A family of diffident superpowered misfits who get manipulated through a major part of their lives by their eccentric, genius father figure; try to accept their true selves by gaining a sense of purpose through their personal journey, and eventually strengthen the bond among themselves while facing absolutely bonkers situations and doomsday scenarios time and again. If this seems like a description of HBO Max’s underrated comic-book series Doom Patrol to you, then you are both right and wrong, as it’s pretty much the basic premise of Netflix’s hit series, The Umbrella Academy. Putting it like Number Five; think of Doom Patrol, but aim lower. In all seriousness, The Umbrella Academy has garnered massive acclaim and love from viewers throughout three seasons thanks to its zany humor, crazy antics, wacky yet relatable characters, and their struggles—perfectly following through on the source material, the comic-book series of the same name created by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. But just as all good things come to an end, The Umbrella Academy will conclude its successful run with its fourth and final season. So without further ado, let us go through a compact, quick recap of the events that transpired through the three seasons of this series.
Spoilers Ahead
Season 1: Viktor (Vanya) Causes the Apocalypse
According to the series’ timeline, on 1st October, 1989, a total of 43 women across the world spontaneously become pregnant and give birth to children who possess different kinds of superhuman abilities. A genius billionaire, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, decides to adopt seven of these superpowered children and, training them rigorously from a young age, create the merry band of misfits pretending to be superheroes—the Umbrella Academy. Initially given numbers instead of names, by a cold, exploitative father Reginald, the children get their names from their caring parental figures—an intelligent, talking chimpanzee named Pogo and Mercy, a cyborg whom the team knows as Mom. Luther is Number One, technically the leader of the group, is a bit dimwitted and has super strength, and later on gains ape-like physical features after Reginald uses a serum on him to save his life. Diego, the number two, is a volatile, short-tempered guy who has the ability to manipulate the trajectory of projectile weapons and shares a strong bond with Mom. Allison is number three and can manipulate others’ minds using a particular ‘rumor’-based phrase; Klaus is number four and has the ability to interact with spirits; and Five doesn’t have a name and can move through the spacetime continuum. Ben, the number six, had strange tentacled extensions erupting from his chest, and the seventh member of the Umbrella Academy, Viktor (born as Vanya but in the third season he comes out as Viktor), apparently lacks any superpower, which creates quite a distance between him and his other siblings.
After Ben’s death during a mission gone wrong, the Umbrella Academy falls apart, and except for Luther, the members drift apart on their own. Diego continues the hero life by becoming a vigilante, Five goes missing in the space-time continuum, Allison makes a successful career as an actress, Klaus continues interacting with Ben’s spirit and gives in to depression and addiction, and Viktor, while pursuing a career as a violinist, writes an exposé about his dysfunctional family. In the meantime, Luther is sent to a lunar mission by Reginald, where he spends four years alone, and his dwindling self-confidence hits rock bottom. Five, who had gone missing while experimenting with time travel shenanigans, witnesses an ominous apocalyptic future, and while searching for a possible way to avert this future, spends half a century as an assassin for the Handler, the chief of the temporal guardian committee known as the Temps Commission. Later on, the team bands together once again after Reginald’s death, and Five finally manages to return to the present timeline but gets stuck in his teenage body. The siblings don’t believe his warnings about the impending apocalyptic scenario and remain too busy bickering with each other until it gradually becomes clear that Reginald orchestrated his own death to unite the team to prevent doomsday.
