What happened to Ben in The Umbrella Academy season 4? Character’s fate explained

The Umbrella Academy season 4 is the final season of the Netflix original series, an adaptation of Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's graphic novel series of the same name. One longstanding mystery of the show is the death of the original timeline's Ben Hargreeves, which is a mystery for his surviving siblings.

Eventually, it's revealed that in the series's original timeline, Ben was sent on a mission by Reginald to retrieve a dangerous weapon by Reginald. Unbeknownst to Ben, this weapon turned out to be a person named Jennifer, who was locked inside a container.

Soon after Ben opened the container and let her out, Reginald arrived and killed them both. This is eventually revealed to be because Jennifer was a carrier of durango, while Ben was a carrier of marigold, and thanks to the two meeting, a world-ending cataclysm known as the Cleansing would begin.

In The Umbrella Academy season 4, Ben eventually reunites with Jennifer and unleashes another Cleansing. The rest of the Hargreeves siblings allow themselves to be consumed by the Cleansing to reset the broken timelines and create a world without superpowers.

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The Umbrella Academy season 4 reveals Ben nearly unleashed the Cleansing

Ben's death had been a driving mystery throughout the series, and the truth behind it changes what everyone thought they knew.

The existence of the Durango clarifies why Reginald's wife, Abigail, died in the first place, and why Reginald has been so secretive and cold towards his adoptive children all the time.

After Reginald murdered Ben and Jennifer in the original timeline to stop the Cleansing, he wiped the memories of the other Hargreeves siblings to cover up the whole affair and ensure they remained oblivious to his true plans.

In The Umbrella Academy season 4, the Hargreeves siblings get dragged into a plot to unleash another Cleansing by the Keepers, whose members Gene and Jean are convinced that the current timeline is broken and that the only way to save the world is to reset everything.

The Keepers succeed in bringing Ben and Jennifer into contact again, accomplishing their plans. The Hargreeves siblings are unable to stop what comes next, as Ben's marigold and Jennifer's durango fuse to create a timeline-consuming monster.

However, Five ends up meeting his variants in the Max’s Delicatessen diner and learns that he and the Hargreeves siblings have been responsible for the end of the world in countless timeliness. They will likely continue to be, given the unstable nature of their powers and personalities.

Realizing that the only way to save the world is for all the Hargreeves siblings to be cleansed from existence, Five convinces the Umbrella Academy siblings to willingly sacrifice themselves so that the original timeline can be restored where nobody has any superpowers.

As a result, The Umbrella Academy season 4 ends with a new timeline being formed, where the Hargreeves siblings never existed and where there are no superpowers. The mid-credits scene of the final episode, though, reveals that the Hargreeves siblings might have left a mark even in this new universe, with eight marigold flowers sprouting underneath a tree.

When asked about what those flowers signified, showrunner Steve Blackman said:

"You can assume many things from that. We can assume that some essence of Marigold still exists somewhere in the world.

"It may do nothing ever again. And it could just be flowers, or it could be what’s left of them because there happens to be eight flowers. And a couple of them kind of turn into each other."

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The Umbrella Academy season 4 premiered on Netflix on August 8, 2024, and is available for viewing in all regions.