The Umbrella Academy Gets A Renewal For A Fourth And Final Season From Netflix

Netflix has announced that fans of "The Umbrella Academy" will get to spend a little bit more quality time with the Hargreeves — right before the superhero family says their final farewell. The Brellies have been renewed for a fourth and final season, marking the conclusion of the hit series based on the comic book series from Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. Expect to see all your favorite return: Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min, Ritu Arya, and Colm Feore are all set to reprise their roles as members of the wildly dysfunctional superhero family.

Prepare for one last season of dance sequences, sibling showdowns, and screaming funny words like kugelblitz. But while it's sad to see "The Umbrella Academy" say their goodbyes, it's a relief that the series will get a season to wrap up rather than going out on a massive cliffhanger. Especially given Netflix's track record with canceling shows after two or three seasons.

Since Netflix released numbers aren't easy to interpret (or trust), it's hard to say exactly how well the third season went over but back in June, the series had racked up 125 million viewing hours (per Variety.) At the time, this was more than the fourth season of "Stranger Things." While those numbers don't reveal much about whether the show can complete its story, the series clearly did well enough to earn a fourth season. As for coming to an end, showrunner Steve Blackman has been hinting at this for a while; in June, he told The Wrap, "I think if we got to Season 4, it would be a great ending for the run of the show. I'm not saying I couldn't do more, but you know, I think that would be very satisfying for the audience, four seasons."

While all seasons of "The Umbrella Academy" have a penchant for throwing out the status quo, the fourth and final season is a very special case. This time, the siblings are powerless and trapped in a world ruled by Reginald Hargreeves. Four seasons into its run, the Netflix series has very much departed from its source material, so we're way past the point of turning to the comics for guidance. Instead, we look to showrunner and executive producer Steve Blackman, who's been guiding the adaptation front the very beginning. Per Netflix, Blackman said:

"The siblings are always up for a challenge. This new timeline has been dictated by Hargreeves, who reprogrammed the Universe at the end of the Season 3 finale. But because of Allison's actions, he didn't get to finish what he started before Allison pressed the reset button."

Blackman also promises that "the siblings losing their powers isn't going to be the only oddity in this timeline. There are new enemies who want to see them wiped out of existence, but how do they manage without their powers? Is there even a way to get them back? The stakes have never been greater."

As Sam Raimi once taught us with "Spider-Man 2," nothing makes a hero reevaluate their values quite like stripping them of their powers. Who will the Hargreeves be without the abilities that brought them together? And how long will it take them (this time) to realize that they're better off staying as a family?

Blackman will return to "The Umbrella Academy" as executive producer and showrunner. Although the series is coming to a close, his relationship with Netflix is going strong; he's signed on to develop two new shows for the streamer, an original called "Orbital" and an adaptation of the popular Play Station 4 game, "Horizon Zero Dark."

"Orbital" is "a thriller event series set on the International Space Station." It's an original story from David and Keith Lynch, who will co-create the series with Blackman. Though he was tightlipped on specifics, Blackman did give a hint at the tone of the upcoming series, calling it "unlike anything I've done before yet also shares my love of black humor, characters who live on the edge, and wild action sequences." He also hinted at an intriguing story, adding:

"The men and women who live on the most expensive and complex machine ever built — the International Space Station — live in the unforgiving vacuum of space. There is no Uber to call when things go bad. They can only rely on trust for each other. When that trust erodes, every action they choose can have dire consequences."

As for "Horizon Zero Dark," the game plot follows Aloy, a young huntress fighting to survive a world overrun by machines. Blackman promises that Aloy will also be the main character in this adaptation of "an incredibly lush and vivid world of man and machine who find themselves on a collision course to oblivion."

"Orbital," "Horizon Zero Dark" and the final season of "The Umbrella Academy" have yet to receive release dates.