After four seasons, the high stakes of The Umbrella Academy feel almost normal. We’ve seen the Hargreeves family fend off several apocalypses, not to mention the countless alternate realities we now accept as normal. But with the fourth and final season of The Umbrella AcademyWe knew from the beginning that after this, with or without the apocalypse, there would be nothing. That’s the end of the line.
What we couldn’t prepare for was that not only would this be the end, but it would retroactively destroy the route itself. Including all the parts we’ve already traveled. And it’s hard to justify where it ends, considering where it’s already been.
From the beginning The Umbrella Academy was a series about recognizing and overcoming childhood and generational trauma. All of the Hargreeves siblings bore clear scars from their childhood under Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), and Lila (Ritu Arya) has similar unresolved issues from her childhood with the Handler (Kate Walsh). And it doesn’t stop there; we later learn that many of Reginald’s own problems stem from the hardships he endured on his homeworld with his wife Abigail (Liisa Repo-Martell). Reginald may have thought he was escaping the trauma of his previous life, but in reality he was just putting the issue off. Everything he thought he was doing to prevent history from repeating itself was actually following an established pattern, and he continued that pattern by passing it on to his children.
In season 1, Viktor’s (Elliot Page) childhood feelings of alienation from his father and siblings led to a significant inferiority complex, which then morphed into feelings of betrayal and resentment as an adult. In season 2, as the Hargreeves siblings struggle to convince a pre-Umbrella Academy version of Reginald to care about the disastrous future they are trying to prevent, Lila is manipulated and lied to by the woman she considered her mother, only to later learn that she was responsible for her parents’ murder. In season 3, after accidentally ending up in an alternate timeline, all of the siblings must grapple with their complicated feelings about Reginald adopting other children instead of them, and what that means for them and how they fit into the world. Over and over again The Umbrella Academy has shown its characters wrestling with how their upbringing has shaped them, both good and bad.
In season 4, these themes are more present than ever, as we see several of the characters as parents. Although Allison’s (Emmy Raver-Lampman) daughter Claire (Millie Davis) has been around since the beginning of the series, she plays a much more prominent role in the final season, and Diego (David Castañeda) and Lila now have three children of their own. Through raising their children (and nieces and nephews in the case of the other siblings), we see them trying to do better than their own parents (but sometimes inadvertently repeating their mistakes).
In the main event of the fourth season, the Hargreeves family once again stands up against a powerful organization that wants to destroy everything they hold dear. The Keepers are convinced that the timeline they live in is not real and that only by destroying the world they live in can they find their way back to the world they are meant to live in.
Unfortunately, “The Cleanse,” which the Keepers believe will bring about a better world, is actually an existential threat that has shadowed the Hargreeves siblings their entire lives – an element Abigail Hargreeves calls “Durango,” the counterpart to the element that gives them their powers, Marigold. Just as the children of the Umbrella Academy were created by Marigold, another girl named Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) was created by Durango, and if the two ever come into contact, it will trigger the end of the world.
When they were children, Reginald protected the siblings by keeping them and Jennifer apart before eventually killing them (and Ben, as we finally learn in Season 4). However, that solution apparently didn’t hold, and when Jennifer and Ben (Justin H. Min) meet in the alternate reality created at the end of Season 3, their connection literally triggers a world-ending event.
In the final moments of the series, the siblings finally come to the conclusion that the best version of the world is one in which they never existed. This, they reason, is the only way to stop the Marigold inside them and her counterpart inside Jennifer from destroying the planet. Together, they decide to disappear from existence and save a world in which they were never born.
Maybe that would feel like a satisfying ending… if anything in the last three seasons of The Umbrella Academy seemed to indicate this. But until the last episode, viewers of The Umbrella Academy They were led to believe that this was a show about a dysfunctional family learning to value each other and themselves. A show about these characters gradually coming to terms with the collective trauma of their past and working together to create a better future. A show about characters finding themselves and accepting that they matter just as they are, even if these people are different from who they thought they were.
