The Umbrella Academy: What Is the Cleanse in Season 4?

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy Season 4.

The Cleanse is The Umbrella Academy Season 4’s big new concept – and it means different things to different characters. So what is The Umbrella Academy‘s Cleanse really, and is there any way to beat it?

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The Umbrella Academy Season 4’s Cleanse, Explained

The Umbrella Academy Season 4’s “Cleanse” concept is first introduced by Gene and Jean Thibedeau – the married couple who head up quasi-cult, the Keepers. According to Gene and Jean, the Cleanse is an almost spiritual event that will reinstate the Umbrella Academy universe’s original timeline. And as eccentric as Gene, Jean, and their Keeper minions are, it turns out they’re not far off the truth! Later on in Season 4, we learn that the Cleanse is an apocalyptic event triggered when Marigold – the alien particle that gives the Hargreeves siblings their superpowers – interacts with its opposite, Durango. This intel comes from Reginald Hargreeves’ wife, Abigail, who created Marigold and Durango.

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“Years ago, I synthesized a new element,” Abigail explains. “The very essence of the universe. The particle we know as Marigold. And at the same moment, unbeknownst to me, a second particle was created: Durango. When Marigold and Durango interact, they cause… a reaction, a physical reaction. Unstoppable, irrevocable. The extinction of everything we know.” We eventually see this scenario play out in The Umbrella Academy Season 4’s finale. Here, Ben Hargreeves (full of Marigold) and Jennifer (full of Durango) merge into a hybrid being, the Cleanse monster, and set about trashing the place. Our heroes figure out the only way to stop the Cleanse is to surrender to it, as doing so will erase them from existence and reset the timeline (just as the Keepers hoped!).

Is There Any Other Way to Beat the Cleanse?

No, The Umbrella Academy Season 4 makes it clear that the Cleanse is effectively invincible. The only way to “defeat” it is for the Brellies to let it win by removing their Marigold and its Durango from the timeline. As noted above, doing so also restores the show’s splintered timelines into a single, stable reality. So, sad as it may seem, a Cleanse victory is kinda necessary. After all, the alternative is planetary-scale destruction! Showrunner Steve Blackman confirmed this in a recent Tudum interview, while discussing the post-Cleanse fate of Reginald and Abigail’s home planet.

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“[Reginald and Abigail’s world] doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “Very few people survived. Hargreeves and a few other people got away, and Abigail was saved, but everyone else suffered from the Cleanse disease. And the Cleanse did exactly what it did to Earth on that planet. [Because Marigold] and Durango together created the Cleanse monster, the same kind of thing. And their whole planet was consumed faster than ours was.”

The Umbrella Academy Season 4 is currently streaming on Netflix.