‘The Umbrella Academy’ Ends with a Suitably Apocalyptic Finale

On “The Umbrella Academy,” it was always about the end of the world. From the very first episode of the Netflix series, based on the comic by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the superpowered siblings at the center were tasked with saving the world from themselves — again, and again, and again.

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It was only fitting that the series finale — aptly titled “End of the Beginning” — would tackle this problem head on, forcing Viktor (Elliot Page), Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Alison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Ben (Justin H. Min), and Five (Aidan Gallagher) to reckon with their own role in all the catastrophes they’ve witnessed and how they can set it all right once and for all. They broke the timeline just by being born, and the only way to stop infinite timelines and world-ending debacles is to remove themselves from the equation.

The truncated 6-episode season ends up serving “The Umbrella Academy” better than the 10-episode installments before it. The siblings are together for most of it and have a magnificent dynamic — Klaus’s detour is a low point, as they usually are despite Sheehan’s best efforts — and Diego’s wife Lila (Ritu Arya) is now firmly embedded in the family and all of its drama. Arya’s expanded role is a welcome shift and feels completely natural, but credit to showrunner Steve Blackman and the team for actually making it happen; shows don’t always lean into their strengths that freely — especially a fourth-season ensemble outing literally named after its seven main characters.

One of the resultant payoffs is Lila’s relationship with Five, a little forced and rushed but compelling nonetheless. Five was always an example of what being trapped in time can do to a person, and Lila shares his experience after the events of Episode 5. Arya and Gallagher are two excellent performers who understand their characters deeply, and the dynamic clicks from the first time they run into each other while undercover investigating The Keepers. Yes, it’s weird that they get together — but as Lila herself says, it’s weird because it’s not weird, and that says a lot without needing to unpack it or backing away from the truth.

The finale starts with everyone together — everyone, that is, except Viktor and Ben, the two outliers when the show began. Ben’s death and Viktor’s isolation were key elements of Season 1, and seeing them together brings that full circle. Even though Viktor uses his powers throughout the season, his final scenes with Ben boil down to the core of their emotional relationship (even if Ben is mostly an amorphous blob of goo by this time — what is it with Netflix and amorphous blobs of goo?).

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With the cataclysmic big picture in perspective, Season 4 streamlines its plotting and doesn’t have to neatly tie up what’s going on with The Keepers and Reginald (Colm Feore) but still does. The Keepers were right, and the Umbrella Academy is going to act in their interests as well as the wider populace, and Reginald — not the original from Season 1’s timeline, but still one consumed by hubris masquerading as love — spends his final moments recognizing that he used his children as puppets. They’re not as prominent in the finale as the other episodes, but a special shoutout to Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman as Jean and Gene Thibideau, the rare case of stunt casting that perfectly fit the roles on the page.

The 69-minute finale ultimately succeeds because, despite the goo and the gutting and the world-ending stakes, it’s emotionally charged from start to finish. Diego finds out about Five and Lila in a heartbreaking scene balanced out by his siblings’ shameless spectating. Ben and Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) — welcome back, Bennifer — have a tragic end that feels surprisingly earned after their short time together. Lila and Alison say two very different and equally sorrowful goodbyes to their children in back-to-back scenes buoyed by Raver-Lampman and Arya. The siblings scrap and spar until the very last, expressing their affection with words like “asshole” because that’s just their love language. As the marigold-durango goo consumes their bodies to cleanse the timeline, the world will forget the Umbrella Academy as they perished to save it.

But the audience will remember “The Umbrella Academy,” an outrageous, audacious, riotously funny, dark and twisted show that was never perfect and never had to be. It’s not a show I often remember while making recommendations or listing off favorites, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t shed a tear and whisper “I love my family” in those final scenes. The ending shows a bravery that other timeline-driven franchises haven’t mustered, and no other show will ever replace it.

“The Umbrella Academy” is now streaming on Netflix.

Source: Collider