Umbrella Academy Season 4 ending explained: Who dies in the new season?

The most dysfunctional family in the multiverse is back to save the world once again as The Umbrella Academy returns for Season 4 – and it all ends here.

As Umbrella Academy Season 4 marks the end of this super powered journey, the six-episode project showcases a handful of notable deaths. 

The Hargreeves siblings once again find themselves in another multiverse that is home to a world-ending catastrophe they caused. But, this time, they have to choose between saving millions or one single sibling. 

From shocking losses to those whose fate was sealed as early as Episode 1, let’s break down everyone we lost in the final entry of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. Warning: spoilers ahead!

The Umbrella Academy Season 4 ending explained 

Season 4 ends with the Hargreeves making the ultimate sacrifice to set the multiverse on the right track.

The fourth season follows the Hargreeves as they try to save the life of their brother, Ben, as it was revealed he was the cause of this multiverse’s doomsday.

Ben’s death has been a huge secret in both previous seasons and the comics the show is based on. The only hint fans received about what happened to him were vague descriptions given by his siblings and an event only referred to as “The Jennifer Incident.”

Episode 4 explains that Ben was murdered by his father, Reginald, in the original Season 1 timeline in order to prevent him from connecting with Jennifer, a young girl who washed onto the shore of a small town inside the belly of a giant squid.

Though Jennifer had no memory of what happened to her, she and Ben continuously found one another in every version of the multiverse because they were connected by their powers.

The Hargreeves received their abilities through an alien substance known as marigold, but Jennifer’s powers were derived from durango, the exact opposite of the family’s particle source.

Because their powers are on opposing sides of the spectrum, Ben and Jennifer are destined to end the world because both marigold and durango have an unstoppable, dangerous reaction to one another.

Once they figure this out, the Hargreeves siblings track Ben and Jennifer to an abandoned department store where their opposing forces have unfortunately already begun to take effect. 

Though they try to stop the colossal monster Ben and Jennifer morph into, the marigold and durango are too powerful to overcome, leading to the siblings realizing the end of the world was inevitable.

Who dies in The Umbrella Academy Season 4?

Jean and Gene Thibedeau die in The Umbrella Academy Season 4, along with the Hargreeves siblings. In other words, everyone! 

Jean and Gene lead The Umbrella Effect movement, an organization of people who believe they’re living in the wrong timeline.

They proved the existence of the multiverse theory by collecting artifacts from previous seasons, such as a movie Alison Hargreeves starred in and toy statues of the original Umbrella Academy.

The couple used their organization to try to get Ben and Jennifer together as they believed the pair would bring about “The Cleanse” or a true reset of the timelines that would send everyone home.

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Unfortunately, both Jean and Gene are killed in an attempt to make this dream a reality, with Gene  murdered by Reginald’s wife, Abigail, who uses the skin of an Umbrella Effect member to mask her alien identity.

After assuming Gene’s face, Abigail goes on to kill Jean after growing suspicious of Gene’s increasingly erratic behavior.

As Abigail and the rest of the Umbrella Effect come face to face with Ben and Jennfer’s end of the world destruction in this version of the multiverse, Five Hargreeves comes to the realization there’s only one way to stop all of the apocalypses: the family must cease to exist.

Because marigold and durango were never meant to made in the first place, the mere existence of the Hargreeves siblings means the world would continue to be destroyed in new branches of time for eternity.

Five tells the gang that they must merge with Ben and Jennifer in order to cancel each other’s powers and set everything back to its original timeline, which is the one we saw all the way back in Season 1.

In one final act of super heroism, the Hargreeves family are killed one last time, destroying all of the multiverse branches and allowing the world to live in peace in a single timeline.

The Umbrella Academy Seasons 1-4 are streaming now. For more, check out our guides to Netflix’s Virgin River Season 6, Stranger Things Season 5, and Heartstopper Season 3. You can also check out other TV shows streaming in August.