'The Umbrella Academy' Ending, Explained

SPOILER ALERT! The following article contains details of the fourth and final season of Netflix's The Umbrella Academy , including the series finale. Please do not read any further if you do not intend to know more.

The super-powered Hargreeves can finally rest. The fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy saw Luther ( Tom Hopper ), Diego ( David Casteñeda ), Allison ( Emmy Raver-Lampman ), Klaus ( Robert Sheehan ), Five ( Aidan Gallagher ), and Viktor ( Elliot Page ) save the world one last time and make sure that no future apocalypses would occur — at least not any that could be framed as their fault.

The fourth season picked up five years after Season 3 with the powerless siblings separated and trying to live their own lives. Diego and Lila ( Ritu Arya ) were married and trying to throw an arcade birthday for one of their kids. Luther was a stripper. Allison was trying to make an honest go of being an actress while a sober Klaus (we were shocked, too) helped her raise her daughter Claire. Five got a job working for the CIA, and Viktor opened his own bar in Canada.

When the siblings convene for their niece's birthday party, chaos ensues, and they inevitably figure out how to get their powers back. When their powers are reinstated, though a little wonky for a few of them, a chain of events is set in motion that, once again, you guessed it, will lead to the end of the world. Here's what went down and what it all means.

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The season arc: Chemical reactions

We discover halfway through the season that the existence of The Umbrella Academy and the neverending apocalypses are the cause of an Abigail Hargreeves ( Liisa Repo-Martell ) experiment gone wrong. She created a synthetic element that replicated the essence of the universe, Marigold, which is what gives the Hargreeves children their powers. When she created Marigold, an equal and opposite element, Durango, was also created. When the two substances interact, they cause a world-ending reaction. The mixing of Marigold and Durango destroyed Reginald ( Colm Feore ) and Abigail's original world, so Reginald bottled up Abigail's essence and brought her to Earth so they could continue their life together. He was trying to cheat death.

All of the Hargreeves children have Marigold in them, but another child, Jennifer ( Victoria Sawal ), also born on October 1, 1989, has Durango in her. Reginald Hargreeves has dedicated his life in every timeline to keeping his adopted children separate from Jennifer so that he can live a happy life with Abigail.

You'll notice we haven't mentioned Ben ( Justin H. Min ) yet. That's because he's the trigger of this apocalypse. He tricked his siblings into drinking the Marigold to get their powers back, and then he made physical contact with Jennifer, setting off the newest apocalypse before the others realized what was happening. The back half of the season was then spent chasing Ben down and trying to get him away from Jennifer before the world was destroyed.

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The end of an era

Spoiler alert: They were not able to separate Ben and Jennifer before the reaction takes place, and the duo combined into a world-destroying monster. Seriously, if you do not enjoy body horror at all, skip the first half of the finale. It turns out Abigail was behind getting Ben and Jennifer together in the first place, allowing the apocalypse to happen to undo Reginald's meddling in life and death.

As the Hargreeves and Lila tried to brainstorm how to stop the monster, Five took a trip on the time-travel subway he had discovered earlier in the season. He encountered a cafe full of other Fives who had been battling apocalypses in their own timelines. It was there he realized the only way to stop apocalypses from occurring was for The Umbrella Academy to surrender to one.

He brought his findings back to his siblings who were not stoked about the idea but inevitably agreed it was the only way. They shipped Diego and Lila's kids, along with her family and Allison's daughter Claire to the main timeline and then surrendered themselves to the Bennifer monster. They died together to save the world one last time.

The Umbrella Academy Season 4 ending explained

By sacrificing themselves, The Umbrella Academy undid the infinite timelines that were created by their spontaneous births in 1989, leaving a singular main timeline. That's where Diego and Lila's family and Claire escaped to. It was also populated with fan-favorite deceased characters from the past like The Handler ( Kate Walsh ) and Hazel ( Cameron Britton ), living normal lives in a beautiful park on a sunny day.

The reaction was supposed to wipe the Hargreeves and Lila from existence, but in a mid-credits sequence, eight sparkling dandelions pop out of the ground in the park, representing each of them.

If the final timeline needs saving now, the humans living there will have to find some other heroes to save them.

The Umbrella Academy Seasons 1-4 are now streaming on Netflix.

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