Umbrella Academy: Season 1's Cliffhanger Ending Explained

Netflix's new comic book adaptation The Umbrella Academy, developed for TV by Steve Blackman, sees a group of super-powered siblings racing against the clock to prevent a coming apocalypse - and season 1 ends with an almighty cliffhanger. Here we'll break down the twists and turns of The Umbrella Academy season 1's ending, the clues that were scattered along the way, and what it means for the future... so to speak.

The Umbrella Academy kicks off with a flashback detailing how its main characters came into the world. At midday on October 1, 1989, 43 women around the world suddenly went into labor and gave birth, despite not having previously shown any signs of being pregnant. We see one of these babies being born in Russia, and the Umbrella Academy founder Sir Reginald Hargreeves rushing to buy it from its mother. Given that the baby appears to be a girl, having been dressed in pink, it's safe to assume that this is Vanya - and that Vanya's "mom," Grace, gave her a Russian name because of her origins.

Though she's kept distant from her siblings by Sir Reginald and told throughout her childhood that she's not special in any way, Vanya is ultimately revealed to be the most powerful member of the Umbrella Academy. Because of her outsider status, she is overlooked by Five in his hunt for the cause of the apocalypse, and that blind spot ends up having catastrophic consequences.

This Page: What Happens At The End of The Umbrella Academy Season 1
Page 2: The White Violin, Klaus' New Ability and The Umbrella Academy's Escape
Page 3: The Real Meaning of The Umbrella Academy Season 1's Ending

What Happens At The End of The Umbrella Academy Season 1

Vanya plays violin in The Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy season finale, "The White Violin," opens with an intriguing flashback to Sir Reginald's life before founding the Academy, in the year 1928. He brings a violin to his dying wife, who tells him that he should take it with him when he leaves, and find someone else to give it to who will love it as much as she did. Sir Reginald then goes to the window and we see a glimpse of where he came from: a field manned by farming robots, and ominous looking rockets taking off in the distance. It's unclear where exactly this takes place, and it's worth noting that in the comics Sir Reginald is actually an alien, so this scene could well be set on another planet - with Sir Reginald leaving to escape his own planet's apocalypse. We'll likely learn more in season 2, but it's interesting to see that Sir Reginald's ship departs from Pier 7 - the same number as the number of children he adopts.

Back in the present day, Vanya is liberated from her prison and stalks through the house, experiencing visions of her siblings as children, telling her to go away. She destroys their rooms with her powers one by one. As the house starts to collapse, Klaus and Diego are hit by falling rubble and knocked to the ground. As a chunk of ceiling falls down towards them, Klaus uses his newfound abilities to allow Ben to physically manifest, so that he can pull them both to safety.

Pogo intercepts Vanya, temporarily calming her down and causing her eyes to return to normal. He keeps her distracted while her siblings escape the building, making brief eye contact with Luther and Allison as they leave. Vanya asks if Pogo knew about her powers, and after trying to explain why her father suppressed them, Pogo admits that he did know all along. Vanya unleashed her powers again, picking Pogo up, throwing him across the room, and impaling him on the antlers of a stuffed deer head. Grace is also destroyed when the house collapses, last seen blowing a kiss to Diego through an upstairs window.

Five arrives with the revelation that the apocalypse has not, as they'd previously thought, been prevented. He realizes that while he assumed the Academy was destroyed along with everything else, it was actually destroyed before the apocalypse happened - and that Vanya herself went on to cause the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Vanya returns to collect her violin and heads to the concert where she is scheduled to give a solo performance.

Hazel talks to Anges, who is tied to a chair

The Handler, having caught up with Hazel and Cha-Cha, tells them that Five sent them the instructions to kill one another in order to distract them, and gives them a new mission: protect Vanya Hargreeves. At first Hazel seems to go along with the mission, driving the two of them to the city to look for Vanya, but he tells Cha-Cha that The Handler was lying to them, and that the mission they're on is a suicide mission. They follow Vanya's bus to the concert hall, but as she enters Hazel slams his foot down on the accelerator, driving both of them at top speed into a concrete barrier. Cha-Cha, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, is violently thrown through the windshield and lands on the road ahead, unmoving. Hazel then returns to The Handler and interrupts one of her many speeches by shooting her in the head, before enjoying a romantic reunion with Agnes.

