The fourth and final season of Umbrella Academy is now on Netflix, and it’s the shortest season yet — six episodes, versus the 10-episode long Seasons 1-3. That works in favor of the show, by getting to the plot as quickly as possible. But unfortunately for fans who have been hanging in there for five years since Umbrella Academy debuted in 2019, that also means a rush through character development, and an ending that — while definitive — is eminently unsatisfying. It’s a bummer, to say the least, that what at one point seemed on the cusp of redefining superhero TV ends not with a bang, but a whimper.
Since it has been two long years since Season 3 premiered, a quick bit of recap. After discovering their “father” Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) is some sort of murderous alien, the members of the Umbrella Academy rebooted the universe. There, they found themselves powerless, Hargreeves in control of the world, and did what they always do when things get rough… They walked away from each other.
Spoilers for Season 4 past this point, but thankfully that doesn’t last long. As we pick up six years later, the Hargreeves siblings are now living the most banal lives possible. Viktor (Elliot Page) owns a bar and is sleeping with everyone in town. Luther (Tom Hopper) is the world’s saddest stripper. Diego (David Castañeda) and Lila (Ritu Arya) are unhappily married with kids. And Klaus (Robert Sheehan) is a jittery mess, stone-cold sober but unable to muster the courage to do anything other than bubble wrap Allison’s (Emmy Raver-Lampman) basement for safety, now that he can actually die. Allison, meanwhile, is on the outs with everyone after betraying their trust last season. And Ben (Justin H. Min), who is an alternate reality version of the Ben the rest of the siblings knew and lost on a prior mission, is just getting out of prison and still wants nothing to do with anyone.
In fact, the only member of the family who seems to be doing fine is Five (Aidan Gallagher), who is now working undercover for the CIA infiltrating an organization called The Keepers who believe everyone is stuck in the wrong timeline. It’s The Mandela Effect times 1000 — called The Umbrella Effect — and the funny part is, The Keepers are right.
This leads to the absolute most delightful addition this season, Jean and Gene Thibaudet, played by real-life couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman. The leaders of The Keepers, they’re this season’s murderous, villainous pair… But given how engaging Offerman and Mullally are, and the fact they are correct — everyone is in the wrong timeline — it’s very easy to side with them over the bickering “superheroes.”
That’s one of the biggest issues with the series… I realize that families fight, and that’s the point. But these folks cannot stop digging into each other, and at some points, it feels like glimpsing a mother yelling at her kids in the mall at Christmas time. You realize it’s a stressful situation, and you get why it’s happening. But boy is it uncomfortable to watch. It’s not that the Umbrella Academy needs to act like a superhero team and be all buddy-buddy. But there’s a level of growth in the relationships that’s entirely missing, particularly after four seasons of TV.
The positive here is that due to the lack of powers, they’ve settled into “regular family that hates each other” instead of “superheroes who hate each other” — at least at first. Previous seasons have brought the “team” together briefly, just to blast them apart. In Season 4, thankfully, they get together halfway through the first episode and are mostly together all season long.
I say mostly because even with the initial breakneck pace of the plot, and only six episodes, the season still slows down in the second half so various characters can go on side missions. One, involving Klaus is given a lot of time and not a lot of closure. Another with Lila and Five has some emotional heft to it but barely deals with the fallout of what happens with the duo before the closing credits roll on the final episode.
And without spoiling that ending… It is surprising. It’s definitive. But it’s not satisfying. It’s a bummer of an ending, purposefully so. But it’s hard to eke out what the show was trying to say about these characters overall, not to mention heroism and superhero stories.
I don’t want to sound too dire here. The cast is great, and in particular, Arya has been a fantastic addition to the cast, carrying a large part of the emotional weight of the season. Hopper continues to be the funniest oaf on TV, able to sell the absolute dumbest lines and physical comedy with a grin. And Robert Sheehan is a gift, even if Klaus ends up in some uncomfortably dicey situations that don’t serve the character well.
Perhaps The Umbrella Academy could have done more with a full 10-episode season, to give the characters time to find their proper endings. Or perhaps they needed less — a movie-length finale, instead of what feels like a bloated six-episode run.
Or maybe, like how Reginald Hargreeves is always disappointed in his children, we’re supposed to be disappointed, too. These were never superheroes, and this was never a superhero show. They’re messy, they were never great people, and they destroyed the world, multiple times. But even with all that… They were also family, and as much as they annoyed us — and each other — they still deserved the best. That’s not what they got here, sadly. But maybe in some other timeline? They did.
The Umbrella Academy Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.
