Umbrella Academy takes this 39-year-old story and gives it an even darker twist

Summary

The fourth season of “The Umbrella Academy” takes a dark turn to DC’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and merges realities in an unbelievable finale.
The series ends with a heartbreaking sacrifice when the Hargreeves siblings erase themselves to reset the timeline.
The bittersweet ending leaves fans with mixed feelings, questioning the fate of characters like Viktor and the effects of Reginald’s experiments.

When it comes to exciting modern science fiction productions, Netflix The Umbrella Academy ranks very high. After four seasons, it ended in stunning fashion. It concluded the story of the Hargreeves siblings, their evil adoptive father (Sir Reginald), and explained why they all found themselves involved in a series of end-time scenarios.

Unfortunately Umbrella Academy The series finale is not a happy ending. In fact, it takes an iconic DC event and turns it in a darker direction, which has polarized viewers. In doing so, the series essentially becomes a new version of DC’s Crisis on parallel earths.

DC’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” created a world

In Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 3, Prime Earth is surrounded by a red energy vortex.

Ben and Jennifer lie on a large, round cube. Ben comforts Jennifer as her face glows from Durango particles in The Umbrella Academy season 4. Shion in The Umbrella Academy season 4.

The Umbrella Academy finally reveals what the Jennifer incident is all about

The Jennifer incident was the Umbrella Academy’s biggest mystery, and Season 4 finally reveals what it is and how it connects to the series’ villain.

In DCs Crisis on parallel earthsthe Anti-Monitor has arrived to devour worlds. These realities had to die because of an anomaly: the multiverseWhile the Anti-Monitor devoured various realities, the Spectre overloaded space and time, causing the remaining Earths to merge into one.

This became the “Monoverse”. In the end, even though the villain was defeated, the people who inhabited the new Prime Earth remembered nothing except the Psycho Pirate. This allowed DC to recreate and remake stories for iconic heroes like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, their villains, friends and family. It was a hard feeling, though, as many lives were lost or erased from existence..

Most fans put up with it because most of the heroes and enemies they liked survived. The resulting collateral damage was palpable. Ironically, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three The ending reworked this by having the heroes use the Miracle Machine to create a single reality, merging humans with their variants, so that while a sort of spiritual genocide occurred, the fan favorites lived on.

The only heroes who didn’t go to the new universe were The Question from Earth-4 and the self-hating John Constantine. So the lore stayed the same. The basic concept remained – the multiverse was a deadly anomaly that had to end. This gave James Gunn a new DC animated universe to work with, streamlining things for the future like the comics did for a few years in the 1980s.

The Umbrella Academy reinterprets DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths

A shared image of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, The Umbrella Academy and Loki

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The Umbrella Academy Season 4 ends with a similar bang. Five meets his variants and learns that Reginald’s manipulation of reality using the marigold has caused a ripple effect across space and time. Many worlds emerged from the timeline fans saw in Season 1. Each timeline would suffer an apocalypse, regardless of whether the Academy tried to prevent it.

Five used the Waypoint Station and traveled to other timelines. He saw all of those worlds crumble because of him and his siblings’ existence. Marigold gave birth to them, which is why his variants admit that the original Academy must die in order for the timeline to reset and a Prime world to be reborn.

It ends with Five convincing the siblings to let Ben and Jennifer’s monster kill them. Reality is reset and a universe with a tighter timeline is created. Unfortunately, the siblings are not part of itInstead, they are reincarnated as flowers in a park where their loved ones spend time alongside other characters from the past. No one seems to remember the Academy, as they were erased from history after their sacrifice.

The Umbrella Academy has a much darker ending

Ben and Jennifer as Cleanse Monsters kill Allison in The Umbrella Academy

The star of “The Umbrella Academy” explains the post-credits scene of the last season

David Castañeda interprets the final post-credits scene of The Umbrella Academy as a hopeful symbol of the Hargreeves’ continued presence in the universe.