After a strategy meeting at a bowling alley is interrupted by the arrival of agents from The Commission, the Umbrella Academy members make their way to the concert hall, having realized that Vanya intends to fulfil her original plans for the evening. Allison begs Luther to let her see Vanya alone and try to make her see reason, and he agrees... but only so that Allison can distract Vanya while he and Diego attack her. The attack fails, with Vanya blasting Luther and Diego away with her powers and causing the audience to panic and flee. The Commission's agents then catch up, with their mission of protecting Vanya, and begin firing into the stalls to prevent the Umbrella Academy from reaching her.

Once again, Klaus' new ability comes to the rescue. He causes Ben to completely manifest, so that the others can see him as well, and Ben uses his deadly tentacles to tear The Commission's agents to pieces. Cha-Cha also arrives on the scene, badly injured but not yet dead, and fights with Diego. However, just when he has her at his mercy, Diego remembers what Five said about murder being a poor way to honor Detective Patch's memory, and spares Cha-Cha's life.

The Earth explodes in The Umbrella Academy

In a final gambit, Luther, Diego, Klaus, and Five all attack Vanya from different angles, but she easily knocks them away and holds them suspended in the air with tentacles of light, slowly choking them to death. Allison appears behind Vanya, pointing a gun at the back of her head, but cannot bring herself to kill her sister. Instead she fires the gun right next to Vanya's ear, disrupting her hearing and her powers, and causing her to fall to the ground, unconscious. The Umbrella Academy briefly celebrate having stopped the apocalypse, but once again their celebration proves to be premature. As she fell, Vanya fired a beam of energy through the glass dome the ceiling and at the moon, causing it to crack open and hurl meteors towards the Earth - along with one massive chunk of rock.

Realizing that they've failed again, Five says that there's only one way for them to survive the apocalypse: by jumping through time with him. Given their lack of options, the others agree, and all hold hands, with Luther holding Vanya's unconscious body. As the time portal ripples around them, they de-age in the same way that Five did, becoming children again before vanishing. Hazel and Agnes also escape the apocalypse using the briefcase that was stashed in a vent at the hotel. However, everyone else - Cha-Cha included - is killed by the falling meteors.

Page 2: The White Violin, Klaus' New Ability and The Umbrella Academy's Escape

Vanya Becomes The White Violin

An interesting detail in The Umbrella Academy's climactic final scenes is that, as Vanya performs her solo and unleashes the full potential of her powers, the suit she is wearing and the violin she inherited from Sir Reginald turn white. This is a nod to the comics by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, upon which The Umbrella Academy is based. In the miniseries "The Apocalypse Suite" - the direct influence for The Umbrella Academy season 1 - Vanya is captured by a villainous orchestra and transformed by the Conductor using Hargreeves' notes. Her skin, eyes and hair turn deathly white and she is given a white violin, which she uses to channel her powers.

In the TV show, obviously, things are slightly different. While Harold Jenkins serves as a villain in the latter half of the season, serving a similar role to the Conductor by teaching Vanya how to unleash her powers using Reginald Hargreeves' notes, Vanya ultimately makes the final transition to full-blown villainy by herself.

Klaus' New Ability Is A Game-Changer

Like Vanya, Klaus' abilities were suppressed - not by Sir Reginald, who was eager for Klaus to explore his full potential, but by Klaus himself. Sir Reginald tried to bring Klaus' powers to the forefront and cure him of his fear of the dead by locking him up in a mausoleum all night, but all he succeeded in doing was traumatizing Klaus so that, as an adult, he went to great lengths to avoid seeing the dead. Just as Vanya's anxiety medication kept her docile and stopped her from being able to use her powers, Klaus' constant abuse of drugs and alcohol dampened his abilities until the only ghost he could consistently see was Ben.

When Klaus finally manages to get sober in an effort to see the love of his life again, the chemical haze that has been blocking his full potential is finally lifted. He doesn't have complete control of it just yet, and it seems to be triggered by a rush of panic or adrenaline. The three times that we see Klaus use his new powers are when he gets in a fight with Ben and tries to get high again, when he sees the ceiling falling and realizes he and Diego are about to die, and when he and his siblings are pinned down by The Commission's agents. During this final manifestation of his powers we see Klaus appear to exert some measure of control, his hands glowing blue as he gives Ben a physical form.

This isn't quite the same as being able to bring the dead back to life, but it's definitely a game-changer. Klaus can now not only see ghosts himself - he can also give them a physical form so that others can see them as well. More importantly, his new ability means that Ben is off the bench and able to take part in fights again, using his formidable abilities. That is... if Ben is still dead.

Where Did The Umbrella Academy Time Travel To?

One of the most intriguing aspects of the circling shot that shows the de-aged members of the Umbrella Academy is that Ben, despite being a ghost that usually only Klaus can see, has also been de-aged. It's unclear what exactly the physics of ghosts are in The Umbrella Academy's world, which is a blend of science fiction and fantasy, but the fact that we see Ben as a child means it's possible his death may have somehow been undone. This is just a theory, of course, but it would be interesting to see Ben fully back on the team in season 2 - not to mention how useful it is to have his powers on the team.

The bigger question, however, is exactly what time period the Umbrella Academy time-travelled to. One possibility is that they could have simply gone back eight days again, and will have a third chance to prevent the apocalypse... though that could risk season 2 feeling like too much of a retread of season 1. What may be more likely, given the season finale's cold open, is that they will travel back in time to 1928 and meet Sir Reginald as a younger man. That way the audience can learn more about the backstory of this enigmatic character, and the Umbrella Academy could avert the apocalypse by saving Vanya from her miserable childhood. No matter where they end up, the fact that they've seemingly all been turned into children is probably going to throw a wrench in the works.

There's also the question of where Hazel and Agnes ended up after jumping away using the briefcase. It's possible that we've seen the last of these two characters, and that Hazel will enjoy a happy retirement of bird-watching and donut-eating with the love of his life. Then again, he could also prove to be a valuable ally if he ends up traveling to the same time period as the Umbrella Academy.

Page 3: The Real Meaning of The Umbrella Academy Season 1's Ending

The Real Meaning of The Umbrella Academy Season 1's Ending

The big twist of The Umbrella Academy season 1's ending is that not only were the Umbrella Academy unable to stop the apocalypse, they actually made it happen. At its very root, the apocalypse was caused by Sir Reginald Hargreeves. He raised the Umbrella Academy from children to be fighters and to always think of violence and force as the best solution (note the illustrations in the hall outside their bedrooms, teaching them how to kick and punch and gouge for maximum damage). He chose to suppress Vanya's powers when he decided that they were too dangerous, and to use Allison's abilities to convince Vanya that there was nothing special about her, leading to a lifetime of feeling inadequate. He kept her separate from her siblings, taking away a support system that she desperately needed. Essentially, he made her into a ticking time bomb.

However, Sir Reginald isn't entirely to blame. The Umbrella Academy members absolutely could have stopped the apocalypse, and were given multiple opportunities to do so. They could have included Vanya in their discussions and planning, instead of leaving her out so that the only person she could turn to was Leonard Peabody (a.k.a. Harold Jenkins). When Vanya returned to the Academy after cutting Allison's throat, Luther could have shown her compassion and forgiveness instead of offering her a hug and then betraying her by squeezing her into unconsciousness. Vanya's siblings also could have let her out of the prison cell when she begged them to, instead of walking away.

Ironically, the Umbrella Academy's desperation to stop the apocalypse may actually have been what caused it to happen. We don't know exactly what happened in the original timeline, but it's clear that they similarly came together to try and fight Vanya. Both times, the fighting is what caused her to unleash the full extent of her powers, destroying the moon and causing the meteors to crash down to Earth. If the Umbrella Academy had simply allowed Allison to go into the concert hall alone to see Vanya, the apocalypse would likely have been completely averted. Before Luther and Diego attack Vanya on stage, we see her share a warm, sisterly smile with Allison in the audience, as Allison looks up at her and finally appreciates her brilliance.

The Umbrella Academy season 1's ending is an interesting subversion of the superhero genre, which is so often about characters simply trying to beat each other by being the most powerful person in the room. In this case, the one way to save the world would have been to stop fighting, since Vanya's strength is fueled by the lack of love in her life and her anger at her siblings. Harold Jenkins may have been the fuse, but Vanya's own siblings were the accelerant.

The truly clever thing about The Umbrella Academy season 1 is that while Five is searching for clues to what caused the apocalypse - like the prosthetic eyeball and The Commission's instructions to protect Harold Jenkins - the show was actually giving us the real clues all along by fleshing out each of the characters, their upbringing, and their strained relationships. The Umbrella Academy was telling us how the apocalypse happened, but not in the way you'd expect. And by the the time the audience and the characters realize the true cause... it's already too late.