A tragic love story. That’s my first thought when I think of the final season of The Umbrella Academy. It’s a central theme of Season 4, but when you think about it, it’s also the theme of the series. Each season has featured ill-fated romances (tell me, how many times has The Umbrella Academy broken your heart?). Yet the most tragic love story is the one between the seven siblings: Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben, and Victor, plus Lila.*
In the past, I wrote: “At some point, while watching The Umbrella Academy, you ask yourself: Why is this so good? It could be during any of the three [now four] seasons. Maybe because you read the comic book and this team not only understood the adaptation assignment but surpassed it. It might be that delightfully deranged dysfunction is your thing. Maybe it’s the cast (it’s definitely the cast). Perhaps you enjoy Doctor Who and this series is like traveling with seven distinct Doctors with all of the quirks, and none of the ego (well, maybe Diego), and much sharper teeth.”
It’s that ‘delightfully deranged dysfunction’ that does it for me. That’s what makes the Hargreeves family so endearing, so ridiculous, and so—honestly—tragic. They love each other, but the intensity of that love burns them and repeatedly comes close to burning down the world (along with several adjacent universes).
So Daddy’s little darlings are back for one last apocalyptic tango, and this one is an emotional and thematic wildfire. We start where Season 3 ended, with the family adjusting to life without their powers. They’re high on absurdity and daddy issues, but for once the Hargreeves are doing alright. That can’t last. Not when The Keepers, a clandestine but powerful cult, wants to trigger a cataclysmic event called The Cleanse. Ben gets tangled up in their plans because he’s always key to the family’s fortunes, it feels right that he anchors the story here. Somehow, TUA bumbles its way into powering back up, solving the mysteries of The Cleanse, and falling apart while saving the day.
Season 4 is bittersweet because it’s so short (only 6 episodes), because it’s the end, and because this cast of characters reminds us family is an act of being there (even when it’s the apocalypse, again). Throughout this season, various duos team up to go on sub-adventures that validate the family members, but also awaken them to how much they matter to each other. Those duos are mirrored in new villains and real-life married couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman. As the doctors Jean and Gene Thibodeau, Mullally and Offerman flourish in the madness of this world with creepy confidence.
I don’t want to say much more. If you’re still around for Season 4, you’ll want to experience it for yourself without spoilers.
And so, this is it, closing time for The Umbrella Academy. It’s bloody, vomitous, absurd, endearing, inventive, and—even though the plot is as unpredictable as wildfire—Season 4 makes it hard to say goodbye to the Hargreeves family love story.
Watch the fourth and final season now on Netflix
