Spoiler Alert! Major spoilers ahead for The Umbrella Academy.
The Umbrella Academy is a show about a family — albeit a dysfunctional family that consists of seven adopted, superpowered children and one alien father. For four seasons, the series has shown us what happens when that father prioritizes those children’s powers over their feelings. Called the Umbrella Academy, Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castaneda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Five (Aidan Gallagher), Ben (Justin H. Min), and Viktor (Elliot Page) were each used and abused by their father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore).
For example, Luther was left on the moon for an extended period of time for no reason (although he finds out in Season 4 that, unbeknownst to him, he was there guarding Reginald’s wife, Abigail); Five, who had time travel as his power, blinked himself into the future and got stuck there for years; and Viktor was so powerful that his father repressed his powers and erased his memory of ever having them. Oh, and Ben is dead.
Clearly, these brothers and sisters have more than their fair share of problems. Still, throughout four seasons, they’ve managed to show up for each other when it counted. That hasn’t prevented the plot from asking questions we still don’t have answers to, though. We’ll look at some of them here, especially questions brought up by last season.
Reginald and Abigail Hargreeves Are Aliens, But What Does That Mean?
The show makes a big deal about Reginald and Abigail Hargreeves being aliens — and even shows Reginald’s long life. He’s been on Earth since at least the early 1900s, where he went when his planet suffered from an apocalypse. But for all that table setting, we barely saw what these aliens actually look like or got an idea of their powers. So why was it important for them to be aliens at all?
Moreover, when Reginald learns Abigail is responsible for the Season 4 apocalypse, and she caused it deliberately, she tells him that it was necessary because she deserved to die for creating Marigold and Durango and his actions on this planet were hubris. But why does Reginald just agree with her in the end? And why does she sacrifice the Earth to punish herself and Reginald? Abigail already killed one planet. Isn’t that enough?
How Did Jennifer Get in the Squid?
In the fourth season, we learn what really happened to the Umbrella Academy’s Ben: when he was young, he and a girl, a young version of Jennifer, were killed by Reginald when Ben opened the crate where she was held. But the last thing we see is them both bleeding out on the floor. So how did Jennifer get into the squid? Even if Ben became the squid in death, it’s not clear how Jennifer got inside him — or why she’s alive.
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Also, why doesn’t at least Luther remember this incident in Season 4? He should because in Season 3, he tells the Sparrow Academy’s Ben that the Umbrella Academy’s Ben died in the “Jennifer Incident.” While he doesn’t say what that means, it’s clear he remembers the truth about what happened to Ben then. Why doesn’t he remember it six years later?
What Happened to Sloane? And Why Is Claire Still Alive?
When the siblings appear in the new timeline at the end of Season 3, Sloane (Genesis Rogriguez), a member of the Sparrow Academy and Luther’s wife, is not there, but Luther, who died, is. While Luther looks for Sloane, it appears she doesn’t exist in this timeline. But she survived the Kugelblitz like everyone else, except Luther. So why is Luther suddenly alive and she’s nowhere to be found? Did Reginald trade her life for Luther’s? There’s no real explanation, and she’s largely forgotten in the fourth season, outside a shout-out or two from Luther. But this is strange considering she had a major role in the previous season.
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Also, why after all that’s happened, are Claire, Allison’s daughter, and Diego’s kids still alive if their parents ceased to exist? It’s possible that Lila, Diego’s wife and the mother of his kids, used the trains to alternate timelines to protect them from the Cleanse, but even then, if their parents stopped existing — as in they never were born into this world — it seems impossible that their kids could exist.
None of these things have satisfactory answers. And then there are the smaller questions. Like, why Luther has an ape’s body again after he was dosed with the Marigold in Season 4, even though his ape body was originally the result of a surgery, not the Marigold? And why do some of the siblings have different or enhanced powers after they take the Marigold and some don’t seem to? And what was Ben doing on that train at the end of Season 3, and why wasn’t it picked up on again in the fourth season?
A lot of these things can be put down to the fourth season being only six episodes long, but there are things that the writers clearly missed or forgot about, and that’s why, after a great three seasons, so many people were disappointed with the fourth.
