The Umbrella Academy’s ending makes no sense. Somehow it works.

This submit comprises spoilers for the ultimate season of The Umbrella Academy.

The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s hit sequence a couple of household of superpowered misfits continuously tasked with stopping the world from ending, ends with every little thing hurtling towards yet one more apocalypse—solely this time, no one makes it out alive.

Within the last season of the present, primarily based on the comics by Gerard Means and Gabriel Bá, the siblings pull out one final save, however none of them might be round to expertise it as a result of, because it seems, they had been the entire motive the world stored ending to start with. The powers all of them obtained at start had been important for diverting catastrophe, however, because the quick run of six episodes explains, the sci-fi magic that made them superhuman was by no means meant to exist. Which means: They weren’t ever meant to exist both. Which means: Erasing them from the universe was the one actual answer to all of it.

It’s messy and complicated, and giving any thought to how we acquired to this conclusion isn’t beneficial. The earlier season sees the members of the crew divert their third apocalypse in as many seasons, after which they’re plopped right into a reset universe the place none of them are affected by their pesky powers or by their eccentric and ruthless adoptive father Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore). Selecting up six years later, Season 4 finds the siblings in various states of powerless mediocrity, enduring mundanities they’d by no means had the possibility to expertise earlier than. Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) stars in detergent commercials as an alternative of the blockbuster films she was used to; Luther (Tom Hopper) works as an unique dancer in a run-down strip membership; Viktor (Elliot Web page) runs a bar in Canada; and Diego (David Castañeda) is a supply driver, whereas his spouse, Lila (Ritu Arya), additionally previously superpowered, is a stay-at-home mother with three children.

All people appears sad however resigned to their boring lives, apart from 5 (Aidan Gallagher), who works for the CIA, investigating a bunch referred to as the Keepers, who’re attempting to finish the world as a result of they’re satisfied that one thing’s hinky in regards to the present timeline. They’re on the hunt for a girl named Jennifer (Victoria Sawal), who was discovered inside an enormous squid at 6 years previous and is by some means related to the world’s finish. Because the siblings reunite and regain wonky variations of their powers of their quest to cease the Keepers and forestall this looming doomsday, they discover themselves splitting off on private journeys that assist heal their childhood traumas and settle for one another extra deeply, but do nothing to cease the inevitability of the present’s cataclysmic endgame.

And that is the place issues begin to get a bit of off-kilter. Whereas the opposite siblings are off on their very own aspect quests, 5 good points the flexibility to teleport to a subway station that connects to all of the totally different timelines; there, he and fellow time traveler Lila begin using this prepare system seeking their unique timeline to cease all of the dangerous issues occurring within the current. This looks as if a sensible resolve, a minimum of till you begin pondering too exhausting about its implications: If 5 and Lila pull off fixing the issues created earlier than the occasions of Season 1, then nothing that adopted would’ve occurred both.

This season is pocked with plot holes that might simply suck the viewer in and destroy the world prematurely if lingered on too lengthy. We by no means learn how the Keepers know something or how Reginald is related to those children if he by no means adopted them on this timeline. Even a way of place is not possible to ascertain with a group of cities and cities that really feel as incomprehensibly unmappable because the timelines 5 and Lila get misplaced in. It will possibly really feel sloppy, the dearth of precision that generates this tangle of questions and contradictions. That is what typically occurs with time-travel tales: both making use of a lot construction to the affair that it’s concurrently boring and headache-inducing or abandoning any semblance of group and counting on a imprecise driving drive of vibes.

Watching a present like this and never discovering any stable floor to seize onto needs to be irritating, however The Umbrella Academy—each the sequence and the comedian—isn’t all for that stable floor; it has at all times been a sea of chaos, a haphazard enterprise that’s extra type than substance. That’s the place it derives most of its appeal. Its elastic actuality of sci-fi and fantasy desires us to really feel our approach by means of the present, not assume it. We’re right here to expertise the household’s emotional journeys, witnessing Luther’s realization that he’s greater than only a meatheaded chief, and Klaus (Robert Sheehan) and Allison’s recognition that the anger and frustration they’d generated towards one another these previous six years exists solely due to the deep love beneath these emotions.

5 and Lila’s unsuccessful timeline-hopping journey on the subway, which spans greater than six years on the present, shouldn’t be meant to result in the answer they need, but it surely’s not completely fruitless both. It grounds them in earnest and painful feelings as they develop an intimacy that colours of their characters’ edges and creates a palpable harm after they lastly return to the household and face Diego, Lila’s husband and 5’s brother. It’s what permits Diego to lastly see his spouse, understanding how a lot he has missed along with her.

In the course of the last scenes of the sequence, the siblings see the top coming and say their goodbyes, but it surely’s not maudlin; when Luther suggests all of them go round and share their favourite reminiscences, everyone rightly reacts with eye rolls and disgust. It feels true to the characters—in any case, most of them didn’t actually like one another very a lot, however all of them liked one another essentially the most. From there, we get the ultimate apocalypse, adopted by a snapshot of the brand new world created after the siblings’ destruction. It appears a bit of too excellent to truly exist, with Lila’s household, Allison’s daughter, and all of the sequence’ aspect gamers who’ve fallen alongside the best way, collectively within the park, having fun with an idyllic summer time day. It’s a scene that is unnecessary in any respect, besides that it feels prefer it does.

If I had spent this last run of episodes on a hunt for rationality, it could’ve been an unsatisfying chore, irritating me after I couldn’t determine the place we had been, how issues had come to be, or what had ensued past the margins of the display screen. However all these solutions would’ve been simply extra set dressing to the present that The Umbrella Academy by no means shied away from being, cluttering my view with the stuff that by no means mattered, making me miss out on every little thing that did. This was at all times a zany ball of discord that reveled in poking its characters and its viewers with hefty doses of snark and cynicism and tumultuous tales filled with trauma, unhappiness, and ache. However beneath all that beats a mushy coronary heart, heat and full.