The Umbrella Academy The ending is much darker than what DC did. At least the heroes who helped save reality got a second chance. Even though their memories were altered, their essence remained alive. DC has finally Crisis on parallel earths with later stories like 2006 Endless crisis to address the impact and trauma that came with the loss of the pre-Crisis multiverse when the truth came out. Yet it felt like there was still a small reward in the midst of the tragedy.

In the The Umbrella Academy Finale, the feeling of hope, inspiration and happiness is more clouded by grief and trauma. While it’s nice to see Diego and Lila’s children, as well as Allison’s daughter Claire, alive, it’s still terribly cruel to simply wipe out the Academy. They never asked to be virgin births powered by the Marigold. They had no agency at all. They were just byproducts of an experiment Reginald conducted after he lost his wife Abigail.

They have lost so many loved ones and even died during the show.

Reginald filled the void in his soul by finding the children, manipulating them, and turning them into heroes. However, he punished them, as seen with Viktor. The fact that the Hargreeves siblings go through all this toxicity and get caught up in Reginald’s game after he dies seems brutal. They deserve a place in the timeline rather than paying for the sins of Reginald’s ego and god complex. They lost so many loved ones and even died during the duration of the show.

The siblings also proved to be selfless. If they had not given up their lives, people would not have been given a second chance in a timeline without an apocalypse. Even if they had been reborn as strangers with a new life, it would have been digestible karma compared to the erasure for Reginald’s sins..

The Umbrella Academy finale should have revived Viktor

Elliot Page as Viktor Hargreeves in The Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy: Cast and Character Guide for Season 4

The final season of “The Umbrella Academy” offers a large cast of characters that bring lots of joy, chaos and drama to the Hargreeves siblings.

At least one hero deserved to stay alive, and that was Viktor. Vanya became Viktor in Season 3 after Elliot Page became a man in the real world. This experience was incorporated into the series and showed how the siblings always loved and accepted Viktor.. It spoke for progressiveness and equality in the trans community. Allison also acknowledges it as they die, calling Viktor “El” – a reference to Elliot’s present and his past as Ellen Page.

It’s heartwarming to see this meta, fourth-wall-breaking moment, and it speaks to the power of family and how Viktor, an outcast, was transformed into the weapon that caused the first apocalypse: the White Violin. If Reginald hadn’t mistreated the White Violin and wanted to control its power, Viktor wouldn’t have turned evil and brought the moon to the planet.

This led to the storyline in seasons 2 and 3, where Viktor tried to find redemption, love, and a family of his own. By killing the sibling who suffered the most, it sends an unfortunate message. Many films and series don’t have surviving LGBTQ characters, which is regressive on the part of the creative teams. But the siblings sacrificing themselves and hoping for Viktor’s survival would have been a poignant and profound story.

The Umbrella Academy it was always about identity. Why not let the one person live who was now enjoying their true self? Viktor owned a bar in Canada, was attractive to women, and was making up for lost time before trying to prevent this new apocalypse. Everyone had told their whole story, but Viktor’s story seemed to be just beginning. The reboot could have easily reunited Viktor with his beloved Sissy and provided the happy ending that wasn’t there in Season 2.

Sissy died of cancer when Viktor left, which led Allison to kill Sissy’s son Harlan for killing the Academy mothers. By giving Viktor this family, the series would have completely atoned for Allison’s storyline and allowed Viktor to have a son as well. Viktor could have been at the park with his family while looking after the others and even teased that he had memories of the past.

That would have been a reference to the DC Psycho Pirate and would have left the door open for a Umbrella Academy Spin-off or sequel as a viewer. Ultimately, Viktor is the anchor of the storyHis journey was moving and inspiring. But to wipe him out so quickly ultimately feels like a huge disservice to someone who, by surviving, would have lived up to what nature always intended him to be: a compassionate, empathetic outsider.

All four seasons of The Umbrella Academy are now streaming on Netflix.