axel - Kris Holden-Ried Oscar - Tom Sinclair

The Swedes are recurring characters in season 2 of The Umbrella Academy. They are triplet assassins hired by the Temps Commission to kill Number Five. The group consists of Otto, Axel, and Oscar. One by one, they are assigned to kill most of the academy members. Five is the first one to be told to assassinate.

Unbeknownst to them, they were manipulated by The Handler. Later in the series, Oscar would be killed by a trap by The Handler who set up Diego. Then, Otto would be killed by Axel, who was manipulated by Allison Hargreeves.

Biography

Axel looks at the old family photo

They were born in Sweden to an unknown mother (Susan), where they grew up on a farm. It appears that Axel is the oldest, with Oscar being the youngest. As of now, not much is known of their backstory.

The Swedes first appeared after Hazel took Five to ten days before the second apocalypse in 1963. They began shooting at Hazel and Five, killing Hazel. Five managed to escape.

They later attempted to assassinate the members of the Academy on numerous occasions. The Swedes were ordered to kill Diego in the asylum he was living at. They go to the asylum as Diego with Lila is trying to escape from. Diego and Lila were able to survive the attack, however.

Tracking down Vanya

The next person they soon try to assassinate is Vanya. They were able to find her in by the farm and began to hunt her down by the cornfield. Vanya was able to use her powers and throw Oscar away with her powers which she soon discovered. Eventually, they had another mission to hunt down Diego. They attend the gala where Lila, Five, and Diego are at to ambush them. Lila was able to save Five, to which they throw Otto through the window. The trio soon escapes from the triplets.

The remaining triplets mourning for their dead brother

Later, they're seen again walking around the forest trying to track down Diego. The youngest of the three Oscar was able to find Diego's knife (stolen by Lila on orders from The Handler) stuck on a tree trunk, however, he did not see that it was a trap so when he stepped on the hidden landmine he exploded. This leads to the remaining triplets to mourn for their dead brother in a traditional Viking funeral as Otto screams for his brother. Axel remains stoic.

The Handler soon meets them at a sauna demanding them to continue to the mission of hunting down the academy. Saying they had a deal, and she soon mentions lavender. Axel talks about one of them killing their brother in which the Handler brushes off. Eventually, they continue to finish their mission.

As revenge for the death of their brother Oscar, they begin to hunt down the rest of the academy. They were able to find Elliott and interrogate him where the members would be at. Elliott kept his mouth shut, which lead the triplets to murder him. When Diego and Luther came back they found the message, "öga för öga" (an eye for an eye) written with Elliott's blood. At first, Diego and Luther believed it was a clue for the assassins by contacting a woman, however, Five yelled at them that it was a phrase.

Axel rumored by Allison

Later on, in the season, they made an appearance trying to fight Allison and her husband. They dressed up as vacuum salesman, and start a fight. Axel took on her husband Raymond, while Otto took on Allison. Axel was able to take down Raymond, and have the upper hand. On the other hand, while Otto tried to defeat Allison, Allison was able to grab one of the vacuum parts and stick it to Otto's eye.(BABY)

Otto was taken back and screams in pain. Axel then comes to his rescue, however, Allison then rumors him to kill his brother. Under the influence of her powers, Axel chokes Otto to death despite Otto trying to fight him off. Once the rumor went away, Axel soon found out that he killed his brother in cold blood. He leaves the house and isn't seen again until later.

Axel, the remaining triplet

After Axel realized he had killed his brother, he couldn't handle himself. Especially with the death of Oscar as well, Axel was destroyed mentally. He was holding on to the photo of the family as he contemplates chopping off his hand which he used to kill his brother. As he is in tears, he had found the bottles where the messages were sent in and found that he was manipulated. In the episode, there are flashbacks of the Handler manipulating the bottles. One of the main clues was that the bottle smelled like lavender which was a scent the Handler told them when they met in the sauna. As he tore the wrapping paper, it was revealed his suspicions were right since it said the company in which Reginald worked in.

Confronting The Handler

In anger, Axel then set out to assassinate the Handler for revenge. During the battle between the Commission and the Umbrella Academy, Axel was able to kill the Handler, however, this was subsequently reverted when Number Five rewound time. Axel later killed the Handler again, but agreed with Five that there would be no more fighting — Axel laid down his weapon momentarily and left the Cooper farm. He appears again as he is walking down the road not knowing where to go to next. Towards the finale of the season, the bus where the Destiny's Children drove stopped in front of Axel. One of the members asks if he wants to join, and since he has no one else, he decides to join.

As of now, the fate of Axel is unknown. Though it's known he joined the cult that Klaus made, ironically.

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

• Master Combatant: The Swedes are great fighters having fought against Lila, Diego, and Five knowing how to work as a team to deal with them, managing to fight them for a long time wounding them in the confrontation even losing.

• Master Assassin: The Swedes are three of the best assassins of the Temps Commission being cruel and merciless they kill without feeling remorse, as they killed an elite delivery man just to follow the clothes and a housewife just to live in his house knowing how to hide the corpses.

• Master Marksman: The Swedes are great snipers knowing how to use a wide variety of weapons in combat and having a great aim.

• High Pain Tolerance: The Swedes are trained to withstand high amounts of pain without showing a reaction at times while waiting for instructions from their mission, two of them were throwing knives with one hitting the other's leg, just trembling a little and then pulling the knife out to continue the game.

Trivia

• The actors are not Swedish, but Canadian.
  • Both the Swedes and the Handler are speaking actual Swedish, but with such inaccurate pronunciation that a real Swede would likely need subtitles to understand them.
• They are not from the original comic book series, rather they were introduced to replace Hazel, and Cha-Cha from season 1.
• Within the fandom, they are called the "IKEA Mafia" due to a comment Five makes to Vanya.

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