In season 4 of The Umbrella AcademyThe siblings are brought back together to prevent another apocalypse.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary:
Several years have passed since the restoration of the universe and everyone has lived their own lives.
Lila and Diego have three children and lead a boring suburban life, Luther is an exotic dancer and lives in the old, dilapidated academy building.
Allison works in advertising and is raising her daughter Claire with Klaus’ help. He is sober and now has a germophobia.
Ben is coming out of prison after serving nearly four years for a crypto scam that bankrupted thousands of people.
Viktor owns a bar in Canada and Five works as an agent for the CIA, investigating a group called “The Keepers”, people who claim to be in the wrong timeline.
The Keepers are led by a couple named Dr. Gene and Jean Thibedeau and they believe in the theory of multiple timelines and something called “the Cleansing” that will make everything right.
The siblings meet for Diego and Lila’s daughter’s birthday, but when Viktor arrives, he is kidnapped by a man named Sy Grossman.
Five and Lila meet at a Keeper meeting and she asks him to keep it a secret from Diego.
Fed up with her life and wanting more, she went undercover. Diego follows her and assumes she’s cheating on him because she doesn’t recognize Five.
Luther receives a letter telling him that Viktor has been kidnapped and they must meet at Sy’s Laundromat to find him.
They find Viktor and Sy tells them that his daughter Jennifer was kidnapped by the Guardians and asks them for help in finding her.
Five says he will take the case and reveals that he found a jar of marigolds in the box Sy gave them.
Ben is desperate to get his powers back, as is Diego, but the others aren’t so sure. Ben decides to mix all the alcohol into the drink, but Klaus doesn’t drink his.
The next day, they all wake up with renewed strength and go to Sy, where they only find a map with the town of New Grumpson circled.
They drive for hours until they finally reach the city, but get into an argument about what to do next.
They split up and Ben finds Jennifer. The others are rummaging around town when the townspeople start shooting at them.
Everyone’s powers are enhanced and when Five tries to blink, he finds himself in a subway station.
He takes a train one stop further and comes out at the same place and time, but in a different timeline. He heads back and tells no one.
Klaus stayed behind in the van when a woman came running claiming to be Jennifer. The others showed up and the woman shot Klaus.
Allison pours some calendula on his wound to save him, but her van is rammed from the side by Gene and Jean, who take Jennifer with them and drive away.
The people in New Grumpson were all Reginald Hargreeves’ people and they were protecting Jennifer, so everyone agreed that someone had to talk to him.
Ben touched Jennifer in the van and there was a reaction. He wants to find her and so sets out alone.
Klaus is not happy that they gave him the marigold and goes back home, where he relapses. Allison, Luther and Viktor go to Reginald.
Lila, Diego, and Five go to Gene and Jean’s office to look for more evidence. While they are there, Lila forces Five to take them to the subway.
Diego finds a file about the mission where Ben died in the original timeline. It is called the “Jennifer Incident.”
Luther, Diego and Allison realize that they don’t know exactly how Ben died and that the real Reginald erased their memories.
The Reginald of this timeline helps them regain their memories with the help of a machine, and Viktor decides to pay attention to it as well.
They were sent with the mission to destroy a weapon in a container, but Ben opened the container and found Jennifer inside.
The same reaction occurs, but the real Reginald shows up and kills Ben and Jennifer. Abigail explains that it is all her fault.
She created the marigold, but she also created another substance called Durango, and when the two come into contact, purification occurs.
Jennifer has the Durango with her and Luther reveals that Ben touched Jennifer, so the end has already begun.
The Jennifer of this timeline was found inside a giant squid and the first words she said were “the cleansing.”
Gene and Jean ask her what they need to do to start cleaning, but she has no idea. Ben meets Sy, who tells him how important it is to find Jennifer.
Ben goes to the ranch where she is being held captive and massacres the people there before escaping with Jennifer.
Gene and Jean mobilize some of the Keepers to search for them. Sy shows up to help, and Gene is immediately jealous of her.
The others then show up at the ranch and then split up again. Five asks the CIA director to keep Luther and Diego busy while he investigates.
He takes Lila and goes back to the subway station so they can return to the original timeline and prevent Ben’s death.
Viktor travels with Reginald because he believes he can still save Ben. Klaus finds his old dealer who wants to collect his debts.
He learns of Klaus’ powers and then uses them to collect. Klaus acts as a medium to offer services, and a woman comes in to find out where her late husband hid his money.
Klaus finds out that it is buried somewhere, but when he tries to get it himself, he is interrupted and buried alive.
Allison and Claire go looking for him and eventually find him. Lila and Five get lost in the subway and spend six years together looking for a way back.
They fall in love and decide to stay in another timeline, but Five finds a book that explains in his handwriting how to get home.
When he tells Lila, she says their relationship is over and she wants to return to her children.
Luther looks around the CIA office and discovers that Fives’ boss is a Keeper and that their influence is greater than they can imagine.
Diego and Luther fight them off and get to Lila and Diego’s house. The others do the same, while Viktor stays with Reginald to try to stop Ben.
Ben and Jennifer go to an abandoned mall where Jennifer feels sick. Ben stays by her side and the reaction between them becomes more intense.
Gene tries to send Sy away, but is killed when Sy is revealed to be Abigal Hargreeves. She then takes Gene’s place and they gather all the Guardians to protect the mall.
Gene kills Jean before she finds out it’s Abigail, then orders everyone else to stand firm.
The truth about Five and Lila comes to light, but they don’t have much time to process it as the news about Ben and Jennifer is on TV.
Explanation at the end:
Brawl in the shopping center
Viktor sneaks into the mall and finds Ben and Jennifer completely disfigured. He explains this to Ben and tries to take him away, but Ben doesn’t want to go.
The rest of the family peeks into the mall and Viktor tries to pull the Durango out of Ben. Reginald signals a sniper to fire.
Viktor has a vision and Ben pushes him out of the line of fire. He falls to the ground and Jennifer merges with him and forms the Ringing, a giant monster.
Diego and Five start arguing about what happened to Lila, and the others try to attack the Purge, but whatever they do, it only gets worse.
Lila interrupts the argument so he blinks away.
The reason for all this
Abigail joins Reginald and tells him that she brought about the end of the world because it was the right thing to do.
Reginald changed the course of the universe to save her, even though death was her penance for bringing about the purification in the first place.
They are then consumed by cleaning
The rest of the siblings make their way back to the academy, while Five travels by train and sees a different version of herself at the station.
He follows him to a restaurant where he meets several versions of himself, one of whom explains that it is all due to the broken timeline.
There is supposed to be only one timeline, and the original five rush back to set things right.
Say goodbye
Number Five goes to the Academy and tells everyone that they are the reason the world keeps ending and that they must cease to exist if things are to be made right.
They do this by giving their marigold for purification, but not everyone agrees with this idea.
Viktor confirms this by saying that Ben showed him a vision of the true timeline where everyone was happy.
Lila rides the subway with her family and Allison’s daughter after Diego suggests it. They need her to make it work, and Five goes after her to convince her again.
She leaves her family on the train and then goes back on number 5. Everyone gathers around her, waiting for the cleaning to swallow her up, and says goodbye in tears.
The alternate timelines disappear and the true one remains, in which all the people involved in the Umbrella Academy live normal, happy lives.
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