MOVIE NEWS – The conclusion of The Umbrella Academy was felt by many to be pointless, not wholly unfounded… WARNING: the article contains spoilers from the final season!

For four seasons, The Umbrella Academy entertained us with the story of seven siblings trying to find a way to live together or apart. Although many families have problems, this family was particularly problematic – mainly because of superpowers. Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) adopted the children from mothers who were not pregnant that morning, but had already given birth by the end of the day. There were actually 43 such children, although only seven of them were raised by Hargreeves to form the Umbrella Academy, a group of super-powered individuals who stop evil from doing evil.

We would omit the presentation of the first three seasons here, but the events of the fourth season – our review you can read here – need to be described in order to understand where the ending went astray…

How did The Umbrella Academy end?

After three seasons of time travel, different time planes, and apocalypses, this season opens with all seven siblings living in a new time plane, but without their powers. In addition, Luther (Tom Hopper) is alive, although he was killed by Hargreeves in the third season; Sloane (Genesis Rodriguez), his wife from Sparrow Academy, at least one temporal alternative to Umbrella Academy, is nowhere to be found; And Allison’s (Emmy Raver-Lampman) daughter Claire (Millie Davis) is alive, but her husband Ray (Yusuf Gatewood) seems to be gone. They have been in this time plane for six years when someone kidnaps Viktor (Elliot Page).

It turns out that Sy Grossman (David Cross) is the one who wants the Umbrella Academy to find his daughter, Jennifer. He also has a lot of his daughter’s things in a box, which he gives them. One of the things in the box is a bottle of Marigold, the element that gave them their power. Although six of the seven siblings protest, Ben (Justin H. Min), who does not attend the Umbrella Academy but the Sparrow Academy, spikes their sake with it, and they regain their powers.

They eventually find Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) and Ben, who takes a liking to her. Hargreeves explains why this is bad: Jennifer has Durango in her body, the other element that Abigail created. Together, the two elements will bring about the next apocalypse, which is called the Purge. So Ben being with Jennifer is bad, even though Sy Grossman, who eventually turns out to be Abigail, wanted it.

In the end, the siblings fail to save their timeline from the Marigold-Durango combo, and in fact, Ben and Jennifer merge into a giant monster that destroys everyone and everything around them, including Hargreeves and Abigail.

Although the siblings could use the subway found by Five (Aidan Gallagher) to escape to another time plane, instead, Five goes to another time plane himself. There, he discovers that the siblings plus Lila (Ritu Arya), Diego’s (David Castañeda) wife, and Five’s lover must sacrifice themselves if they want the constant apocalypses to end. The timeline was torn apart because of them, and when they no longer exist, everything will be right.

Five goes back to the siblings and tells them what to do. They’re not pleased, but they all agree. They let the Marigold-Durango monster devour them. The timeline resets. People from all four seasons of the series, except for the siblings, enjoy each other in a park. After the cast list, we return to a tree in the park where eight marigolds open on the side of the tree, and the screen fades to black…

What is the problem with this ending?

You might think that this ending makes no sense because there were 36 other children born on the same day who would also have Marigold in their bodies. However, since no one in this time plane had powers prior to swallowing the Marigold in the jar given to them by Sy Grossman, only the seven siblings (plus Lila) have them. However, the fact that it looks like the jar still had Marigold in it when we last saw it seems like a problem. After all, Five says they must sacrifice all the Marigolds for his plan to work, so if he still has some in the jar, the timelines won’t reset.

Even more confusing, Viktor was able to take the Marigold out of each of his siblings and sacrifice himself, allowing the rest of the team to survive. Moreover, earlier, in the last episode of the series, Viktor tries to take the Marigold out of Ben, who was transformed by the Marigold-Durango combo but fails. But just because he was unsuccessful then doesn’t mean he was unsuccessful with his other siblings. After all, the Marigold-Durango combo doesn’t affect them. So, the fact that he seems to have forgotten the Marigold Extractor ability is hard to understand.

Moreover, it is unclear why they had to sacrifice themselves only in this time plane. There are hundreds of time planes, many of which probably had all 43 children exposed to Marigold. It is unclear why it only took one timeline victim to make the timelines coincide. It would seem more logical if all the Marigold-infected children everywhere had to sacrifice themselves for the timelines to reset.

Either way, the ending doesn’t make much sense. Plus, even if some of these things can be explained, it doesn’t take anything away from the sheer shock of the ending. Perhaps we could have accepted the siblings’ sacrifice if we had had more time to come to terms with this ending. But according to the current situation, Five only brings up the possibility of their self-sacrifice minutes before it happens – and minutes before the end of the series. Overall, one gets the feeling of a sloppy, cheap ending, sharpened by the shock of self-sacrifice…

Source: Netflix, Radio Times