Reginald Hargreeves’ poor parenting is evident throughout The Umbrella Academy, but it’s most obvious in the discussions of Luther’s mission to the moon — and one brilliant detail makes this journey all the more tragic. The Umbrella Academy season 1 highlights how Reginald’s desire to build a powerful team of superhumans negatively impacts the children he adopts for this purpose. Each of them has their own trauma, as well as their own methods of coping with it. Reginald doesn’t seem to care how his actions harm his children, as long as they live up to the impossible expectations he sets for them.
Luther’s backstory in The Umbrella Academy involves a trip to the moon, and it drives home this point about Reginald. Luther doesn’t know why he’s sent to the moon in The Umbrella Academy, but he assumes he’s guarding against extraterrestrial threats. Instead, Reginald sends him there for more selfish reasons. Either way, Reginald’s mission is cruel in hindsight. Luther remains in space for four years, and he’s completely alone the entire time. It’s clear Luther regards his time on the moon as miserable, and one minor detail makes the situation even worse.
Luther’s Umbrella Academy Message Makes His Moon Mission Sadder
The first episode of The Umbrella Academy shows Luther waking up. Visible is a note that reads “To Dad, From Luther,” and it goes on to ask Reginald to “please send more food.” Knowing Reginald, he probably didn’t provide Luther with enough resources to survive for years in space. It doesn’t seem that he checked on his son, either, driving home his disregard for his adopted children. This neglect adds another layer to Luther’s sad moon mission, making this Umbrella Academy subplot that much more tragic.
When it comes to Reginald’s neglect, The Umbrella Academy tends to focus more on his relationship with characters like Viktor and Klaus. However, this detail from The Umbrella Academy season 1 proves that all the Hargreeves siblings have deep childhood wounds. Even Luther, who doesn’t seem to dwell as much on the past, faced the realization that his father didn’t care about him at a very young age. It’s no wonder he looks back on his time in space with such discontent. And the fact that Reginald didn’t send him there for some greater purpose probably stings even more.
The Umbrella Academy S1’s Note Doesn’t Make Sense After Season 3
The Umbrella Academy suggests from the beginning that Reginald has his own motives for sending Luther to the moon. At first, it seems the real reason behind the mission is to get Luther strong enough to be the Umbrella Academy team’s leader and Number One. However, The Umbrella Academy season 3 offers another explanation for Luther’s time in space. Reginald tells Luther he was guarding “the most precious thing in the universe.” With Reginald’s late wife, Abigail, sitting in a cryogenic chamber not far from where Luther was stationed, it stands to reason he was actually there to look after her.
This explanation complicates matters, as it doesn’t make sense that Reginald neglected the boy overseeing his late wife. One would think Reginald would want Luther well-fed, alert, and feeling his best for such a mission. Of course, this isn’t the first time The Umbrella Academy paints Reginald as a complicated patriarch with confusing intentions. He might have been that bad of a father that sending food genuinely didn’t cross his mind. It’s also possible his reasons for sending Luther to space overlapped but were mostly selfish in nature, causing him to forget about his adopted son’s needs.