Hazel and Cha Cha, two assassins from the Commission, are sent by the Handler to capture Five, which results in Diego’s old flame, Detective Patch’s death, and Klaus getting transported back in time through a time-traveling briefcase. Klaus gets transported into the Vietnam War and falls in love with his war buddy Dave, but returns to the present, grief-stricken after losing Dave in the battle. Cha Cha and Hazel turn on each other after Hazel tries to turn a new page in life with his beloved Agnes, and the Handler gets shot to death by Hazel after she threatens to kill Agnes. Luther begins pursuing a romantic relationship with Allison, who is now living as a single mother of her daughter, Claire, and Viktor falls for his new student, Leonard Peabody. Unbeknownst to Viktor, Peabody’s true identity is Harold Jenkins, whose childhood dream was to join the Umbrella Academy, but after getting rebuffed by Reginald, Harold went down a dark path—killing his abusive father and drawing up plans to destroy Umbrella Academy while he served his prison sentence. Harold manages to turn Viktor against his family by revealing a tragic truth: Viktor is the strongest among all his siblings and possesses destructive energy-based abilities, but due to his powers being uncontrollable, Reginald actively hid the fact from Viktor by keeping him on meds and using Allison’s powers to make him forget. An enraged Viktor loses control over his mind and clashes with his family, which results in the destruction of the Hargreeves manor, the deaths of Pogo, Mom and Harold and the partial destruction of the moon. The falling debris of the moon’s destruction sets off the apocalyptic event—creating the ominous future Five was warning them about—and the Hargreeves siblings manage to escape the catastrophe as Five teleports all of them back in time, to the 1960s. Hazel escapes through the timestream with Agnes, and in the second season, it is revealed that the duo lived a peaceful life together.
Season 2: Hargreeves Siblings Finally Prevent the Apocalypse
While being teleported through the spacetime continuum, Hargreeves siblings get scattered across various years in the sixties leading up to the days before John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and Five finds out they need to stop an inevitable nuclear apocalypse. Meanwhile, all his siblings have started lives of their own—Viktor has lost his memories and is living with a couple Carl and Sissy as the nanny of their son, Harlan. Luther has become the personal bodyguard of nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who will end up killing Lee Harvey Oswald – the alleged killer of President Kennedy. Klaus has started a religious cult, while Allison is happily married to a civil rights activist, Raymond. Diego’s vigilante activities in the 60s have led to him being imprisoned in a mental asylum, where he has found a new friend in Lila. Additionally, all of them are being targeted by Norwegian triplet assassins known as the Swedes, who have been sent by the Temps Commission.
It is revealed that the Handler had survived despite being shot in the head in the previous season, and she gets demoted by A. J. Carmichael, the sentient goldfish who is the chief of the board of directors of the Temps Commission. Unbeknownst to Diego, Lila is the Handler’s adoptive daughter, who had taken Lila under her wing after killing her parents. Lila is also one of the superpowered children born in 1989 who possesses the ability to mimic anyone’s power and is working under her adoptive mother’s command to capture Five. With Lila’s help, Diego breaks free from the asylum, and as she shares her feelings for Diego, the duo gets closer. Five tries to reunite his siblings in order to prevent the nuclear apocalypse, only to realize that most of them aren’t interested in returning to their miserable existence. Viktor gets reunited with Luther and Allison and learns of his role in creating the previous apocalyptic scenario, which resulted in them getting stranded in the 60s timeline. Eventually, Viktor forms a strong bond with Sissy and saves Harlan from drowning by using his powers. Harlan gets imbued with a portion of Viktor’s destructive power in the process.
During a protest at one of the whites-only establishments, Allison uses her powers for the first time since she got stranded in the 60s, which freaks out her husband Raymond, and he abandons her. Meanwhile, Five learns that their father, Reginald Hargreeves, who is alive in the sixties and is part of a secret world-controlling cabal known as the Majestic 12, is presumably the one plotting the assassination of J. F. Kennedy, and taking his siblings with him, he tries to patch up their broken relationship with their father while trying to convince him to abandon the assassination attempt. However, at this time period, Reginald didn’t have any idea about the Umbrella Academy’s conception, and he couldn’t help but show disdain, disbelief, and coldness towards his future adoptive children. However, in this timeline, Grace, Reginald’s mistress, was alive (upon whom the cyborg is modeled), and Luther decides to reveal Reginald’s assassination plot to her, which later results in Reginald and Grace’s separation.
Five makes a secretive deal with the Handler, to obtain a time-traveling briefcase that can be used to travel back to 2019, before hell broke loose, in exchange for killing all the board of directors of the Commission, and as he fulfills his side of the bargain, Handler gains complete control over the Commission. Unbeknownst to the Hargreeves siblings, Handler had employed the Swedes to kill them, and to rile the assassins even more, she orchestrated the murder of one of the triplets. However, despite getting the briefcase, the siblings remain stuck with their problems and fail to meet at the rendezvous point in time. Viktor’s affair with Sissy was discovered by Carl, who had called in the authorities to capture him on the suspicion of being a Russian spy. Lila learns about Handler’s role in her parents’ deaths, but the Handler manages to gaslight her to portray the Hargreeves siblings as the culprits.
