The Umbrella Academy final season trailer teases one last apocalypse

No wonder The Umbrella Academy is coming to an end; preventing this many apocalypses must be exhausting. As you probably expected, the fourth and final season deals with one last world-ending event when it premieres on Netflix on August 8. The Hargreeves (Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min, and Ritu Arya) are getting the band back together—hopefully to save the universe and sort out all the many timelines, once and for all.

“The Hargreeves siblings have scattered after the climactic showdown at the Hotel Oblivion led to a complete reset of their timeline. Stripped of their powers, each is left to fend for themselves and find a new normal—with wildly varying degrees of success. Yet the trappings of their uncanny new world prove too hard to ignore for very long,” reads a synopsis from Netflix. “Their father Reginald (Colm Feore), alive and well, has stepped out of the shadows and into the public eye, overseeing a powerful and nefarious business empire. A mysterious association known as The Keepers holds clandestine meetings believing the reality they’re living in is a lie and a great reckoning is coming. As these strange new forces conspire around them, the Umbrella Academy must come together one last time—and risk upsetting the shaky peace they’ve all endured so much to secure—to finally set things right.”

Once upon a time, an undead Ben (Min) saved the day by sacrificing himself to stop the apocalypse triggered by Vanya (now Viktor). In the present, it’s Viktor who informs the living, Sparrow Academy version of Ben that he’s the one triggering this new apocalypse. This new threat is somehow connected to original Ben’s death, referred to as the “Jennifer incident.” Losing Ben is what drove the remaining Hargreeves siblings apart in the first place, but in the trailer, they realize that none of them actually remember how he died. That’s just one of the many mysteries they’ll have to untangle this season.

Umbrella Academy has experienced something of a PR crisis of late. A recent Rolling Stone report exposed allegations against showrunner Steve Blackman for creating a toxic workplace environment. A 2023 HR complaint against Blackman accused him of a “long history of toxic, bullying, manipulative, and retaliatory behavior.” Writers, support staffers, and one actress on the show made complaints about remarks and incidents they felt were sexist, homophobic, and transphobic. Two new projects under Blackman—Horizon Zero Dawn and Orbital—are no longer moving forward at Netflix, though a representative told Rolling Stone he continues to work on new things under his multi-year contract with the streamer.

It’s an unfortunate stain on the legacy of a successful series that was a raunchy, dysfunctional answer to mainstream superhero fare. It was also, despite Blackman’s alleged shortcomings, a refreshingly progressive show that explored the dysphoria of adoption, issues of race, and a transgender coming out storyline that mirrored Elliot Page’s real-life experience. There are additional pleasures to look forward to in the fourth season, not least of which is the addition of Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally as conspiracy theorists bent on cracking the secret of the multiple realities. David Cross also pops up in the trailer, and he “wouldn’t miss what’s coming for the world.” Umbrella Academy fans must feel the same way.