‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 4 ending, explained

It’s hard to say goodbye to the Hargreeves, but with the fourth and last season of The Umbrella Academy, they’ve taken a final bow.

In a short and bonkers six-episode season, Netflix’s truly undefinable, superpowered adaptation of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s comic book series has ended. But not ones to live a regular ol’ human life, Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Number Five (Aidan Gallagher), Ben (Justin H. Min), Viktor (Elliot Page), and honorary Hargreeves Lila (Ritu Arya) spend this season trying to save the world — yep, again.

The series takes a look at some of the show’s biggest unsolved mysteries — though it leaves most behind — with the most prominent being what exactly happened to Ben all those years ago. And what exactly are the plans of Gene and Jean Thibedeau (Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally), Umbrellaphiles and leaders of extremist conspiracy theorist organization The Keepers? And where do we leave the Hargreeves?

We’re about to dive into the ending of the finale of The Umbrella Academy, so brace yourself for extreme spoilers.

What happens at the end of The Umbrella Academy?

Poor Ben and Jen.
Credit: Netflix

What doesn’t happen in the finale?

At the end of episode 5, Jean and Gene (actually Abigail (Liisa Repo-Martell), alien Reginald’s alien wife, revealed to have been wearing Sy Grossman (David Cross) like a suit, now wearing Gene, keep up), put out the call to begin The Keepers’ major plan. This is to ensure the apocalyptic event known as “The Cleanse” happens. In the finale, that call comes in the form of a broadcast of Muse’s “Map of the Problematique”, which snaps the organisation’s followers into armed mob-like ranks. The Keepers converge on the dilapidated department store where kindred apocalyptic spirits and lovers Ben and Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) are holed up having been taken over by The Cleanse, actually an oozing virus that threatens to envelop them and subsequently the world.

Remember, we learn this season that Ben and Jennifer were actually murdered by Reginald in the original timeline, shot when Ben rescued Jennifer from her cage as teens — Reginald says he was trying to stop their combustible connection which would destroy the world (brutal but kind of accurate?). But he meddled with their memories so they’d never know.

We also learn that Abigail thwarted all Reginald’s plans to keep Ben and Jennifer apart, in order to enable The Cleanse and destroy everything Reginald created.

Viktor tried!
Credit: Netflix

Meanwhile, in one of the biggest curveballs of the season, Lila and Five, who fell in love during their seven years lost in a time-travelling subway system, have returned to the real timeline to face the music — and it all comes out at Christmas at Diego and Lila’s place (honestly, Luther, Alison, and Klaus on the couch in this scene are all of us).

Back to the big storyline, Viktor tries to save Ben and Jennifer by using his power to extract their marigold (more on that below), but before he can finish, Ben is shot by Reginald’s sniper. So, the Umbrella Academy must fight the Ben/Jen monster together, but they eventually retreat to the Hargreeves manor.

What’s the deal with the scene with Five in Max’s Delicatessen?

What happens if someone asks for a high five in this situation…
Credit: Netflix

During the battle with The Ben/Jen Cleanse, Lila makes it clear to Five “it’s over.” So, he returns to the subway solo, to live out his days presumably either travelling mindlessly or to return to the strawberry-filled greenhouse he and Lila spent their happiest days in. But glimpsing another Five on the platform, he finds his way to a subterranean diner called Max’s Delicatessen, filled with alternate versions of Five from different timelines, all of whom have ended up in the delicatessen trying to solve the problem like Five is right now.

In a conversation over pastrami sandwiches and coffee with himself, Five realises that there’s only supposed to be one timeline after all, and that the only thing that shattered the original timeline was…the Umbrella Academy itself.

The Umbrella Academy broke the original timeline (guyyyys!)

That brutal insult “I wish you’d never been born”? Well…
Credit: Netflix

Yup, the Hargreeves siblings, who have both caused the end of the world and saved it multiple times over four seasons, broke the original timeline by being born. Five finds out from himself that their births — remember, when 43 women around the world simultaneously gave birth on Oct. 1, 1989 — started an infinite loop of them trying to save the world while being the cause of its destruction.