Allison and her husband Ray get involved in a fierce clash with the two assassins of the Swedes, and she uses her powers to force the eldest brother, Axel, to kill his last sibling. Lila had taken Diego to the Commission to introduce him to the Handler, and Diego had learned that in the near future, FBI interrogation and torture would break Viktor’s mind, causing her to create an uncontrolled energy explosion, which foils the J. F. Kennedy assassination but plunges the world into the nuclear apocalypse as the third world war begins. To avert this impending crisis, Diego, Allison, and Klaus go to rescue Viktor and find out he has already entered his empowered state after being tortured by the FBI. Ben’s spirit enters Viktor’s body, and reaching his subconscious helps his brother to attain mental peace. Although Ben finally transcends as a result, Viktor gets calmed, and the doomsday scenario is successfully averted. Reginald expresses his disappointment after learning Majestic 12 sanctioned the assassination against his wishes, and after a member threatens to expose his secret, Reginald reveals his true form as an alien and butchers all the members.
However, after an unsuccessful attempt to save J. F. Kennedy’s life by stopping a decoy Reginald, the Umbrella Academy gets branded as terrorists, and on the other hand, a heated argument between Sissy and Carl results in Carl getting killed, which triggers Harlan’s powers to reach an uncontrollable stage. Learning this, Viktor goes to help Harlan, and his siblings accompany him—and Viktor manages to absorb his powers back from Harlan. However, the team gets attacked by the Handler, Lila, and a horde of Commission agents, but eventually, with Viktor’s powers, a bit of Five’s time-traveling antics, and a vengeful Axel’s intervention, the siblings save the day, and Handler finally dies. With the new chief of commission, Herb’s assistance, the siblings are able to return to their present timeline in 2019, only to realize that a lot has been changed by their timeline manipulations.
Season 3: Rewrite Reality
The third season of The Umbrella Academy presents the eponymous team in a peculiar conundrum as they find out their actions in the past have resulted in the creation of the Sparrow Academy, as in this alternate timeline, Reginald had adopted a different set of siblings altogether, and among them, only Ben from the original team is present and alive as an active member as well. At the Hargreeves manor, Umbrella Academy and Sparrow Academy engage in a battle, which ends with Umbrella Academy getting thrown out of the manor, and they seek refuge in the Hotel Oblivion.
Allison, who was already disturbed after her separation with Raymond, gets even more distraught after realizing that Claire doesn’t exist in this timeline. Eventually, the siblings learn that none of them exist in this altered timeline, as their birth mothers mysteriously died on the exact date of 1st October, 1989, when they were supposed to take birth. Lila arrives to meet Diego and hands him the responsibility of their son, Stan. While all this is going on, it is revealed that a Kugelblitz, a vicious singularity that is consuming the entire universe, has spawned in the basement of Hargreeves mansion, thanks to the temporal transgressions of the team creating the grandfather paradox. Lila and Five go to the farthest end of the main timeline to meet an elderly version of Five, who asks them not to attempt to keep saving the world from apocalypse any longer—and dies unceremoniously later on. Before dying, the future version of Five mentions something about Project Oblivion, and much to his younger self’s surprise, he reveals that Five had created the Temps Commission in the first place.
