The Umbrella Academy’s fourth and final season is out now – here are my spoiler-light thoughts on its six episodes.
Mild spoilers follow for The Umbrella Academy season 4.
I’m a big fan of The Umbrella Academy. I’m sure that’s come across my articles about the franchise, but if it hasn’t, allow me to present evidence of my enthusiasm: I’ve read Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s wonderfully oddball graphic novels numerous times, and consumed all of the supplementary literature; I own a couple of Funko Pops (yes, I collect them, what of it?); and I even considered getting a ‘Brellie’ tattoo many years ago, which, considering that I’ve only been inked once before, would have been a visible and permanent sign of devotion.
I admit, though, that I haven’t been fully enthused about its live-action adaptation. To be fair, season 1 and season 2 of The Umbrella Academy were near-perfect recreations of the stories that unfold on the page. But, when the TV series ran out of comics to pull from and veered into uncharted narrative territory, I was underwhelmed by what The Umbrella Academy season 3 had to offer.
The Umbrella Academy season 4, then, had the chance to not only address my concerns that the show wasn’t as effective without Way and Bá’s comics to draw upon, but also deliver an entertaining and poignant swansong as The Umbrella Academy meets its apocalyptic end. It certainly achieves the latter but, thanks to its truncated final season and reoccurring deficiencies, I wasn’t wholly satisfied with its final hurrah.Apocalypse now
Set six years after the season 3 finale, The Umbrella Academy’s final chapter finds the Hargreeves family fully adjusted to their new, superpower-less lives. Predictably, a new world-ending event – one that a covert, clandestine organization known as The Keepers wants to instigate – threatens the relatively new timeline born out of the universe reset initiated by Allison Hargreeves (Emmy Raver-Lampman) in season 3’s explosive final episode. In short: cue another intoxicating family reunion as the de-powered siblings try to finally end the never-ending cycle of apocalyptic events that follow them wherever they go.
And when I say ‘de-powered’, I mean ‘de-powered. until they get their abilities back’. Unavoidably, the show’s much shorter fourth season – it comprises six episodes rather than the usual 10 – means it isn’t long before they reacquire their powers (I won’t say how) to not only tackle their new foes, but also the new universe-threatening cataclysm. Fun though it is to see the siblings regain their superpowers – there are some ability-based surprises that viewers may get a kick out of, too – it would have been fascinating to see the series fully commit to exploring who each character is, and see if they could collectively solve problems, without them.
Where season 4 does a mostly good job is in examining is the relationships between its primary characters, especially from a group-dynamic perspective. One of the best Netflix shows’ final season is more of an ensemble piece than its forebears, which accentuates the riotous familial dysfunction at the series’ core. As a result, there are fewer, superfluous Scooby Doo-esque “let’s split up” moments, although this still happens periodically – especially in episodes three and five – to advance the main story and obligatory subplots.
