Umbrella Academy Season 3 Ending Explained and How It Sets Up Season 4
Full spoilers for The Umbrella Academy season three follow, plus some speculation! The Umbrella Academy season three has arrived after a near two year wait, and unlike so many other shows of the era, it's not a weekly release, you can watch the entire thing right now! That in mind, the series has already released its final episode, meaning that the bread crumb trail has been left for its next batch of episodes. Though we have a potential big wait ahead of us for when they'll arrive, it seems pretty clear where the next season is headed, let's explore it below.
As we know, season three of The Umbrella Academy was largely centered around the devastating effects of the kugelblitz, the blackhole collective eating reality as a result of the Umbrella's causing a Grandfather paradox. At a certain point it becomes clear that the only way to save reality is by entering The Hotel Oblivion, fighting its guardians, and engaging the "reality resetting" machine that was confined within it. This marks a major departure from the source material about the function of Hotel Oblivion, but is the key to where season three ends and the theoretical season four that it's setting up.
In the final scene of season three, The Umbrellas find themselves in a newly made universe, one where Sir Reginald Hargreeves has made everything in his own image (Hargreeves named buildings abound the skyline). The group arrives at the "Obsidian Memorial Park," the former site of the Hotel Obsidian that they've spent the entire season occupying, but when they arrive, they've changed. Five has his arm back despite it being cut off a few scenes previously; also, Luther is alive. This is when it becomes clear that the Umbrellas existing in this world has come with a price, they no longer have super powers.
There's another big problem at hand though, not only do they not have super powers anymore, but their priorities are divided (again). In the Obsidian Memorial Park there's six different paths all leading in different directions, and in the end the surviving Umbrellas all take off in one direction with different ideas of what to do. Luther heads off to find Sloane with Klaus following, Ben leaves of his own accord, Lila and Diego leave to "live their own lives," while Five and Viktor head off in their own paths to do who knows what.
As the episode ends, high above them in a Hargreeves tower, we see none other than Regineld himself, now flanked by his dead wife Abigail, now alive. What is largely unclear about this version of Hargreeves is if he remembers resetting the universe the way that he did, but since the Umbrellas remember it stands to reason that he also knows what happened. Keep in mind also that Hargreeves is an alien and not human!
Finally there's one more major thing to mention for season three's conclusion into season four. The penultimate scene of the final episode shows Allison Hargreeves not only reunited with her daughter Claire but also with her husband Ray, the man she fell in love with and left behind in the 1960s in season two. Allison seems poised to be living her perfect life, and she deserves it after the last two seasons for sure, but it makes a big question mark about what happens next.
The team is now without powers and without direction, frankly this is a biggest cliffhanger than either of the first two seasons of the show, especially because the TV show has officially surpassed the comic book series it's based on. It's unclear if where the TV show is currently headed in its narrative will at all be reflected within the source material but right now it seems to be its own story, one that is wide open for its potential next batch of episodes.