SERIES REVIEW – With only six episodes in its final season, The Umbrella Academy faced a daunting challenge. The showrunners had to wrap up a story filled with superheroes, aliens, time travel, alternate timelines, and multiple apocalypses—all while keeping the family drama at the core of the narrative. And believe me, there’s plenty of family drama to go around.

As expected, these six episodes are packed with personal conflicts and long-buried grievances, only made more complex by the aftermath of the third season. The Hargreeves siblings (Robert Sheehan as Klaus, Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison, Tom Hopper as Luther, Aidan Gallagher as Five, Elliot Page as Viktor, and David Castañeda as Diego—plus newcomers to the family like Justin H. Min as Ben and Ritu Arya as Lila) have lost their powers. While we get a chance to see them as regular people—ranging from “doing okay” to “absolute wrecks”—it doesn’t take long for their abilities to return.

Not everyone is eager to be “special” again; as the series repeatedly reminds us, superpowers can be as much a curse as they are a gift. But this is The Umbrella Academy, where every season revolves around the characters’ desperate attempts to avert yet another apocalypse. Season four is no different, and their powers come in handy when the world needs saving.

Bad Timing, Worse Timelines

This review carefully avoids plot specifics or spoilers, but it’s no secret that the Hargreeves siblings, scattered at the end of season three, reluctantly come together again when one of them gets into trouble. As the team tries to regain their abilities and are forced to stick together—especially on a vomit-inducing road trip set to “Baby Shark”—The Umbrella Academy digs deeper into the reality they now inhabit.

As it turns out, the timeline reset at Hotel Oblivion caused more harm than just stripping the Hargreeves of their powers. The fabric of the universe has become so frayed that artifacts from other timelines begin to appear, attracting the attention of a conspiracy theorist group known as the Keepers. Led by the folksy couple Gene and Jean (played by real-life couple Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally), the Keepers sport tattoos that are inverted versions of The Umbrella Academy logo. They fill the antagonist role with a quirky yet deadly edge.

While Offerman and Mullally deliver delightful performances, Gene and Jean aren’t the only elements in season four that feel a bit tired. The Umbrella Academy has always been about a family that triggers apocalypses and then desperately tries to prevent them.

Stuck in a Time Loop

While the circumstances change each time—season four’s crisis has an intriguing link to The Umbrella Academy’s dark history—the story still feels repetitive. Perhaps too repetitive, even with the understanding that this grand finale might have more weight than previous iterations. After all, this is the final season, and the show tries to bring closure to its inevitably cyclical narrative, albeit in a somewhat rushed manner.

It doesn’t help that pop culture is currently saturated with sacred timelines, alternate realities, and variant characters. The Umbrella Academy has been playing in this sandbox since 2019 (the source material, Dark Horse Comics, debuted in 2007), and these are well-worn sci-fi tropes. But with the cultural space dominated by the likes of Deadpool and similar productions, this concept has never felt more like “been there, done that.”

Fortunately, this is still The Umbrella Academy, and the show’s beloved brand of quirky style and attention to offbeat detail (despite being set in contemporary times, rotary phones abound, and no one ever checks Google) has plenty of room to shine, even in a shorter season.

Brilliant Characters, Missing Cohesion

Among the cast, Page’s Viktor gets a particularly satisfying arc, reconciling with the family’s problematic patriarch, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore)—even if it’s not the same “Reggie” we’ve known before. Arya’s Lila also stands out; though she’s not an original Hargreeves sibling, she battles her own demons and embarks on an emotional journey of healing—similar to Min’s Ben, whose season four arc spans from salty to sweet to monstrous, yet remains convincingly written. (Sadly, fan-favorite Klaus is somewhat sidelined this season.)

As for the signature Hargreeves shenanigans, season four delivers The Umbrella Academy’s trademark: humor-filled, fast-paced fight scenes. The fact that one of these takes place during Christmas could seem like an afterthought—if it weren’t for an impressively staged brawl centered around Luther and Diego, with the added bonus of a gun-toting Santa.

-Herpai Gergely „BadSector”-