Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Umbrella Academy’ Season 4 on Netflix, The Final Timeline For The Brellies And This Ambitious Superhero Series

The Umbrella Academy returns to Netflix for its fourth and final season with six episodes instead of the usual ten. Which certainly constricts the space for this reachy, timeline-juggling superhero/fantasy series and its namesake central ensemble, but that should just make their race to the finish that much more thrilling. Created by Steve Blackman and adapted from the comics by Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá, Umbrella Academy has leapt through many versions of time and space with its supersiblings, and even created entirely different sets of rival supersiblings. But as the concluding season begins, we’re in the wake of a universe reset that robbed the Hargreeves of their powers, and also being introduced to new cast members Megan Mullaly, Nick Offerman, and David Cross.

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Opening Shot: SIX. YEARS. LATER . Introducing us to what goes down in this new timeline are the matching-western-shirted Drs. Jean Thibedeau (Mullaley) and Gene Thibedeau (Offerman). “You just got euchred, peewee,” Gene tells their opponent at a cards tournament. And it might be his luxurious whiskered mutton chops talking.

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The Gist: It’s reintroduction time, to the stuttering beat of “The Bad Touch” by Bloodhound Gang. Viktor (Elliot Page) operates a supper club bar in Nova Scotia, where he breaks all the girls’ hearts. Elsewhere in the northeast, Luther (Tom Hopper) works the lunch buffet crowd as a stripper; appropriately, his stage name is Spaceboy. Lila Pitts (Ritu Arya) and Diego Hargreeves (David Casteñeda) are doing their best to manage married life as the parents of three young children. Five (Aidan Gallgher) is a rising talent at the CIA. Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is keeping her acting career alive by shooting commercials for laundry detergent, while a newly sober Klaus (Robert Sheehan) walks her daughter Claire (Coco Assad) home from school. And Ben (Justin H. Min) just got out of prison. The Hargreeves have scattered in the years since the reset. But what still holds them together is their collective lack of superpowers.

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Through his work at the Agency, Five is onto a mysterious group known as the Keepers. They believe in alternate timeline realities, and as Keeper originators, Jean and Gene Thibedau are sourcing physical “artifacts” from these different existences, like a certain time-traveling briefcase, or a VHS copy of the romantic comedy Love on Loan 2 , starring Allison Hargreeves. “The Umbrella Effect,” Jean calls it during a presentation attended by an undercover Five and “Nancy” – Lila – who misses her old life. (“It’s cheaper than therapy, but these losers might be onto something.”) When Sy Grossman (Cross) abducts Vik, he swears it’s not malicious on his part. He just wanted the Umbrellas to gather, because he needs their help freeing his daughter from the cult-like clutches of the Keepers.

The thing about the Hargreeves not having their powers is that some of them kind of dig it. These six years have really been the first stretch of time where they’ve been able to live just like regular folks. If there were a way for them to regain those powers – like, say, through an artifact juice jar full of the powerful substance known as marigold – would they even wish to use it? The answer varies depending on which sibling you ask. But what’s for sure is that Jean and Gene Thibedeau are hell-bent on “timeline purification,” and the Hargreeves sibs will need a come together moment to face them.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? All this talk of resetting timelines and gaining and losing powers could probably be transposed atop the second season of Loki and still be workable. (Sylvie’s employment at a McDonald’s in 1982 , for example.) And while Genesis Rodriguez’s Sloane seemed to disappear from all timelines with the reset that concluded Umbrella Academy season 3, Rodriguez herself will reappear in Special Ops: Lioness , which was recently renewed for a second season.

Our Take: The lively reintroduction sequence that begins Umbrella Academy season 4 is incredibly effective and entertaining, because it brings back every trait and quirk we know about the Hargreeves while establishing the surface strangeness of their newly powerless selves. These sibs’ emotional lives have always been present and richly represented, even as the worlds where they lived became cosmically, chaotically unstable. Like Luther’s irrepressible optimism, even in the face of losing Sloane, Allison’s struggle to rectify her feelings about aiding their plunge into this new timeline, Viktor’s wish to explore the life he’s finally been able to build, and Diego and Lila’s struggles for personal agency inside their marital union – these are all examples of what strengthens Academy even as it constantly pushes the limits of credulity.

Another way to establish a baseline in a show that thrives on crazy? Bring in villains whose schemes are worth rooting for, just to see how they play out. Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman are immediately perfect additions for season 4 of Umbrella Academy – their whole look, peculiar couples’ energy, and knack for random violence feels transmitted from the Fargo black comedy universe. We can’t wait to see what destruction these two and their group get up to, and how the Hargreeves counteract it, as the timeline resets central to the series prove more porous than previously known.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The trained-up Sparrows version of Ben Hargreeves, who in the interim served time for crypto scheming, is excited about what might happen next. “See you on the other side, fuckfaces…”

Sleeper Star: Of course it’s great to see most everyone back as the Brellies return. But Ritu Arya is doing wonderful things with Lila Pitts – wife, mother, sibling, and restless former assassin.

Most Pilot-y Line: Living in a timeline without their powers is one thing. But it’s concerning how evidence keeps surfacing that points to when they did. “Look, if these artifacts are from different timelines…it’s possible the old man’s reset didn’t take…”

Our Call: Come on, the six-episode conclusion of The Umbrella Academy is a definite STREAM IT. For the reclamation and management of the Hargreeves siblings’ powers, of course, their evolving relationships, and whatever new chaos they’re sure to cause. But note also the eccentric menace of Mullaly and Offerman as the Keepers Jean and Gene.

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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