The Umbrella Academy’s Power Twist Solves Season 4’s Stakes Problem

The Umbrella Academy season 4 nearly had a major stakes problem, but season 3’s power twist solved it, setting the final outing of the Netflix show up for success. The Hargreeves siblings use their extraordinary abilities to survive the apocalypse multiple times over the course of the series. But every time they avoid the end of the world, it comes back stronger and scarier than before. And The Umbrella Academy season 3’s ending finds the Hargreeves surviving the apocalypse through yet another timeline reset — this time thanks to Allison and Reginald’s scheming. However, their survival comes at a cost.

The final moments of The Umbrella Academy season 3 reveal that the Hargreeves siblings no longer have their superpowers. This is likely to be a major plot point in The Umbrella Academy season 4, which will also be the show’s last hurrah. With the end approaching, removing the Hargreeves’ power is a great idea. In fact, it even solves the Netflix series’ biggest stakes problem for season 4.

The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Almost Had A Major Stakes Problem

The Final Season Needed A Way To Stand Out

With each season of The Umbrella Academy revolving around the Hargreeves siblings stopping the apocalypse, the final outing was always going to have a problem raising the stakes. In most TV shows, the last batch of episodes pushes the stakes higher than ever before. However, when the world keeps ending in a series, it’s hard to imagine what more could go wrong. Another apocalypse would be par for the course for The Umbrella Academy season 4, ensuring the final run isn’t anything special. And with the world ending three times already, there’s no clear way to make the fallout more daunting.

This dilemma might have made it difficult for The Umbrella Academy to successfully stick the landing. With so many beloved TV shows having lackluster series finales, the pressure for The Umbrella Academy to impress with its ending is already high. Fortunately, The Umbrella Academy season 3’s big twist offers the perfect solution to this problem. Rather than making the apocalypse itself bigger and better than before, the series is altering how the Hargreeves can deal with it.

Removing The Hargreeves Siblings’ Powers Solves The Final Season’s Stakes Issue

The Hargreeves Are Facing A Disadvantage They’ve Never Had Before

By removing the Hargreeves siblings’ superpowers at the end of The Umbrella Academy season 3, the Netflix show is ensuring that the stakes are higher than ever, regardless of how the apocalypse plays out in season 4. While it’s possible the Hargreeves will face another threat in the final season, it seems more likely the show will stick to its tradition of ending the world. Ramping up the intensity of those circumstances would have been difficult, but removing the Hargreeves’ means of dealing with them has the same effect. The group has never faced an apocalypse without their powers to help them.

The end of the world would be significantly harder to prevent without abilities like time travel and coming back from the dead, so the Hargreeves are in for a rude awakening in The Umbrella Academy‘s final season. They’ll have to face large-scale problems and their own mortality like ordinary people. And while it seems probable that they’ll get their powers back at some point during the show’s final run, this will make the remaining episodes a roller-coaster ride for viewers.

How The Umbrella Academy Season 4’s Main Conflict Will Be Different

Consequences Could Be Permanent Without The Hargreeves’ Powers

Whether the main conflict of The Umbrella Academy season 4 involves a fourth apocalypse or another massive problem, the Hargreeves will be ill-equipped to deal with it without their powers. This means the central conflict will differ from previous seasons of the Netflix show. For one, it seems more than likely that one of The Umbrella Academy‘s main characters will die for real this time around. That threat has always loomed over the show, but abilities like Klaus’ — and constant timeline resets — made it less likely for a major death to stick.

The group could also fail to save the world and the people they love, bringing the series to a tragic close. Although the Umbrellas and Sparrows were willing to let the world end during season 3, it’s possible they’ll change their minds about that in the final episodes. This could see them attempting to save the world and failing, putting a bleak spin on their stories. It seems less likely The Umbrella Academy will end on a fully tragic note, but stranger things have happened in the bonkers Netflix show.