The Umbrella Academy has halted multiple apocalypses, including a twist-filled blast and defeating their own extreme sibling rivalry, and the gang will soon be back for a fourth and final season. Naturally, their very existence sits in a shambles because that third season finale changed everything.
Super apocalypse was the name of the game, given that the Hargreeves siblings had to defeat the Sparrow Academy, and they eventually did solve the Kugelbliz issue by hitting “reset” on the world. Yet they ended up in an odd reality where their powers were taken away, and they were allowed to enter the world, seemingly unaffected, to experience life anew. Elliot Page’s Victor got the last (profane) word, and the show actually could have ended there without falling into unresolved mode like, say, Santa Clarita Diet suffered upon cancellation. After all, three seasons is sometimes enough for Netflix with contracts generally needing to be re-upped, etc., but good news did arrive.
Showrunner Steve Blackman was thrilled to announce that the show has “an amazing story ahead for season four, one that will have fans on the edge of their seats until the final minutes.”
Promises, promises. I kid, though. This is an excellent development, and viewers won’t have to wait much longer, so let’s discuss the final season.
Plot
Netflix has revealed the above image that might appear uneventful, but upon further examination, it’s clear that something is very amiss. For starters, Tom Hopper’s Luther is no longer a jacked partial gorilla after losing those “powers.” That might seem freeing, and being normal might have guaranteed a lovely future for these generationally-traumatized characters. However, think again. On Instagram, Blackman revealed that the season premiere episode is called “The Unbearable Tragedy of Getting What You Want.”
The siblings had largely gone their separate ways, but they couldn’t quit each other for real. For one thing, a lack of power means that there’s the serious problem of them being unable to halt any future apocalypses that come down the Bad Dad Hargreeves turnpike. You know that he wasn’t going to let the world slide without another civilization-threatening disaster, and somehow, their mother has been revealed to be alive again, too. Also, Allison will have to reckon with turning against her siblings and making a deal with Dad, which presumably reunited her with her decades-past husband.
That’s where a stumbling block occurs for plot predicting. The show will now move further (like Game Of Thrones did in regard to George R.R. Martin’s source material) past Gerard Way and Gabrial Ba’s The Umbrella Academy comics after The Sparrow Academy volume. In other words, we are now in the great Umbrella Unknown with Netflix issuing a vague season description:
Last season ended with a major twist: There’s a new timeline dictated by the family patriarch, Reginald (Colm Feore), and the siblings no longer have their powers. That’s not the only oddity in this timeline, where the stakes are higher than ever before — there are new enemies who want to see them wiped from existence, but how do they face them without their powers? And will the siblings ever get them back?
Yup, higher stakes, more siblings, and that sounds about right. Let’s keep going.
Cast
Beyond the mystery of who will play the new sibling rivals (maybe we’ll see another dance off), the fourth season will also include new characters portrayed by Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally as college professors. David Cross also joins the cast (“as a man desperate to reconnect with his estranged daughter”), and he recently told us that “it was a f*cking treat and an honor to be a part of that.”
Returning cast members will include the gregarious Robert Sheehan (Klaus Hargreeves), Elliot Page (Victor Hargreeves), Tom Hopper (Luther Hargreeves), Emmy Raver-Lampman (Allison Hargreeves), David Castañeda (Diego Hargreeves), Aidan Gallagher (Number Five), Justin H. Min (Ben Hargreeves), Ritu Arya (Lila Pitts), and Colm Feore (Reginald Hargreeeves).
Release Date
A fourth-season premiere date hasn’t been revealed yet, other than Netflix’s assurance that 2024 is the year, for sure.
Trailer
A tiny slice of footage appeared within Netflix’s most recent sizzle reel.
Calling all Brellies! Here’s a tiny sip of Season 4 in our Next on Netflix sneak peek
pic.twitter.com/7qNUvctVS4
— Umbrella Academy (@UmbrellaAcad) February 1, 2024