The much-anticipated final season of The Umbrella Academy has arrived, bringing the apocalyptic saga of our favorite superpowered oddballs to a close. Picking up from the previous season’s cliffhanger, where the Hargreeves stumbled into yet another timeline, this season begins with the siblings mysteriously stripped of their powers.
Fast forward a few years, and the story delves into the challenges they face as ordinary individuals before they’re inevitably pulled back into the chaos that seems to follow them wherever (or whenever) they go. Once again, the season kicks off with a family reunion, offering humorous interactions between the siblings — a territory where the show typically excels.
But, unlike the previous three seasons, the fourth season struggles without source material to lean on.
So how do you wrap everything up after three seasons of world ending shenanigans? Surely it has to be an apocalypse to end all apocalypses. Enter The Cleanse: an event that the Keepers, followers of a cult who believe the timeline they live in is false, wish to bring forth in order to restore the proper timeline. (Yes, all of it sounds very MCU and TVA.)
Once again, the siblings are thrust into a frantic scramble to save the world from impending doom. Central to this storyline is Ben and the mysterious “Jennifer incident.” While some long-awaited answers finally emerge, the season frustratingly leaves us with other unresolved questions. The Cleanse itself is overshadowed by side plots that, while intriguing, seem either unimportant or unrelated to the apocalypse at hand — especially in the only season that doesn’t stretch to 10 episodes.
The finale begins and ends abruptly, and while it carries a bittersweet tone, the numerous lingering questions make it feel as though the story never quite comes full circle. We bid farewell to The Umbrella Academy with a memorable ending, but it could have been so much more impactful if given more time to unfold.
The special sauce that made the earlier seasons so exceptional seems to be missing from this comparatively lackluster season. Our antiheroes are still wonderfully flawed, reluctant world-savers, and their family dynamics are as dysfunctional as ever — and these aspects remain entertaining to watch. That said, the superb blend of emotional depth and quirky eccentricities that once set the show apart are noticeably absent.
Even time travel, which was once a core strength of the show, fails to deliver the same charm in this finale. Another under explored area was the newly revived and apparently enhanced superpowers of our protagonists. While these were hinted at throughout the episodes, their full potential is rarely showcased.
Nevertheless, the final season, while falling short in these areas, still honors the legacy of the Hargreeves’ journey. As always, it is something that becomes more enjoyable when we set aside the urge to rationalize time travel laws, plot holes, and other inconsistencies, and instead focus on empathizing with the characters as they continue to navigate their healing process. After all, despite the frequent snark and cynicism, the show’s true essence has always been one of hope and unconventional heroism.
It is because of this that The Umbrella Academy will forever be remembered as a show that masterfully combined wacky concepts with sci-fi elements, and topped it all off with a touch of family melodrama.
The Hargreeves siblings may have been as unheroic as humanly possible at times, and they may not fit the traditional superhero mold, but from the moment they first danced into our hearts in that iconic scene from the first episode, they have left a lasting mark. If only the show bowed out as spectacularly as it arrived.
But we will still miss the Hargreeves on our screens — the misfits who reminded us that true heroism lies in embracing our quirks and facing our inner challenges head-on while striving to do the right thing.
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