Umbrella Academy Season 4 Does NOT Deserve This Backlash

Goodbyes are never easy, but bringing Game of Thrones comparisons into this was just uncalled for!

*Spoilers Ahead*

On August 8th, the fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy landed on Netflix and it has been a release that has kept giving, in some places until it has become, dare I say, tainted. Once again, Netflix has brought us a show with much to discuss and today the topic of conversation is the heartbreaking, article-inspiring experience of watching, and loving, a show only to visit social media and be bombarded with fellow fans hating on it, desperately trying to keep hold of your original experience and believe that you are not alone in it. If that is you, or even if it’s not but the tiniest part of you thinks your mind could be changed, welcome! Let’s get into it.

From the opening sequences of season 4, it is clear we are dealing with a different Five. Gallagher has spoken before on Five’s rejection of a name over his assigned number from Reginald, and yet, the first words we hear from him are “My name’s Jerome” – which, by the way, no. Of course, this turns out to be merely an undercover alias but was surely intended to lure audiences into thinking it was an official name reveal, the typical ‘finally!’ moment of a finale, before regaining their breath at the return of the classic collar and tie that has become such a staple, even to the point of earning a shoutout from Lila later on. When, what seems to be, the real name reveal does come along it is done perfectly, with a genius, subtle, embedded approach that just feels right. The point is, with Five’s first appearance of the season, the show’s creators inferred to a big change for the character, and, whilst it was not as straight forward as it first seemed, it was not a lie.

Looking back at the trajectory of The Umbrella Academy, Five is the only character that ever speaks directly to us as an audience. He is the youngest, at least on the surface, but arguably the one driving the story forward. Sure, the death and subsequent funeral of, their adoptive father, Reginald Hargreeves got all the siblings to the same place, but isn’t it Five who really brings them together with the news of the apocalypse? Now, break the fourth wall. Think about the fact that this was actually Aidan Gallagher, at the age of 13, surrounded by a cast almost double his age, in a role that demands him to take charge. With this series finale, just allowing Five to actually be young and make mistakes and, you know what, be a little selfish, led totally by his emotions, to hear him say “I’m gonna kill him” to his brother like a real-life kid and watch him storm off overcome, with the defining exaggerated intensity expected of The Umbrella Academy, cuts deep and is exactly the kind of arch required to bring the character to a balanced close. We see this settle with him in real time and it’s hard but it’s real.

Fans online say that this was not Gallagher’s best work, a sentiment that has been extended to much of the cast this season, and whilst this was not something that I felt I wanted to highlight, looking back at some of the early scenes, I can’t really deny it. It is not the dynamic performance we have gotten used to seeing in other seasons. However, Brellies, this is just not the smoking gun you think it is, in fact it is quite the opposite. For one, the point of the opening of the show is that life is slower and more underwhelming and altogether different since the loss of their powers. We are supposed to feel disoriented and slightly restless at the edge of our seats as we watch Five at a disconnect from his siblings and in a struggle to answer to authority as he attempts to put his brain and saviour complex to use in a different way. Secondly, holding a magnifying glass to Five’s storyline will only prove that the highlights of Gallagher’s performance gather at the introduction of the plot points you are all so desperate to condemn – Lila!

So, let’s talk about it! Episode 5, titled Six Years, Five Months, and Two Days, centred largely around the developing romantic connection between Five and Lila and reaction to the couple, and in fact at times the whole of season 4, has been surprisingly pessimistic, labelling it the downfall of the series, questioning what writers were thinking and so on. This is not an opinion that will be projected today.

Possible unpopular opinion; the pairing of Lila and Diego was, to a large extent, a thrown together choice that we just accepted. In the blurry hindsight of the series finale, it feels that their feelings for each other and the intimate nature of their relationship have gone up and down in extremes all along. So really, are the pairings so far apart in terms of

believability?

Lila and Five’s romance is a journey of clear stepping stones built from a place of intellectual chemistry and, though the admittedly epic edit of a montage, condensing the timeline into palatable bite-sized pieces, may have seen things happen too quickly, it was in fact a reasonably slow burn, spark, soft launch and hard launch all captured. Fluid and consistent compared to the stop and start of Lila and Diego. This is not to say that one is better than the other, equal measures of shock and ‘awwww’ are naturally conjured, but there are factors that are undeniably hard to get over. Where that obstacle remains, we have a chance to separate them into individuals and look at each of their actions as a reflection of their own character, appreciate the performances and what they achieve. For example, what Lila brings out in Five during their time together sees an element of helping to age up Aidan Gallagher and show range in a kind of type-cast-repellent as he emerges from this comfortable cocoon of a role.

Take the scene where they first establish a closeness more than friendship, the greenhouse kiss. The only thing to get mad at there - adultery 6 years aside - is Lila’s blatant waste of strawberries. The scene I really want to pick out though is the moment where Five decides to finally show Lila the way home and the burst of emotion that erupts for each of them at the thought of actually going back. This is such a standout scene, lovable for so many reasons – the lighting, the camera work, the performance choices of the two of them – but I think what really uplifts the raw feelings seen there, and what I want to highlight here, is the music. What makes the performances golden is the timing and interaction with the instrumental until it feels almost tangible. It is effortless and that really speaks to the talent on and off screen and the way they work together, and that’s without getting into specifics. The part that music plays in a project like this is fascinating, and it has been particularly integral to the production of The Umbrella Academy – of course, it almost has to with a legend like Gerard Way connected to it – which is why in the last sequence of the show, just the first notes of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ bring a tear to the eye.

Post-release the seven stages of grief are well under way. From spin-off rumours and flashmobs to retrospective edits and whatever the opposite of shippers is, social media is on fire. Netflix has offered its condolences in the form of some deleted scenes from the new season, to fill the void of knowing we may never see our favourite dysfunctional family again, the most notable being some heartbreaking Klaus Hargreeves moments. A beautiful monologue performed brilliantly by Robert Sheehan gives closure to a deeper journey that would have been a much-appreciated moment to slow things down and let them settle, the same with the deleted heart to heart between Luther and Diego building upon the feeling of the iconic ‘do you feel loved?’ scene between Luther, Diego and Viktor in season 3. Each scene leaves the mind boggled at the idea of willingly withholding satisfaction for those critics amongst us who have astutely cited the lack of such moments of family love and character driven plot points as the thing that set things askew, in this, strangely short, final instalment of the theatrical, action-packed comic book adaptation that saw a new era for so many of its cast members. At least that is one thing we can all agree on – and, if I can add another, don’t ruin your own favourite show or I love you guys but you’re all assholes.