Marcus, the leader of Sparrow Academy, gets sucked into Kugelblitz as the singularity keeps getting stronger with each wave it transmits, which leads to repeated clashes among the rivalling academies. Sparrow Academy abducts Luther and holds him in the Hargreeves mansion, where Luther and Sloane, a Sparrow Academy member, get infatuated with each other. Led by Ben, the Sparrows clash with the Umbrellas once again at Hotel Oblivion, but this time a superpowered old man interferes, resulting in the deaths of Jayme and Alphonso from Sparrow Academy. Viktor is shocked to learn that the elder person is none other than Harlan himself, who had a tough time growing up thanks to the uncontrollable nature of the powers he had gained from Viktor all those years ago. Viktor also learns that Harlan was responsible for the deaths of the birth mothers of the members of the Umbrella Academy, as during the death of his mother, Sissy, his agonized mental condition resulted in a strong power surge, which resulted in their deaths and, as a result, changed the timeline forever. The Sparrows agree to a truce with the Umbrellas in exchange for Harlan being handed over to them; but Viktor decides to sneak Harlan out, knowing that the truth about Harlan’s past can endanger his life, and Viktor feels responsible for the troubling situation Harlan has found himself in.
Allison helps Viktor to sneak Harlan out, and later Viktor even manages to take back her powers from Harlan as well. However, while Viktor recuperates, Allison learns about Harlan’s role in creating the alternate timeline—and in her rage, she kills Harlan and hands him over to the Sparrows. Meanwhile, Five seeks out Pogo, who had abandoned Reginald and is alive in this alternate timeline, and with his help tattoos a mysterious cryptic symbol upon his body, the like of which he had seen in the body of his older version in the far future. After learning about Allison’s actions, Viktor gets into a heated argument with her in Hargreeves Manor, as both the rival factions decide to put their differences aside and work together to contain the Kugelblitz. It should be mentioned that Klaus accidentally dies once by Stan’s mistake but manages to return to life, and later on, as he bonds with Reginald Hargreeves, his adoptive father from the alternate timeline puts his resurrection powers to test by putting him in a death spree. Klaus also gains the power of controlling spirits, thanks to Reginald’s help.
Eventually, in a vain effort to control Kugelblitz, two more Sparrow Academy members, Fei and Christopher, perish, leaving Ben and Sloane as the only surviving members of the team. In this timeline, Grace had become obsessed with worshipping the Kugelblitz as some form of god, and as she goes on to assault the siblings for trying to contain the Kugelblitz, Five has no other option than to dismantle her. However, with all their efforts going in vain, Ben, Sloane, and all the Hargreeves siblings decide to halt their efforts to save the world—let things take shape in whatever way it is destined to. As Kugelblitz consumes almost the entire world outside (Stan as well), Luther and Sloane decide to spend their last moments together and get married. Going with the flow, the Hargreeves siblings get together to enjoy whatever little time is left; however, Reginald secretly plots something sinister with Allison. He tries to convince his adopted children, both from the original and alternate timelines, to go through the gateway of Hotel Oblivion to reach another dimension, one that is protected by the guardians, and there they can access a mechanism that can help them restart the universe by rewriting reality. In order to complete the procedure, seven superpowered members are needed, but five—Viktor, newlywed couple Luther and Sloane—decide not to participate in their father’s charade any longer. Lila and Diego reconcile after having a falling out regarding a discussion about Stan’s death. Reginald secretly murders Luther, revealing his alien form, and creates a panic among the members, thereby forcing everyone to travel to the other dimension. The dastardly patriarch also kills Klaus by leaving him in this reality, and before Kugelblitz erases his existence forever, Klaus quickly dies on his own to venture to the afterlife to meet Luther.
The siblings engage in a battle with the guardians, and as Sloane gets overpowered, Klaus manages to summon Luther for a brief period to save his wife—and expose Reginald’s actions to the team. However, despite loathing their father figure, the team continues with the reality rewriting option as it will allow them to bring back their loved ones, and as Five identifies the pattern to access the mechanism, all the remaining Hargreeves siblings act as fuel to the higher-dimensional platform, which can allow Reginald to recreate the universe. Allison realizes Reginald is once again on his way to exploit her siblings to fulfill his own selfish interests, and she decides to kill him—and rewrite reality herself. As a result, the Umbrella Academy, along with Luther, Klaus, and Ben, get a new life in a new reality where Allison finds both Claire and Raymond to be alive, but none of the members possess their superpowers any longer. Luther is aghast to realize Sloane probably doesn’t exist in this timeline, while Reginald Hargreeves is seen living as a business tycoon with a mysterious woman by his side, whose role will be of seminal importance in the fourth and final season.
