Oblivion
Episode 10 of The Umbrella Academy Season 3 starts with all of our characters purposefully walking through that strange room to the other hotel. Reginald tells the others to keep moving, but Five is suspicious given Klaus is apparently “lost”, despite being right behind them. As for Klaus and Luther, apparently they’re in purgatory together. Luther comes to the realization that Reginald is actually an alien and encourages Klaus to go back and warn the others of this. Luther ends up fighting Klaus here though, throwing him through various walls into different versions of the Void. The rest of the group gather in the main atrium of the other hotel and discuss their next move. Among those, Diego and Lila discuss their baby and when the best time is to break the news to everyone else. Reginald tasks everyone with finding this sigil, which appears to be the key to resetting the universe. In order to do so, each of the family members split up to go in search of this. s they leave the atrium, with these strange bugs scuttering around, Reginald contemplates whether to ring the bell. Upstairs, Five confronts Allison about the deal she’s struck with Reginald. Allison walks away in a huff, and in doing so it causes the team to become fractured. Five is separated in the hallway from the others. It appears the hotel is changing around them, spreading to all the different characters and forcing them to walk around in circles. Five manages to catch up with Ben and Sloane, who butt heads about what’s happened to their family. Allison and Viktor discuss the past but again, these wounds run deep. When Reginald rings the bell, staving off a returning Klaus that somehow manages to pop up in the hallway, the Guardian comes after each of the characters, chasing them through the hotel. After taking a nasty blow across her arm, Allison admits that she made a deal with Reginald after all. She promises that everting will be okay… but only if they make it through this in one piece. However, Viktor and Allison are separated in the labyrinth. Ben, Five and Sloane work together to take out their guardian, while Lila and Viktor find themselves working in tandem, blasting the guardian back and killing it, thanks to their combined power. Everyone reconvenes in the atrium after all this fighting, confronting Reginald about his plan. However, Five manages to figure out the puzzle. It turns out the sigil is actually on the floor. Only, as he says this, the final guardian comes tumbling down, slicing Five’s hand off (and matching up the timeline nicely in the process). A big fight breaks out, as everyone attempts to stop the guardian before it’s too late. A returning Luther suddenly pops up and slams the guardian on the ground. Bugs protrude out of its face, scuttering across the floor. Luther fades away though, as it’s revealed that Klaus was the one bringing him back… but he can’t hold it. While Five bandages up his arm, he tells the others to stand on a star on the floor to stop the guardian and save the universe. Allison stands back, while everyone else takes up their positions – including Five. Brilliant blue lightning extends out and connects them all. A spotlight soon keeps them fixed to their spo. Reginald steps up to some sort of terminal and begins pushing buttons. Allison is dumbfounded, telling her father that this was not part of their plan, especially as she realizes her family are dying. The particles inside the Seven are what’s powering this machine, as it turns out the Hotel was a façade. They’re all stuck inside a machine in another dimension. According to Reginald, whoever created the universe also built this place. Allison makes a big decision and grabs the sickle on the floor. She slices Reginald across the face, as green blood oozes out. Allison approaches the console and touches a button that looks like the Kugelblitz. And then, we fade to black. When we return to the world, all of our characters are standing at the stop that used to hold Hotel Obsidian but there’s nothing there. Allison is off in California with her family, given a happy ending for some reason, while the rest of the characters no longer have their powers anymore. Sloane is also gone. With no powers and nothing else to do, everyone goes their separate ways to try and discover what this life may actually hold for them. However, as we zoom out, we find Reginald Hargreeves is in control of the whole city, overlooking the spot where the Hotel Obsidian used to be. Not only that, he’s also with Abigail.
The Episode Review
Thankfully Netflix have already greenlit a fourth season ,which promises to be a very intriguing proposition indeed, especially if all the group no longer have their powers anymore. The final skirmish in the Hotel Oblivion was a little contrived, with no word on exactly how Luther and Klaus managed to end up there. However, we can chalk that up to Klaus’ powers I guess so it does give a bit of a way out. There are some nice ideas in this, although Allison’s character gets a happy ending despite some of the questionable things she’s done this season. There are stark parallels between her and Wanda Maximoff that are difficult to shake, and these moral compasses are becoming more skewed across different IPs. Whether this is just Hollywood being unable to distinguish the difference between right or wrong, or a nasty trope where “antiheroes” and “villains” are now interchangeable terms for these writers is anyone’s guess. Either way, it doesn’t paint her in a particularly favorable light. Despite that, there’s some good action to round things out and Ben does get a decent enough redemption at the end to see him become one of the team. At least until the very end when everyone heads off in alternate directions anyway! Quite what this means for season 4 is certainly up for debate but it should prove to be quite the dramatic series when it arrives!
