This Forgotten ‘Umbrella Academy’ Character Deserved So Much Better

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Season 4 of The Umbrella Academy.

Few modern superhero series offer as many interesting characters as Netflix’sThe Umbrella Academy. Based on the comics by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the hit series has intrigued audiences for years, astounding them with its story of an adopted superhero family trying to overcome the apocalypse (and their own petty drama). The program’s finale is finally out, granting audiences one last installment of the gritty yet hilarious narrative they’ve grown to love and giving the main cast cathartic, if not heartbreaking, ends…sort of. Despite some of its successes, this show made numerous confusing character choices. Such choices detracted from the finale the series has been building up to and hindered many of the arcs the show spent entire seasons developing. One character was noticeably absent in this final iteration despite being a fan favorite, who was brought back at the end of Season 3. He was one of the show’s most grounded figures, a compelling presence that added some much-needed earnestness to the series but also ushered in one of the best arcs this series has ever seen. Choosing not to include the show’s most supportive, loving husband, Raymond Chestnut (Yusuf Gatewood), was one of Season 4’s biggest mistakes.

‘The Umbrella Academy’ Has a Hard Time With Tone

Even in a superhero genre saturated with “edgy” takes on classic comics stories, The Umbrella Academy manages to stand out; it focuses on a group of super-powered children who were adopted by the callous billionaire Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), an elusive man who trained them to become superheroes while imbuing each with an ample amount of daddy issues. The show focused on these crime fighters as adults, with characters like the forgotten Viktor (Elliot Page) or hyper-focused Diego (David Castañeda) showcasing just how deeply this childhood has ruined their social development. While all of these folks were interesting, few were as complex as the group’s only sister, Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), whose power allowed her to alter reality and the minds of others just by starting her sentence with “I heard a rumor.” Despite seeing her with realistic issues in Season 1 like a failed marriage and a strained relationship with her daughter, these were quickly swept away in favor of her family’s hijinks and the controversial romance between her and her adopted brother, Luther (Tom Hopper). At the end of Season 1, Allison ended up getting her throat slit in a violent confrontation, and the power she’d come to rely on was torn away right as the entire family was shot through time to Dallas, Texas, in 1961.

Finding herself marooned in the South during the time of Jim Crow was immediately horrific for Allison. However, she was lucky to find refuge with the city’s local Black community — namely, a civil rights advocate by the name of Raymond Chestnut. Season 2 was a reckoning for every family member, but this was especially true for Allison, who realized just how much using her powers had severed her from the world around her. Allison’s many facets had always existed, but Raymond revealed just how narrow her viewpoint really was. Ray helped her adjust to this new time period and inspired her to fight against the horrors of racism and unjust policing. He was one of the most refreshing characters the show had ever introduced — an everyman who didn’t belong to the fantastical elements of this series and emphasized how serious the Hargreeves’ impact was on the world. In a show with puppy-masked killers and speaking goldfish, it can be easy for viewers to forget about the seriousness of this premise and the darker tone it started with. Raymond provided an extremely necessary grounding point, and though it was sad to watch Allison leave him behind when she returned to the present, viewers were overjoyed to see her literally restart the universe in Season 3 and bring back not only him but her — now their — daughter, Claire (Coco Assad).

‘The Umbrella Academy’ Ruined Its Own Cliffhanger

Failing to pay off a cliffhanger is one thing, but The Umbrella Academy did something even worse when it came to Raymond Chestnut: they completely forgot him. The series’ last installment fast forwards a few years to find a now-powerless Allison dealing with a moody tween Claire with her husband absent. Klaus makes a throwaway comment making it clear that Raymond abandoned Allison and her daughter in this timeline, a shocking outcome for many reasons — the least of which being that this goes against Raymond’s entire characterization up to that point! Ray was always shown to be an endlessly kindhearted man, one passionate about the wellbeing of others, who reminded Allison and those around her of the empathy their childhoods drilled out of them. He was a tether for not only the family, but the entire show, a connection to the larger world outside their superhuman conflicts that was noticeably missing in this wild last season.

Through Raymond and Allison’s relationship, the series gained the seriousness necessary to balance out the outlandish comedy it often falls into. The program has always had a knack for injecting its darker storylines with funny foolishness. While entertaining, Raymond was the first character to truly delve past the humorous coping and give insight into how the group’s flippancy deeply hurts those around them and themselves. In a setting filled with superheroes, monsters, and aliens, it’s easy to forget just how devastating these comical plots can be on the normal world-at-large, with even apocalypses usually only being shown through the main group’s POV rather than the chaos surely happening all over the world. His wherewithal about human issues helped give these former/aspiring heroes a sense of justice, one which he passed onto Allison for Season 3, which would have proven exceptional in helping Season 4 reach a satisfying climax. Even beyond what he could give, though, and even if his inclusion would have done nothing for the final season’s plot, one thing is for sure: Raymond deserved so, so much more than being turned into a deadbeat dad and a guy who abandons his family.

Raymond Chestnut Deserved Better in ‘The Umbrella Academy’

Even though Raymond Chestnut was one of the show’s most compelling character, he wasn’t the only The Umbrella Academy character to lean into this show’s darker themes. Klaus has been struggling with the trauma of an abusive childhood since the show first began, and Season 4 saw Lila (Ritu Arya), Diego’s wife and former assassin, battle with the terror of losing everyone you love just after finally getting them back. But as great as these storylines were, the wild plot developments and uncanny comedy that was involved in them meant they were rarely given the serious spotlight such intense emotions call for. Similar to how Raymond was lost in this last installment, these characters (and many others) saw shocking narrative developments that lost so much of the depth they’d accumulated up to that point.

Raymond was the first character to recognize how disastrous the family’s actions were and helped Allison — and, by extension, her brothers — finally start to care about the world outside their dysfunctional unit, granting each some essential characterizations that existed long after his introduction in Season 2. The series benefited greatly from him, and while we’ll never know what Season 4 could have been for Raymond, every one of his scenes indicated that he would have only helped it further while continuing to be the loving man Allison met so many years ago. And by not only forgetting about him but choosing to taint this great character, the series dismissed a vital character, which was just another issue on top of the others that made the final season suffer as it did.

The Umbrella Academy is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

WATCH ON NETFLIX