During the season one finale of The Umbrella Academy , Viktor Hargreeves blew up the moon, causing a global apocalypse that thrust him and the rest of his superhero siblings into another timeline. But three seasons later, after multiple universe-altering hijinks alongside his super-powered family, the Netflix series’ final six episodes saw the man who once ended the world play a key role in helping save it.
“Let’s not get it twisted, he still has stuff,” Page tells The Hollywood Reporter about where his character begins the show’s final season. “He’s holding on to a lot of anger that he clearly needs to get out, and he does at some point this season. But we also see that he’s able to deal with his anger in a slightly healthier way. He doesn’t — spoiler alert — blow up the moon.”
Page is right in that Viktor eventually gets to work out those “daddy issues” that fueled much of the show’s first season storyline — even if it is with an alternate universe version of Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore). But to arrive there, a confluence of specific, sometimes arguably cosmic, narrative events was required in the series based on Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s comics of the same name.
First by way of a season-three curveball that saw the seven adopted and dysfunctional siblings — once known as the masked superhero troupe The Umbrella Academy — survive yet another world ending, only to be dropped into a version of 2019 without their abilities. For the actor and creator Steve Blackman , it was intentional to offer up this take on “Number Seven,” one who is “definitely a new and much more comfortable-in-his-skin Viktor,” says Page. “We always thought that Viktor would be the one who would probably be most OK with living an ‘ordinary life,’ despite unresolved issues with dad,” Blackman previously told THR .
Aidan Devine as Gary, Colm Feore as Reginald Hargreeves and Elliot Page as Viktor Hargreeves in the series finale.
And then there’s the six-year time jump in the show’s truncated final season, which allowed Viktor to create a life as a bar owner with a healthy amount of partnership outside his familial baggage and the oppressive thumb of his (alien) father. “[Viktor’s] been in his life for years now, presumably he’s been on T [testosterone therapy] or however they do that in that world, and is feeling more grounded in himself,” the actor shares. “He isn’t feeling like he needs that external validation, is happy that his powers are behind him because it did cause a lot of disruption in his life.”
There’s also a third event, noted by Page, that’s more of a creative coincidence than any mapped-out four-season plan: Viktor’s gender transition. Sensitively traced in season three in a move that mirrored Page’s own life , the storyline resulted in a Viktor who is increasingly unburdened by his insecurities and history of othering and suppression — both of his literal powers and, ultimately, of who he is — by his family and the world.
“He’s actually getting to live life and connect with people, and be open and out in this world. I don’t even necessarily mean that in terms of identity,” Page explains. “I mean from just where we found him at the very beginning, when he was just so anxious and closed off. Now we find him, and he’s just shoulders back.”
Viktor’s powers are eventually returned to him during a reluctant family gathering at a Japanese steakhouse in the season four premiere. And once back, they manifest as a much more concentrated beam of sound and energy manipulation, a byproduct, according to Blackman , of the higher concentration of Marigold — the element created by Hargreeves’ wife, Abigail, that gave Viktor and his siblings their superpowers. It’s yet another signal that the Viktor in season four isn’t the same person as fans have seen before.
“His power is so connected to his emotional state, as we saw throughout the seasons. The first time it ever really comes exploding out of him is when Viktor’s in a fit of anger and needing to protect [himself], but it’s too big. It’s bigger than he wishes it to be,” Page says. “So I think what we’re seeing is this self that’s getting closer to this self-awareness, which is allowing him to control [his power] in a new way. And I think it’s because he understands himself better, his baggage better and himself better, so it can be a little more focused.”
To Page’s earlier point, the narrative journey that carries Viktor into his season four awareness, and eventually his brand of Hargreeves heroism, isn’t necessarily driven by certain aspects of his identity, as the siblings go from not quite loving “each other in season one when they regroup after the trauma of their father’s death,” according to Blackman , to season four, where “by the end, they truly are a family.” It is a natural progression that Viktor, as the family’s “ultimate outsider,” makes and one that stems from being able to “see things from a different perspective” from the beginning of the show, notes Page.
“I think about where we first find Viktor and the distance he’s experiencing with his siblings, because he wrote a book and decided to talk about the truth of how shitty their childhood was. He shines a light on the siblings and they’re mad about specific things,” Page reflects. “But also, he’s talking about the impact of their father and how he treated them in a way that other people are not talking about. This very powerful man who made children be a superhero team and sold comic books and other merchandise off of them and exploited them, which that’s so fucked up, you know?”
It’s that mess of what happened to the siblings that “makes the show so good,” says the actor, and captures some of Viktor’s biggest in-universe impact over four seasons. “Because of this thing that made all those other siblings so uncomfortable — that he decided to shine light on truth and the reality of what that situation was — we end up seeing all these other siblings, in their own way, having to look at what that reality was and what they have to deal with, and confront and change about themselves; to evolve through the negative impacts and consequences that have affected their life because of that man and this awful situation they were put in.”
But within that organic character arc, it’s hard to ignore the ways that Viktor, in large part by way of Page’s embodiment for half a decade, has come to serve as one of TV’s better reflections of the trans experience — even if it wasn’t always on purpose or planned from the beginning.
Page as Viktor in the series finale.
From struggling to understand and control what he was feeling internally as The Umbrella Academy outcast in season one, to the emotional and evolutionary queer romance of Sissy and Viktor in season two, to his eventual coming out as trans in season three — the latter two moments Page says he “would have just been pretty over the moon to see at whatever age” — Viktor’s journey being “the one who does take the risks to confront the truth” has left as much of a mark on the genre and trans rep as he did on superhero team itself.
“Representation doesn’t solve everything at all, but of course I believe it’s very important. I know even the little glimmers of any queer stuff that I typically accidentally fell upon as a kid, as a teenager, meant so much to me, even when I didn’t quite know why,” Page tells THR . “When we are in the situation that we are in — the attitudes towards trans people, trans lives — it’s so important. When we are such a small population, and the vast majority of people don’t know a trans person — or think that they don’t know a trans person personally — it means a lot. It means a lot to those people watching who want to feel represented. It makes you feel less alone.”
But it remains unclear how invested Hollywood remains in stories like this, which exists alongside Supergirl ’s Nia Nal/Dreamer (portrayed by Nicole Maines) and Gotham Knights ’ Cullen Row (portrayed by Tyler Dichiara). While a handful of genderqueer, fluid and other nonbinary characters have graced the small screen in recent years in superhero series like The Boys and a slew of DC TV adaptations ( Batwoman, Legends of Tomorrow , Doom Patrol ), the Batgirl movie’s trans hero Alysia Yeoh (portrayed by Ivory Aquino) never saw the light of day after Warner Bros. Discovery controversially canceled the inclusive project amid a flurry of tax write-offs .
Coupled with the larger anti-trans sentiment currently facing the community, the uncertainty around more stories like Viktor’s has, at times, given Page pause. So when the actor, who has also served as a producer on recent LGBTQ-centric projects Close to You , Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story , Backspot and Nel Mio Nome, hears about more in the pipeline after Viktor, it leaves him excited, even hopeful.
“I’ll be honest with you, with everything going on in the world and Hollywood, I have these moments of like, what is going to happen? How is Hollywood going to respond? Will there still be trans stories? Will they be casting trans people to the degree they should?” he says. “So it’s like, yes, please, let’s keep this going. Let’s keep telling these stories and giving more people opportunity that deserve opportunities.”
All episodes of The Umbrella Academy are streaming on Netflix.
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