The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Ending Explained: What Was The Cleanse?

This article contains spoilers for all of The Umbrella Academy.

Not many series finales feel like series finales nowadays. The streaming era’s abundance of options compels TV shows to leave the door open on their way out, inviting some other network or streamer to decide their story isn’t quite done.

That is decidedly not the case for Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. The season 4 finale of this superhero saga operates as a definitive conclusion for the show’s characters and their world. No longer bound to the incomplete comic source material penned by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, showrunner Steve Blackman and his writers’ room conjure up an ultimate end for the Hargreeves family.

Here is how The Umbrella Academy series finale says goodbye to Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Five (Aidan Gallagher), Ben (Justin H. Min), Viktor (Elliot Page), and more.

How Did Ben Die and What Was The Jennifer Incident?

Ever since The Umbrella Academy premiered in early 2019, fans have longed to know the answer to one question: how did Ben Hargreeves die? Though the boy known as “Number Six” was eventually reborn through the usual alternate universe shenanigans, the original Ben Hargreeves has been dead since October 14, 2006 in the show’s timeline. What was it, exactly, that killed him? Viewers finally get the answer midway through season 4 and it informs the ultimate ending of the show.

Ben died as part of something known as “The Jennifer Incident,” which is a concept that has been teased since the very first panels of the very first issue of the comic. The Hargreeves thought they knew what the Jennifer Incident was and how it led to Ben’s death but in this season they come to realize that their memories have been wiped and they really have no idea.

When asked about Ben’s death, his siblings brains have been programmed to recite the phrase “It was a tragic accident. Ben died because we failed as a team. Nobody was responsible and yet were are all responsible. Ben Hargreeves represented the best of us. Ben was the Umbrella Academy.” The new universe version of the Hargreeves’ awful father Reginald (Colm Feore) agrees to hook them up to machines to restore their memories. Once he does they discover that Reginald himself killed Ben.

Back in the family’s youthful days of 2006, Reggie dispatched the team to retrieve a weapons shipment to some arms dealers. Reginald is clear that they are not to open the container containing the weapons under any circumstances. Ben, however, hears what sounds like a young girl crying inside the container and opens it. There he finds Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) and lends her a hand out. Reginald suddenly arrives and fatally shoots both Ben and Jennifer in the head.

Why did Reginald do this? Well that’s where we get into the entire overarching mythology of the show.

What Is The Cleanse?

In season 3, The Umbrella Academy introduced the concept of “marigolds.” These are small glowing orbs that instill superhuman abilities in people. Way back in season 1, we saw Reginald Hargreeves harvesting marigolds on his home planet (oh, he’s an alien from outer space, in case you forgot) and releasing them into the atmosphere. The final episode of this season explicitly confirms that the marigolds, which were created by Reginald’s wife Abigail (Liisa Repo-Martell), infected the bodies of 43 women on Earth and led to the sudden births of super-powered children, including The Umbrella Academy and Lila (Ritu Arya).

There’s a problem with marigolds, however. At the same time that Abigail synthesized this new element, someone else created its exact opposite: durango. Abigail says that when marigold and durango interact, it creates a chain reaction known as “The Cleanse” that triggers the extinction of…well, everything. It turns out that, while the Hargreeves kids are marigold babies, Jennifer was a durango baby. That’s why Reginald swiftly killed her and Ben. Their union would lead to The Cleanse.

Of course, that was back in 2006 on a whole different timeline. Now we’re in 2024 and there’s no way that Ben and Jennifer could meet again…*holds finger to earpiece* I’m receiving word that Ben and Jennifer have met again.

Season 4 antagonists Gene (Nick Offerman) and Jean (Megan Mullally) Thibodeaux are somewhat aware of all this because they gained access to a document from the Umbrella Academy’s original timeline that mentions Ben, the Jennifer Incident, and The Cleanse. Abigail herself goes undercover as Sy Grossman (David Cross) to make sure The Cleanse goes off without a hitch because she’s sick of all this timeline nonsense and wants to give Reginald and herself the respectable death that their original planet always had planned for them.

Did The Umbrella Academy Just All Die?

So let’s talk about the timelines. Through four seasons, The Umbrella Academy have gone all over the place. Klaus time traveled a bit in season 1 and then everyone time traveled back to the 1960s in season 2 to prevent and/or cause the Kennedy assassination. Season 3 then saw the team return to the wrong timeline while season 4 reveals, via a temporal subway, that there are infinite timelines branching out from one moment within it.

Simply put: time is being stretched to its breaking point on The Umbrella Academy and it’s all due to the Hargreeves and their marigold-tinged powers. As The Cleanse begins with Ben and Jennifer merging into a giant all-consuming flesh monster, Number Five finally realizes what they need to do: nothing. The Umbrella Academy is the problem. Their mere presence in the world is what has caused all of this madness. The only way to save the world this time is to let The Cleanse consume them, be written out of history entirely, and let the proper timeline get rolling once again.

After some debate, Lila and the Hargreeves resolve to do just that. Lila guides the Umbrella Academy’s loved ones (including her parents and Allison’s daughter) to the subway outside of time so they have the chance to survive and then the rest of the gang settles in to get swallowed up by the Bennifer blob.

That’s exactly what happens. The Umbrella Academy didn’t just die – they were written out of history entirely.

What Characters Exist in the New Timeline?

The final scene of The Umbrella Academy confirms that Five’s theory was correct. By allowing themselves to be swallowed up in the Cleanse, the Hargreeves paved the way for the correct, singular timeline to return. The vision of the future that Ben granted Viktor – of a peaceful park on a beautiful day – has come to pass.

In that park are many familiar faces from previous seasons. Here is who turns up:

– The Hargreeves’ loved ones they sent to the subway for safety.
– Hazel (Cameron Britton) and Agnes (Sheila McCarthy)
– Grace (Jordan Claire Robbins)
– The Handler (Kate Walsh)
– The Swedes (Jason Bryden, Kris Holden-Ried, and Tom Sinclair)
– The Umbrella Academy illustrator Gabriel Bá
– Herb (Ken Hall)
– Dot (Patrice Goodman)

Better yet, the moment is scored to Tommy Jones & The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now.” This bookends the show’s enduring musical moment from season 1, in which the Hargreeves dance to Tiffany’s version.

Reginald Hargreeves’ closing narration sums it all up nicely: “On the twelfth hour of the eighth day of August 2024, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary occurred. You might just say it was just a normal day.”

All four seasons of The Umbrella Academy are available to stream on Netflix now.

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