Reginald And His Death In ‘The Umbrella Academy’ S4, Explained

Since the very beginning of the show, the aristocrat-posing alien, Reginald Hargreeves, has been at the center of every clandestine scheme and nefarious ploy, which have put his adoptive children in peril and inevitably resulted in world-ending crises. Unlike the team of the Hargreeves siblings, each season of The Umbrella Academy has presented a new version of Reginald, and despite certain apparent differences, all of them have proven to be malicious and manipulative at their core. In a sense, the ruthless patriarch is the overarching villain of the entire story, and fans were intrigued to learn how the showrunners will opt to end the arc of such an irredeemable character. With limited episode count and due to some inexplicable narrative choices, Reginald’s relation with his adoptive children wasn’t explored to its fullest potential, but there were enough signs to indicate that the makers moved in the right direction. 

Spoilers Ahead

Reginald’s Strained Relationship With His Adoptive Children

Almost the majority of things that went wrong with each of the members of Umbrella Academy stem from their childhood experience with their father figure, Reginald Hargreaves. Diego and Luther are always highlighted as the team’s poster boys grappling with daddy issues, but the truth is Reginald’s cold, emotionally detached, and manipulative treatment had messed up with all the siblings at a pretty early age. Allison’s powers could have been put to better use had her adoptive father asked her not to use them on her brother, Viktor, to make him forget about his powers—an action that led to severe consequences later on. Allison grew up to abuse her powers more often and became a control freak. Viktor lived a depressed, withdrawn life—thanks to Reginald forcefully convincing him that he doesn’t belong among his siblings, and obviously the entire memory wipe thing. 

Five didn’t trust Reginald to begin with, and he too didn’t have a normal childhood—being Reginald’s pawn early in his life led him to become a killer for hire later on. As the fourth season highlights, Ben was simply murdered by his father figure just because his association with the person he rescued, Jennifer, could have caused a cosmic threat—even though for Reginald there were better alternatives to handle the situation. Ben’s death sent Klaus down a slippery slope to ruin, and coupled with his hedonistic lifestyle, his mental health never improved. Diego and Luther might have struggled with paternal approval issues, but Reginald’s influence made the situation just as bad, if not worse, for other siblings as well. Reginald never saw his adopted children as anything except for a means to attain his ultimate goal of rewriting reality, and as a result, he didn’t bother to even consider their troubles. 

Was Reginald Able To Make Amends With His Adoptive Children? 

In the recreated reality, Reginald didn’t have much of a connection with the Hargreeves siblings, as he hadn’t used the Marigold to imbue the children with superpowers, and had never formed Umbrella Academy in this timeline. However, despite being an alternate version of his prime self, Reginald still retained the memory of past timelines and knew every one of them. His attitude towards them remained the same, and as soon as he came to know about Ben’s recent connection with Jennifer, which risked creating the Cleanse, Reginald became hell-bent on putting down both of them—mimicking the actions of his past self. However, this time Viktor lashes out at him, letting go of his lifelong frustration caused by Reginald, and forcing him to opt for a better option instead. 

While trying to convince Ben to return in order to avert the Cleanse crisis, Viktor’s motivations and actions lead Reginald to do a bit of soul searching, and he eventually begins to appreciate him. This newfound connection with Viktor is the reason that even a hard-boiled cynic like Reginald hesitated to kill Ben, even when he had the chance and Ben was too far gone to be saved. Reginald had to watch helplessly as the Cleanse consumed the earth, undoing his work, and recreated reality all at once—and pondering about the moment of hesitation became his true penance. As a manifestation of poetic justice, Reginald was betrayed by the person he trusted and loved the most, his wife Abigail, to save whom he had set in motion such painstakingly complex and dastardly schemes. His inability to cope with reality led him to make a vain effort to bring Abigail back to life, which caused so much misery all around, and all of it ended with Abigail’s machinations, as she had the conscience Reginald lacked so much. Abigail’s betrayal was retribution for Reginald’s hubris, and it is just that his final moments were filled with regret. With all things said and done, we don’t know for sure whether Reginald had a place in the original timeline, even though his voiceover concludes the story, completing the full circle since it was his narration that began the narrative.