Five years ago, when I watched episode one of The Umbrella Academy for the first time, I was immediately sucked into the bizarre and otherworldly sphere of this unique show.
Growing up watching the animated X-Men cartoon, the Powerpuff Girls, and having devoured every Marvel movie I could get my hands on into adulthood, it’s safe to say that quality stories about superpowered beings are my catnip.
So to find a tale about beings with superhuman abilities, who fight crime as children and then grow up to become a dysfunctional and relatable family, was TV gold.
Now, Netflix has released the final outing for The Umbrella Academy, as Viktor, Klaus, Allison, Five, Diego, Luther, Ben and Lila take their bows in the last season of the beloved series.
Yet again, it pulls out all the stops to deliver a spectacle… one filled with gore, time-bending antics and sibling jibes that will pull at the heartstrings of diehard fans who’ve been waiting for this moment for years.
However, while the show has held onto its essence – remaining fun, quirky, devastating, horrifying and hopeful all rolled into one – it was at its best when it first began.
With that being said, it’s a relief that The Umbrella Academy is being granted an ending at all.
Too many worthy properties have been axed from Netflix before they have a chance to provide viewers with a satisfying ending, including the likes of 1899, Shadow and Bone, Lockwood and Co and The OA.
(Sense8 is unique in that after being cancelled on a season two cliffhanger, a two-and-a-half hour finale was then released over a year later).
We meet the Umbrella Academy gang in season four after their entire universe has been reset.
At the end of season three, it was revealed that Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) had finally been reunited with her daughter after striking up a deal with an alternate version of her adoptive father Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore).
Not only that, but the siblings were stripped of their powers, Luther (Tom Hopper) returned from the dead, his wife Sloane (Genesis Rodriguez) disappeared and several severe injuries among the siblings were reversed.
Some time later in season four, the team are all living very disparate lives.
Viktor (Elliot Page) is leaving a trail of broken hearts while running a bar in Canada, Diego (David Castañeda) and Lila (Ritu Arya) are trying to manage the chaos of raising young kids, Luther is paying the bills as an astronaut stripper, Allison is taking on small acting jobs, Five is working as a covert agent, Klaus (Robert Sheehan) has become a germaphobe and Ben (Justin H Min) is being released from a stint in prison.
So where do we go from here? Another imminent apocalyptic event, of course.
It’s unsurprising to see why The Umbrella Academy has come to an end with season four. It is an incredibly entertaining show that I’m delighted to be a fan of, but it can get repetitive when each season involves attempting – and sometimes failing – to prevent the apocalypse.
Where can you go when the stakes always appear to be at the highest possible level?
This time, the potential end of the universe revolves around Ben – an alternate version of the Hargreeves’ sibling, who grew up in the Sparrow Academy and who we met in season three.
There are also new menacing antagonists too, played masterfully by Will and Grace’s Megan Mullally and The Last of Us’ Nick Offerman, who star as a couple running secret meetings with the aim of spreading the message that their universe is hiding a big secret.
While being weird and wonderful is The Umbrella Academy’s forte, at times the direction that season four takes can feel too convoluted for its own good.
But then, in comes a sharp exchange of dialogue or a high-octane action sequence that distracts us enough not to care too much about the nitty gritty details.
There is one particular character who I felt disappointed never really had the chance to fully flex their powers, given the enormous potential they had and the fact that they’re a huge fan favourite.
Elsewhere, a relationship develops between two individuals in a new episode that is really unsettling, even if it was organic and made sense for the story. You’ll see what I mean.
The Umbrella Academy was straight out the gate five years ago with mounds of ambition, and it’s never faltered in that respect.
After its first outing, the second season where the siblings were transported to the 1960s is also up there as one of my favourites, but that standard has been hard to top since.
It’s uncertain whether fans are going to be wholly satisfied with the end of season four, which seeks to answer several mysteries that have been hanging over the Hargreeves since the very beginning.
There is a post-credits scene with a little hint that viewers should definitely pay close attention to, but wrapping up a tale of this magnitude was never going to be an easy feat.
I personally was left slightly disheartened by where all of these brilliant characters ended up in the end, partly because to me, the conclusion didn’t make full sense in my mind (but maybe I need a rewatch to grasp it all more fully).
I am also simply going to miss the Hargreeves siblings, even if I think it’s the right decision to bring their journey to an end.
It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’m grateful to be able to call The Umbrella Academy one of my favourite shows ever.
Now let’s go fight the apocalypse one last time.
The Umbrella Academy is available to watch on Netflix.
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