The Hargreeves Family Deserved Better Than The Umbrella Academy’s Cruel Twist

After four seasons, the high stakes of The Umbrella Academy feel almost normal. We’ve watched the Hargreeves family fend off multiple apocalypses, to say nothing of the myriad alternate realities that we now accept as par for the course. But with the fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy, we knew going in that, with or without an apocalypse, there won’t be anything else after this. This is the end of the line. 

What we couldn’t have prepared for was that not only would this be the end; it would also retroactively demolish the line itself. Including all the parts we’ve already traveled. And it’s hard to justify where it winds up based on where it’s been.

Since the beginning, The Umbrella Academy has been a show about recognizing and overcoming childhood and generational trauma. All the Hargreeves siblings carried obvious scars from their upbringing 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 end there; we learn later on that many of Reginald’s own issues stem from the hardships he faced on his homeworld with his wife, Abigail (​​Liisa Repo-Martell). Reginald may have thought that he was escaping the trauma of his earlier life, but, in reality, he was merely kicking the can down the road. Everything he thought he was doing to prevent history from repeating was actually playing into an established pattern, and he perpetuated that pattern by passing it down to his kids.

In Season 1, Viktor’s (Elliot Page) childhood feelings of alienation by his father and siblings led to a significant inferiority complex, which then curdled 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’re 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 murdering her parents. In Season 3, after inadvertently landing in an alternate timeline, the siblings all have to contend with their complicated feelings about Reginald adopting different children instead of them, and what that means for who they are and how they fit into the world. Over and over, The Umbrella Academy has shown its characters wrestling with how their upbringing shaped them, both for better and for worse.

In Season 4, those themes are more present than ever as we get to 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 show, she has 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, for the other siblings), we see how they attempt to do better than their own parents (but sometimes inadvertently repeat their mistakes).

Meanwhile, the main event of Season 4 sees the Hargreeves family once again standing their ground against a powerful organization that would seek to destroy everything they hold dear. The Keepers are certain that the timeline they inhabit is not real, and that only by destroying the world they live in will they find their way back to the world that they’re meant to inhabit.

Unfortunately, “The Cleanse” that the Keepers believe will usher in a better world is actually an existential threat that has been shadowing the Hargreeves siblings their entire lives—an element Abigail Hargreeves dubs “durango,” which is the counterpart to the element that gives them their powers, marigold. Just as the Umbrella Academy kids were created by marigold, another girl named Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) was created by durango, and if the two ever come in contact, it will trigger the end of the world. 

When they were children, Reginald protected the siblings by keeping them and Jennifer separated, before ultimately killing her (and Ben, we finally learn in Season 4). However, that solution apparently didn’t stick, and when Jennifer and Ben (Justin H. Min) meet each other in the alternate reality created at the end of Season 3, their connection sparks a literal doomsday. 

Ultimately, in the final moments of the series, the siblings conclude that the best version of the world is one in which they never existed at all. This, they reason, is the only way that the marigold in them and its counterpart in Jennifer can be prevented from destroying the planet. Together, they resolve to vanish from existence, saving a world in which they were never born. 

Maybe that would feel like a satisfying ending… if anything in the previous three seasons of The Umbrella Academy had seemed to point there. But up till the final episode, viewers of The Umbrella Academy were led to believe that this was a show about a dysfunctional family learning to appreciate one another, and themselves. A show about these characters gradually working through the collective trauma of their past and working together to create a better future. A show about characters figuring themselves out and accepting that they matter just as they are, even if those people are different than the ones they thought they were supposed to be. 

Of course, since it was the final season, plenty of viewers suspected that at least a couple members of the family 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 be casualties of the final apocalypse. But that’s not the biggest issue with the finale. It isn’t just that the entire Hargreeves family sacrificed themselves; it’s that they all learned that nothing they’ve done really matters. 

Let’s put aside for a moment just how problematic it is that a story about a family of adoptive siblings with an abusive childhood concludes with the takeaway that the world would’ve been better off if none of them was ever born. 

Let’s also put aside all of the logistical questions raised by the finale, such as how do all of their children still exist if their parents never existed? How come the 30 other babies that shared their miraculous birth story (the pilot says there were 43 in total, and the Umbrella and Sparrow Academies only account for 13) don’t have to be wiped from existence? And even if the eight of them were never born, doesn’t the marigold still exist? Reginald released it on his planet, and according to Abigail, neither of them even knew that durango existed at that point. So where are both of those elements now, and why are they no longer dangerous? Are we to assume that Reginald and Abigail never developed those elements at all, and that their planet was never destroyed in the first place? 

All of these are obviously issues worth discussing, but not what we’re focusing on here. Even if the plot twist made total sense, it still doesn’t fit with everything the series spent the better part of 40 hours saying. It forces the characters to conclude that none of the work they’ve done on themselves ultimately matters, and in so doing, undermines the entire ethos of the series. Sure, it’s nice to see Hazel (Cameron Britton) and Agnes (Sheila McCarthy) strolling in the park, or the Swedes tossing a Frisbee, or the Handler finally getting to wear comfortable clothes, but none of that feels worth the tradeoff of the entire main cast being wiped from existence. 

None of it feels satisfying if the takeaway for all of these characters that we invested in for four seasons is that the world would be better off without them in it. After all they’ve been through, after all they’ve worked to overcome, it doesn’t feel bittersweet or cathartic or even poetic to conclude that none of it mattered. It just feels cruel. 

The Umbrella Academy was never a series based in reality; nothing about superpowered kids, time-traveling assassins, a sentient goldfish with a human body, or a train to alternate realities suggests that it is. But while the larger-than-life wackiness was never meant to feel authentic to our world, the characters always were. We watched Klaus (Robert Sheehan) struggle with 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 brood was perfect, and they all made some terrible choices here and there, but each of them continued to learn and grow and attempt to become better versions of themselves. They worked through their trauma together, managed to finally put a name on the root cause of their unhealthy tendencies, and took the first steps to healing. 

They still had a long way to go, of course, but the series did a great job convincing us they could get there. Eventually. 

But now none of them will. Because they learned the world doesn’t need them. Doesn’t want them. Their contributions don’t matter and never did. All the work they put into themselves was meaningless; it turns out that the best versions of themselves are the ones who were never born.

Perhaps there’s an argument to be made that without all of their character growth, they would never have all been able to make that choice at 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 probably could’ve been convinced to do the same thing, because those people were already mostly convinced that their lives were worthless. They got by, but they didn’t like themselves. Reginald’s upbringing made sure of that. It was only through their relationships with one other that they came to realize that maybe they all had value after all.

Except it turns out, they don’t. That’s the last 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 only can make things worse. 

These characters deserved better. And if those little marigolds that sprout in the finale stinger ever manage to turn back into people at some point down the road (seems weird, but stranger things have happened on this show), we hope the first thing they do is tell each other how much they really mattered.

Lauren Thoman is a Nashville-based freelance pop culture writer whose writing has appeared in numerous online outlets including Parade, Vulture, and Collider. She is also the author of the novel I’ll Stop the World. Find her at her website, or on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. 

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