You’d expect a show that is aware of its swan song to spend its final act wrapping up loose ends, taking a victory lap down memory lane and throwing in a few heartfelt reunions for good measure. Yet, season 4 of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix feels like the most disjointed of the bunch. Instead of rekindling old Hargreeves connections, it shuffles the characters into fresh, oddball pairings that dominate the season, leaving some stuck on the sidelines and others stranded in isolation.

The six episodes are packed with personal disquietude and long-seething grudges, all made worse by the fact that the Hargreeves siblings (Robert Sheehan as Klaus, Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison, Tom Hopper as Luther, Aidan Gallagher as Five, Elliot Page as Viktor and David Castañeda as Diego—plus non-Umbrella Academy members Justin H. Min as Ben from Sparrow Academy, and Ritu Arya as Lila) have been stripped of their powers. While we do get to see them living in their regular-human states, ranging from ‘surprisingly okay’ to ‘downright pitiful’, it’s not long before their powers come back.

In this timeline, Klaus has cleaned up his act and now shares a place with Allison and her daughter Clare. Allison juggles life with a gig doing TV commercials, while Diego and Lila are married with three kids, though Diego’s new job as a delivery guy isn’t exactly his strong suit. Viktor’s running a pub up in Canada, and Luther’s taken up a surprising new career as an exotic dancer. As for Ben, he’s just out of jail after getting busted in a crypto scam.

It seems the Hotel Oblivion timeline reset did more than just strip the Hargreeves of their powers—it left the universe’s glue so flimsy that artefacts from other timelines are now slipping through the cracks. Enter the Keepers, a conspiracy-theorist crew rocking inverted Umbrella Academy tattoos. Led by the delightfully offbeat duo Gene and Jean Thibedeau (played by Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally), they slide right into the show’s signature role: quirky, yet dangerous, antagonists.

It’s odd that the Hargreeves siblings have never had a real showdown with their father, Reginald (Colm Feore), and the final season seemed like the perfect time to address that. Instead, season 4 sidelines Reginald and awkwardly tries to redeem him not through action but by having someone blandly suggest he might be a good person. Rather than confront the father who once tried to use their souls as batteries to bring back his dead wife, Abigail (Liisa Repo-Martell), he’s conveniently pushed aside.

The charm of The Umbrella Academy has always been its chaotic brilliance, but season 4 feels off the rails. Instead of revisiting past plots like the Commission or focusing on the family’s clash with Reginald, the show sends the gang on a side quest, minimising Viktor, Luther and Diego. Meanwhile, Lila and Five, Allison and Klaus, and Ben with new character Jennifer are awkwardly paired together. Viktor, who played a significant role earlier, is now just a plot device for his powers, while Diego and Luther’s unresolved parent issues are turned into comic relief. Instead of exploring their stagnant relationships, the show forces a new romance between Lila and Five into the final season, which feels out of place and wastes valuable screen time.

Season 4 of The Umbrella Academy falls far short of the high bar set by the first two seasons, which were the series’ shining moments. Five, once a cornerstone of the show, is now a shadow of his former self. Despite his valiant efforts to save the world from yet another looming apocalypse, he never quite grabs the reins. If season 4 demonstrates anything, it’s that when the spotlight moves away from the Hargreeves, the whole narrative seems to unravel faster than a superhero’s cape in a tornado.