While we might love the dysfunctional siblings of The Umbrella Academy, the series has it's fair share of glaring plot holes.
The Umbrella Academy has delivered a wild ride of superhero shenanigans, dysfunctional family therapy sessions, and enough timeline tinkering to make your head spin. Over its four seasons, the show has fearlessly dived into paradoxes, alternate realities, and universe-ending threats, usually with a killer soundtrack and a hefty dose of quirky charm. We've followed the Hargreeves siblings as they've lurched from one apocalypse to another, all while grappling with their bizarre upbringing by the enigmatic Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) and trying to figure out their place in a hostile world, learning that they could only count on each other to survive insurmountable odds.
The Umbrella Academy's ambition is a huge part of its appeal, as the series never shied away from throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. However, with temporal displacement comes a great potential for things to get... well, confusing. As much as we love the chaotic energy of The Umbrella Academy, its complex narrative, particularly concerning universe resets and the ever-shifting rules of its world, has left us scratching our heads more than a few times. While we're here for the spectacle and the surprisingly heartfelt character moments, specific plot threads have either been dropped, contradicted, or just plain ignored, leaving fans to wonder what exactly is going on. So, grab your Marigold and let's dive into some of the most significant plot points from The Umbrella Academy that still don't make sense.
Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy introduced us to the Sparrow Academy, and with them, Sloane Hargreeves (Genesis Rodriguez). She quickly became a significant player, not just as a Sparrow but as Luther Hargreeves' (Tom Hopper) romantic interest and eventual wife. Their relationship was a sweet spot in a season packed with cosmic weirdness. So, when the universe got another classic Hargreeves-style reset at the end of Season 3, fans expected to see how Sloane fit into this new, powerless reality. Instead, she was just... gone.
The real kicker? Luther barely seemed to register that his wife had completely vanished from existence in Season 4. There's a brief mention, but then it's largely business as usual, which feels incredibly out of character for the typically loyal and emotionally driven Luther. Her disappearance isn't explained, investigated, or given any real weight, leaving a gaping hole where a significant character and relationship used to be. It's a baffling omission that makes the consequences of the reset feel frustratingly selective.
In earlier seasons, The Umbrella Academy established a perilous consequence for sloppy time travel: paradox psychosis. This condition was presented as a severe threat if an individual encountered their temporal doppelgänger, leading to symptoms like physical distress, escalating paranoia, and the potential to unravel. The encounter between Old Five and Young Five (Aidan Gallagher) in Season 2 treated this with dramatic urgency, emphasizing the dire risks. Number Five even experienced obvious physical manifestations, like uncontrollable flatulence, reinforcing the idea of tangible side effects.
Yet, Season 4 of The Umbrella Academy features a scene with a subway deli teeming with Number Five variants, all coexisting without any apparent ill effects. The initial gravity of paradox psychosis, which was built up as a genuine hazard with specific dangers, seems to have been conveniently set aside for this particular scene, making its rules feel more like flexible plot devices than fixed laws of this chaotic universe.
The bond between Klaus Hargreeves (Robert Sheehan) and the spectral form of his deceased brother, Ben Hargreeves (Justin H. Min), is one of The Umbrella Academy's most defining relationships. For seventeen long years, Ben served as Klaus' ghostly companion. Considering the depth of their connection and the sheer volume of time they shared, one would assume critical topics would have surfaced. For instance, the actual circumstances surrounding Ben's death, or the details of the "Jennifer Incident" which later becomes a significant plot point.
The Umbrella Academy, however, implies that these vital conversations never occurred during nearly two decades of co-existence. It's difficult to accept that Ben, privy to his own demise, wouldn't attempt to convey these details to the only sibling capable of seeing him. Similarly, Klaus, especially as his abilities evolved and he gained more control over his connection to the dead, not pressing for information about his beloved brother's end or past traumas simply doesn't align with his character. This foundational silence makes their otherwise rich dynamic feel artificially constrained.
Post-credits scenes are designed to hook viewers, teasing future developments or introducing new mysteries. The Umbrella Academy delivered a compelling one at the close of Season 3 as it showed a different Ben variant, reading a book on a subway train in Seoul, Korea. This tantalizing glimpse strongly suggested a new storyline involving another version of Ben was on the horizon for the final season. Fans buzzed with theories, anticipating how this "Korean Ben" would fit into the already complex Hargreeves saga.
Come Season 4, this version of Ben was nowhere to be seen. He was not mentioned, not referenced, and the entire plot thread was completely abandoned. Introducing such a deliberate cliffhanger only to subsequently ignore it in the show's concluding run suggests a shift in narrative plans or perhaps an idea that didn't make the cut for the condensed final season. Regardless of the reason, it's a frustrating loose end.
The grand finale of The Umbrella Academy Season 4 hinges on "The Cleanse," a cataclysmic event triggered by the interaction of the Marigold (the source of the Hargreeves' powers) within Ben Hargreeves and the Durango within Jennifer (Victoria Sawal). This interaction causes Ben and Jennifer to merge into a monstrous, all-consuming entity. As Number Five learns from his alternate selves, the only way to truly fix the fractured multiverse and restore a single, stable timeline is for all Marigold-infused individuals -- namely, the Hargreeves siblings -- to sacrifice themselves by being absorbed by this creature, thereby erasing themselves from history.
This is where the logic takes a serious hit. Before making this ultimate sacrifice, Lila Pitts (Ritu Arya) manages to send her children and Allison Hargreeves' (Emmy Raver-Lampman) daughter, Claire (Millie Davis), into the "timeline subway" to escape the Cleanse. After the Hargreeves are erased from existence, the final scene shows these very children alive and well in the supposedly corrected timeline. This makes absolutely no sense. If their mothers, Lila and Allison, were wiped from history as if they never existed, their children logically should not exist either. Their survival is a direct contradiction of the established sacrifice and its consequences, pointing to a desire for a somewhat happier note for the children, even if it breaks the fundamental rules of the show's own climactic resolution.