The Umbrella Academy S4E6: End of the Beginning
Tolstoy suggested that all happy families are alike; all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. This, not super-powers, or world-ending catastrophes, is the true premise of The Umbrella Academy, and while this abbreviated final season managed to both feel too rushed and too full of filler, the series at least ends by bringing everything back to its central theme of family. Loyalty, resentments, competitiveness, and the endless question of what can and can’t be forgiven.
We should address from the beginning that this finale has not been well-received by a lot of critics and fans. The Hargreeves – both disapproving father and his wayward, bickering adult children – finally accept the responsibility that comes with great power, and it’s not a fun, Marvel Movie ending. It’s a hard lesson, one that brings to mind another famous quote from a less highminded but no less profound source: as Homer Simpson said of alcohol, the Umbrellas finally accept that they are both the solution to, and the cause of, all of their own problems. And the world’s.
And it’s to the episode’s credit (and the series in general) that it focuses more squarely on the former. Yes, the world is ending, but when is it not on this show? What makes this apocalypse different from previous ones is that the Hargreeves children have, at long last, grown up, They’re the adults in this family now, and not just because Diego and Lila, and Allison each have kids. It’s because they finally take responsibility, not just for their kids, but for each other.
It’s a very strong note to end the series on, even if the show has taken a bumpy road in a beat-up van to get there, playing “Baby Shark” the whole way. The Keepers cult, and folksy leaders Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman, are largely a red herring in the end. Most of the cast were sideilned into B plots that, as we’ve seen saying all season, felt like filler.
This final episode, at least, did a good job of quickly putting bows on those B plots and handing them each a worthwhile conclusion. Klaus appreciates Allison’s endless emotional support. Diego ends up re-invested in his life and his marriage. Luther gets to feel like a hero again. And it’s all handled deftly, with a few quick emotional beats that don’t make a big deal of Here’s What We’ve All Learned.
And of course, there’s a big CGI-laden fight at the end, as Ben and Jennifer start turning into monsters, doomed to end the world. Viktor thinks he can still help them; Reginald wants to kill them before they can kill everyone else. Unsurprisingly, both plans fail. But while every previous season has had a backdoor that let the Umbrellas cheat the apocalypse (only to end up in a fresh hell), the show doesn’t offer them one last surprise twist. Just hard choices and a chance to be real heroes. It wasn’t necessarily what the fans wanted, but it was what the Umbrellas needed.
Stray thoughts:
• While so much of this episode (and season) has felt rushed, we still take a lot of time for a Five-pines-over-Lila montage, which felt unnecessary. We’d love to see what this season would have looked like with a full 10-episode order, but we also would have loved to have seen what a 6-episode final season would have looked like with a little more time to plan for that length. Then again, as we’ve said reviewing other shows, pacing a short TV season is still something very few shows have worked out.
• It’s good for dramatic reasons that the episode focuses on family and character over plot, but that’s in no small part that, as usual, the plot doesn’t make much sense. That’s a fatal flaw when the plot is the whole point; it’s forgivable when the plot is only there to drive the characters.
• The show is always at its best when things get weird, and the Being John Malkovich homage where Five encounters multiple versions of himself from other timelines is a hoot.
• The series was based on Gerald Way and Gabriel Bá’s Eisner-winning comics series, with three six-issue runs that roughly correspond to the first three seasons of the TV series. A fourth series is currently in the works that deals with the rival Sparrow Academy, seen in last season of the Netflix show, but not in the third comics series.
• And that’s it for The Umbrella Academy. Subject has had an unfortunate habit of covering TV shows just in time for them to be canceled, and in that spirit, we’ll be back next month to cover the final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks.