The Umbrella Academy - Oblivion Television 

Five Thoughts On The Umbrella Academy‘s “Oblivion”

By | August 24th, 2022
Posted in Television | % Comments

Hello Multiversity readers, and welcome to the season three finale of The Umbrella Academy. We’ve been building up this point of going through the mystery portal with the academy kids and Reginald Hargreeves. Now that the kugelblitz has destroyed the universe they previously knew, they have no choice but to see what is on the other side and try to save the universe…again.

1. Where’s Klaus?
As soon as the episode starts, the team realizes that Klaus is no longer behind them and didn’t make it to the new dimension through the portal. Reginald is the last one and says he just missed it when he shut the door on Klaus while saying he was worth more trouble than he was worth. It becomes a wrinkle for Reginald’s oblivion plan because Five is all the more suspicious of him, and between Luther’s death and now Klaus’, it seems like things are all wrong for the team. Reginald, at this point, though, doesn’t seem too concerned about Five’s theories because he’s finally gotten over to this different dimension, so at this point, it doesn’t even matter what the kids think about him; it’s just a matter of what exactly he is going to do.

2. The Guardians
Once the dust settles from the accusations towards Reginald and the reminder that the end of the world is in place, the kids are sent searching throughout the Hotel Oblivion in teams of 2-3. Reginald moves his plan forward and hits the bell in the hotel lobby to unleash The Guardians to attack the kids. It’s a mix of Mortal Kombat and The Shining with these samurai-inspired warriors going up against the academy kids and their abilities. It’s not nearly as gruesome or bloody, but it is fun to see the mash-ups, such as Viktor and Lila, using their psychic abilities to unleash an EMP-like blast to stop one of them in place. Ben from the Sparrow Academy does get a heroic moment for helping out Five and Sloane by getting into the fight to help hold the guardian they fought in place too. This is the big boss battle scene we’ve been waiting for all season, as most of the fighting has been more with wordplay than actual weapons and strategy.

3. Ethereal Plane
Just because Luther and Klaus didn’t make it to the next dimension doesn’t mean they don’t get any screen time in this season finale. Luther gets to check out the ethereal plane Klaus has been going to between his resurrections. It gives off a purgatory vibe because he’s usually isolated in a random area, such as in this episode where he and Luther are eating pizza in the desert while watching a documentary. While Klaus knows the plane well and considers it his “home,” Luther is upset about his lack of effort to get back to the others. To Klaus’ benefit, the man he once again started to trust left him behind for no reason other than he’s in too much trouble, and the siblings are pretty hot and cold towards him. Only being married for a couple of episodes changed Luther and gave him the internal fire to fight for his wife and family. Luther chases Klaus throughout the plane, and despite being unable to cause physical pain, it annoys him to the point of getting Klaus to help. It’s a quirky interaction but one that allows the audience to see the bond that these two have and a reminder of how loyal, to a fault, Luther is to help those that he cares about.

4. Sci-Fi Jump
Now, this show has always found a nice balance of reality and fiction, using characters with strange abilities while inside real-world scenarios. However, this season finale took it to a different level with the involvement of science fiction. Reginald’s oblivion plan hung on them finding a sigil somewhere in the hotel, and Five ultimately does by using the kids as points in the lobby that would end up starting the machine. Reginald and Allison escape being trapped by the machine, and he immediately begins to press buttons and move things around as if he’d known where to go. In the previous episode, when Reginald killed Luther, we noticed that this weird, blue lobster-like claw went in and out of his arm sleeve, revealing that whatever this Reginald is, it certainly isn’t human. This show certainly has weird and quirky notes, but jumping into this out-of-nowhere alien storyline is out of left field. It was an odd cop-out for everything going on, yet there was an element of truth with saving the universe they’d know.

5. New World Order
In the last minute, “What does this button do” moment Allison pushes a flashing button after smashing Reginald’s head in, and the world gets the big reset. The audience is aware of some weird Catch-22 situation because not only does she get reunited with her daughter Claire, but her husband Ray, who she met in 1961, is there in modern times. Thankfully it doesn’t end there, and the rest of the Umbrella Academy crew steps out of an elevator and quickly realizes the world is “restored,” but none of them have any powers. Other than the alien thing that grabbed my attention, in a what the heck way, it’s a pretty twisted ending. The final shot of the episode is Reginald standing inside of a massive building, of which there are many that he seems to own, holding hands with a strange woman. This show gives way more questions than answers, but for now, this is all of The Umbrella Academy we have, for now.


//TAGS | The Umbrella Academy

Alexander Manzo

Alexander is born and raised in the Bay Area. When not reviewing comics for Multiversity he's usually writing his own review for his Instagram @comicsandbeerreport. He's also a sports fan so feel free to hit him up on twitter with any and all sports takes @a_manzo510.

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