I Just Finished 'The Umbrella Academy' Season 3 - Here Are Seven Questions I Need Season 4 To Answer
Obvious spoiler warning, right off the bat. Don't read this article if you haven't finished Season 3 of Netflix's fantastic series The Umbrella Academy.
Now. Let's get into it.
About halfway through season 3 of Umbrella Academy, I started to believe this might be it. After all, their father's plan was beginning to come to fruition. Some of the biggest mysteries of the show thus far were in the midst of being unravelled. (With the Comission out of play, ironically, things start to get much weirder much faster.)
And besides all that, the show has already extended past its source material - but it seems that, much like Game of Thrones, the two storylines will deviate from here on out.
Because that, folks, was no series finale.
I'm Sad.
(Maybe that has something to do with today's Supreme Court betrayal as well, but I digress.)
There were so many deaths and reanimations and losses and wins in that final episode that I have whiplash. First Luther, then Klaus, then not Klaus, then Klaus again, then Luther's back but only kinda, then Luther's ACTUALLY back but Sloane is gone, and Allison is dead?? Maybe?? Or just wherever people in oblivion go??
Given that it was the one interaction where we got closure, I'd actually be willing to guess that Allison's death is permanent. The others? I'm not so sure.
However, what this Season DID do, in lieu of leaving me with the sense of closure and anticipation that I'm used to getting from its season finales, was clearly set us up for a Season 4 - which is a trade I would never complain about.
So What Will Umbrella Academy Season 4 Be About?
There are several threads to follow here, but as long as we're throwing out guesses, there will probably be a few different things to focus on.
Thing Number One: Reginald Hargreeves rules this timeline.
...And I'm not so sure that's a good thing.
Reg has been the main cause of the increasingly frequent episodes of whiplash this show causes. He seems to have something of a heart, and yet he is the coldest, most calculating, most ruthless bastard out there. He kills Klaus, but then you come to find out he really was helping him. He gies a moving speech at Sloane and Luther's wedding, but then he literally kills Luther.
He talks of saving the universe, but then mentions some kind of "prize." The prize is clearly his fridged wife, but that's still not a great term to use when it comes to saving the universe, and it makes me think he had several ulterior motives he wasn't sharing.
And now we come to find out that in this "reset" version of the world he was working so hard to achieve, he just so happens to own everything? Sus.
Viktor said it best: Asshole. I have a feeling this man may need more defeating. Never trust a rich white guy...or a rich, murderous alien wearing an old white guy skinsuit holding the hand of his once-nearly-dead wife.
Even still, remembering the scene we saw where he was talking to Five about trying to fix all his mistakes, I'm not certain he's totally the villain even still.
Thing Number Two: Luther's gotta find Sloane.
...And she's not gonna remember him, and they won't be married in this timeline, and she'll probably be somewhere living her own life as a nearly entirely different person and for all we know she'll already have someone she loves.
(I knew Sloane was too good for this world, too pure. But sad Luther is so sad to watch.)
Even still, Luther and Sloane seemed to share a love-at-first-sight kind of connection. I'd believe it if Luther found her and, even if it made him sad at first, got to get to know the new Sloane, and build something with her.
There is the whole issue of the fact that this isn't the Sloane he married, but the Ben that came back with them wasn't the original Ben from their timeline either, and that still worked, so something tells me they're still connected in some way.
I'm not ready to watch how sad Luther is about this, but I am looking forward to maybe watching him fall in love all over again - this time sans-Gorilla-body.
Thing Number Three: Speaking of Ben, what was up with that post-credit scene?
Their Ben might be connected to them now - Sparrow Ben - but I'm not entirely sure that the Ben we saw on the train in South Korea wasn't actually the Umbrella Ben who was never adopted, now just out there living a happy, normal life.
I'm inclined to believe it is, because Sparrow Ben was way skinnier and more angry looking than the Ben on the train - but he could have also just gotten healthier after living a normal life without his powers
They could be gearing up for more problems - after all, two versions of you aren't supposed to exist in the same universe. And in this universe, does that Ben have his powers?
Thing Number Four: Will they get their powers back?!?!
Hear me out: I feel like they have to. I know this is the kind of show that tends to surprise us, but we've also seen that their power isn't as easy to take away as you might think; After all, look what happened with Harlan. Viktor tried that once, and it just...didn't take.
Maybe theirs won't take either.
I don't think they'll get them back right away - I think they'll have to work for them. We'll have a few comical episodes to watch the super siblings struggle with the things they can't do now that they're no longer super. (Klaus had better cool it on the dangerous substances a little this time around, who knows how many times he's died of an overdose without even knowing it?)
We might even go more than half of the season with a bunch of super-ordinary sibs, but I'm confident that before the season is out, we'll see Viktor blasting everyone to sonic bits again, and Five will be able to blink through space once more.
Thing Number Five: Will Five ever start the Comission?
One thing I'm not so sure Five will be doing again is running around trying to stop the apocalypse - because he already warned himself not to, and so far he's on track to become anyone but that guy.
His arm came back after he went through the portal - which leads me to believe that the version of Five that started the whole Comission blinked out of time instead of running to step on the Sigil in Allison's place, and probably started working on the whole organization not long after that.
Still, his ominous warning of "Don't save the world" hasn't been fulfilled - was that the warning of a man who died not knowing he made the wrong choice, or one who knows that Five's trials have only begun?
Thing Number Six: Diego's gonna be a dad!! (For real this time!)
On a much happier note, at least one family was left unbroken by this little adventure in universe-saving: Diego and Lila's. Now that the universe is saved, they are free to, as Lila put it, "Live our lives."
She's about three months pregnant, which means that at the start of the fourth season, we'll likely get to see a new Hargreeves family rising from the ashes before our very eyes - and no matter what, that'll be a beautiful thing to see.
It'll also be beautiful to watch Diego and Lila struggle to deal with the impossible mission that is parenting - especially parenting THEIR CHILD, who will probably be crazy in all the best ways.
Who knows? Maybe because the baby was concieved before they lost them, the kid'll have some powers of its own. Wouldn't that be fun for them?
Thing Number Seven: Where did their powers even come from?
Of course, figuring that out would require some semblance of knowledge of how the Hargreeves children got those powers - on what force exactly caused 43 women around the world to give birth on October 1, 1989, despite the fact that none of them were pregnant when the day first began?
We know from the little we've viewed of Reginald's backstory on his alien world that they were some kind of energy, released from various places all over his world as (presumably) his wife lay dying. But what is that energy? Is it just the power? A being or life force in its own right?
Until we know - until we know more about what drove Reginald Hargreeves to do all this in the first place - we won't have any answers.
And that's why, even though Netflix has not announced any renewal as of yet, I'm confident that there will be a Season 4 of Umbrella Academy.
There had better be, anyway.
