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The Umbrella Academy Season 4: What Do The Flowers In The Mid-Credit Scene Mean? Explained
The Hargreeves sacrificed themselves to restore the main timeline, and they were represented by glowing flowers.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy season 4.
The Umbrella Academy ended on one of the saddest and most hopeful notes, complete with a very emotional mid-credits scene. It has been an emotionally and physically exhausting season for the Hargreeves: an individual apocalypse to follow on from their impersonal one in Season 3. It ended with Reginald as the most powerful man, leaving the Hargreeves and Lila six years afterward in this new timeline sans powers.
Having separated and moved on, the Hargreeves reunite for a rescue mission to look for Jennifer. The mission results in shocking revelations regarding Jennifer, Ben's death, their linkage to Jennifer, and the end of the world. Five learns that his sacrifice is the only way to set right the multiverse and restore the main timeline. The Hargreeves erase themselves from history, but season 4 ended with an emotional tribute for them.
The glowing marigold flowers
Jennifer, who is the host for the Durango particle, and Abigail, Reginald's wife, created the marigold particle and the Durango particle. Abigail explained to the members of the Umbrella Academy that contact of Durango with a marigold initiates an unstoppable physical reaction: The Cleanse. Unbeknownst to Ben, he got too close to Jennifer, set off the Cleanse, and the end of the world. Jennifer and Ben turn into this monstrous creature that consumed everything, growing until it destroyed the world.
At a subway station, Five met his variants and explained that when marigolds arrived on Earth, the timeline shattered into a multiverse, and the Hargreeves were doomed to just keep ending the world in loops. It would only be possible to restore the main line with the Cleanse eating all the marigolds. The Hargreeves sacrificed themselves, and when the Cleanse finally consumed them, the main timeline had been successfully restored.
The finale of The Umbrella Academy Season 4 shows that the main timeline and all the characters from the previous seasons are living differently sans the Hargreeves. It is because, through the sacrifice of the Hargreeves, they have been erased from history, which means that nobody remembers them. But a mid-credit scene pays tribute to the Hargreeves and Lila-eight golden flowers blossoming next to a tree, symbolic of their sacrifice for their safety.
This is further extended in the mid-credits scene of The Umbrella Academy season 4, where viewers can see gold flowers puffing out particles, similar to marigolds, insinuating that the Hargreeves truly can come back. However, they are very likely not marigolds, and the sparkles were a visual confirmation. Since the main timeline reinstated the Hargreeves, that would mean the marigolds never reached Earth, and their existence was never confirmed.
Because, literally, it is the marigolds that brought the 43 children into the world since they were born to women that were not pregnant that morning. In other words, without the marigolds, they didn't exist, so no way the Hargreeves come back to life, and it's understood they didn't get variants in this new timeline.
The Umbrella Academy season 4 was full of themes related to family, love, and sacrifice-especially as the Hargreeves reunited after the splits. Allison, Diego, and Lila, being the ones who already have families, opted to send them to safety before their sacrifice. The flowers are a memorial of their sacrifice-to show that even though their respective families may not remember them now, it was not in vain.
The Hargreeves siblings choosing to die was a disappointing ending
Season 4 of The Umbrella Academy frustrated its audience with the fate that was chosen for all Hargreeves against what was expected from the main characters. The dysfunctional tale of the family eventually comes to a really bleak point at the end, and it does not get off to a great start in the final season to maintain the fun feeling that the previous episodes set up. The series gets really somber at the end and leans way too far into that during the finale.
The unsatisfying conclusion to The Umbrella Academy was due to a jumbled tone and a lack of major storyline and family issues resolved. It's even sadder that such underdeveloped reasons for the death of the Hargreeves are there. Five's insistence on their deaths is out of place, making it hard to rewatch and rendering previous seasons pointless.
The ending of The Umbrella Academy-End of the Beginning-makes the series for naught since it doesn't happen after the events of season 4. It also points out the sacrifices of the Hargreeves, stating they cannot exist in this reset timeline and that no one from the family would ever remember them. It also doesn't quite make sense for Allison's daughter, Diego's, and Lila's kids to survive since the only hope for their survival would be their existence.
The fact that, in the end, none of the events happening in The Umbrella Academy occur leaves the viewer wondering why they even bothered to watch it develop. All that character growth and world-saving shenanigans went null and void, and season 4 didn't explain it enough for it to be okay. Perhaps with a little more build-up to Ben and Jennifer ending the world or more of a connection to the characters that make it to the main timeline, that sacrifice might have felt earned. Unfortunately, the way it is executed doesn't quite work.
ALSO READ: The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Ending Explained: What Happened to The Hargreeves Siblings At The End?
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