Since it was the last season, many viewers naturally suspected that at least a few family members would have to pay the ultimate price for the good of the world and the safety of their loved ones, although few suspected that all of them would fall victim to the final apocalypse. But that’s not the biggest problem with the finale. It’s not just that the entire Hargreeves family sacrificed themselves; they all learned that nothing they did really matters.
Let’s put aside for a moment how problematic it is that the story about an adopted family of siblings with an abusive childhood ends with the realization that the world would be better off if none of these children had ever been born.
Let’s also leave aside all the logistical questions the finale raises, like how can all of their children still exist if their parents never existed? How come the 30 other babies who shared their miraculous birth story (the pilot says there were 43 in total, and the Umbrella and Sparrow academies only count 13) don’t have to be erased from existence? And even if the eight were never born, doesn’t Marigold still exist? Reginald released her on his planet, and according to Abigail, neither of them knew Durango existed at the time. Where are those two elements now, and why are they no longer dangerous? Are we to assume that Reginald and Abigail never developed those elements, and that their planet was never destroyed?
All of these points are worthy of discussion, of course, but not what we’re focusing on here. Even if the plot twist made perfect sense, it still doesn’t fit with everything the show has been telling for the past 40 hours. It forces the characters to conclude that the work they’ve done on themselves is ultimately worthless, and in doing so undermines the entire ethos of the show. Of course, it’s nice to see Hazel (Cameron Britton) and Agnes (Sheila McCarthy) walking in the park, or the Swedes throwing Frisbees, or the Handler finally being able to wear comfortable clothes, but none of that seems worth the trade-off of the entire main cast being erased from existence.
None of that is satisfying when, with all of these characters we’ve watched for four seasons, you feel like the world would be better off without them. After everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve tried to overcome, it’s not bittersweet or cathartic or even poetic to conclude that none of it mattered. It just feels cruel.
The Umbrella Academy was never a show based in reality; nothing about kids with superpowers, time-traveling assassins, a sentient goldfish with a human body, or a train to alternate realities suggests it. But while the larger-than-life craziness was never meant to feel authentic to our world, the characters always did. We saw Klaus (Robert Sheehan) struggle with his addiction, Viktor come to terms with his identity, Allison fight for civil rights, and Diego and Lila fall in love. None of the Umbrella Academy brothers were perfect, and they all made some terrible choices here and there, but each of them continued to learn and grow and try to become better versions of themselves. They worked through their trauma together, finally managed to name the root cause of their unhealthy tendencies, and took the first steps toward healing.
Of course, they still had a long way to go, but the show did a great job of convincing us that they would get there. Eventually.
But now none of them will. Because they’ve learned that the world doesn’t need them. Doesn’t want them. Their contributions are unimportant and never have been. All the work they put into themselves was meaningless; it turns out the best versions of themselves are the ones who were never born.
Perhaps you can argue that without their character development, they would never have all been able to make that decision in the end, and that’s probably true. But the sadder truth is that the original versions of the Umbrella Academy that we met at the beginning of the series could probably have been convinced to do the same, because those people were already largely convinced that their lives were worthless. They got by, but they didn’t like themselves. Reginald’s upbringing saw to that. It was only through their relationships with each other that they realized that maybe they all had value after all.
But it turns out they don’t. That’s the final lesson they learn as a family. They are mistakes, and nothing they can say or do justifies their existence. The world doesn’t need them. They can only make things worse.
These characters deserve better. And when those little marigolds that sprout in the finale eventually become human again (sounds weird, but stranger things have happened on this show), we hope the first thing they do is tell each other how much they really meant.
Lauren Thoman is a freelance pop culture writer based in Nashville whose writing has appeared in numerous online media outlets, including Parade, Vulture, and Collider. She is also the author of the novel I will stop the world. Find her at her websiteor on Instagram, Þjórsárdaluror on facebook..
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