“The family is the problem. We’re doomed to save or destroy the world over and over again, ad infinitum,” Five realises gazing around at all the deli’s photos of apocalypses past.

“The family is the problem. We’re doomed to save or destroy the world over and over again, ad infinitum.”

Five takes this knowledge to his siblings, who have converged on the original Hargreeves manor, and he goes multiverse-explainer on them all.

“We are the reason that this is happening,” says Five. “The marigold that infected our mothers, bringing forth our births, had an unexpected side effect. It shattered the timeline, and it broke it in to an infinite number of alternate timelines. The timelines are bleeding into each other.”

Five explains that’s how The Keepers were able to find the artefacts (Umbrella Academy merchandise, news clippings, paraphernalia from the first three seasons) which led them to realise there were multiple timelines and start their cult — again, they were…right?

“So we need to go back to the original timeline before any of the other ones were created,” Five explains. How? The Umbrella Academy needs to let the marigold in their bodies merge with the durango in The Jen/Ben Cleanse monster.

Wait, what the hell is the marigold and the durango?

The glowy stuff.
Credit: Netflix

That glowing substance Ben spiked everyone’s drink at the teppanyaki restaurant with in episodes 1 and 2? The stuff that gave them back their talents? That’s marigold, a particle that gives the Hargreeves their powers in the first place. All the women who gave birth to the Hargreeves siblings were infected with it, then passed it to their instant babies. Durango is another particle, one that lives inside Jennifer, and the physical reaction between Ben’s marigold and Jen’s durango created the monster that is “The Cleanse.”

SO, to undo The Cleanse, save the world and stop the extinction of humanity, the Hargreeves make a decision — they need to cancel out the monster by letting their marigold merge with the durango inside it. “They should cancel each other out,” is the idea. But it will erase them too.

Why do the Umbrella Academy know their sacrifice will save their loved ones?

OK this was brutal. But it worked.
Credit: Netflix

In the finale, the Hargreeves have more than each other to worry about — namely Diego and Lila and their family, and Alison and her daughter Grace. They’re not sure whether their loved ones will be safe in the timeline with their monster-merging sacrifice, but Viktor remembers he had a vision when trying to save Ben, showing a park where their families (without the Hargreeves siblings) were living happily. So, they make it?

In a heartbreaking scene, Lila puts her family and Grace on a train back to the original timeline and stays behind, ensuring that the Umbrella Academy’s sacrifice won’t erase the existence of their children.

Do the Hargreeves siblings die in The Umbrella Academy finale?

Byyyye guys.
Credit: Netflix

By sacrificing themselves to The Cleanse, the Hargreeves cease to exist at all. In fact, they never did — everything we just watched, done. Gone. “We’ll be erased from history,” Five explains, saying that no one in any other timeline will have a memory of them at all.

Gathering in a circle as the oozing Cleanse seeps into the Hargreeves manor, and powering up their marigold, ready for engulfment, the family say some pretty hilariously crap final words to each other. Alison genuinely saying “I’m sorry you left Canada for this,” to Viktor gets an 11/10 from me.

“Fuck you” are literally the last words anyone says to each other. And it’s perfect.

Then, in the final scene, we’re in the park that Viktor saw, with characters from the show’s four seasons having a lovely time, as Tommy James and the Shondells’ original version of “I Think We’re Alone Now,” plays, the iconic song from The Umbrella Academy Season 1. Even the Swedish assassins from Season 2 are here! And of course, thanks to Lila’s train delivery, all the Hargreeves’ loved ones are here too.

So yes, the Hargreeves are dead, but thanks to their sacrifice, they were never actually born in this, now the original and only timeline.

Essentially, the Umbrella Academy never existed. OK, I’m going to go stare at a wall now.

The Umbrella Academy Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.