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Umbrella Academy season 3 finale spoilers follow.

The Umbrella Academy is chaos incarnate, and the writing revels in that like Klaus rolling around in lines of coke. So of course, the season three finale is no exception to this, throwing yet another wild cliffhanger our way.

But this ending isn't just your bog-standard game-changer, as previous cliffhangers have been. This one also reframes the entire show into something completely new.

The final episode of season three kicks off with Reginald lying about Luther and Klaus. Yes, they are dead, but no, it wasn't just the Kugelblitz that claimed them. Reginald was directly responsible for both of their deaths, something which Five suspects almost immediately.

Meanwhile, dead Luther and dead Klaus fight in an ethereal bouncy castle in the afterlife because that's just what this show is now.

After Reginald brushes off both Five and Allison, he splits everyone into teams so that they can search the Oblivion Obsidian Hotel for the sigil. It's supposed to be the key to restoring the universe which has now crumbled everywhere except here, beyond the White Buffalo Suite.

Except, Reginald has been misleading us all. Of course. With everyone confused and in position, he decides to ring the bells, which alerts the guardians to their presence. Then, as our heroes finally decide to use their powers in a season which has noticeably lacked said powers, Allison admits to Viktor that she made a deal with Reginald.

"I did this for all of us," says Allison. "I need you to trust me. If we get through this, everything's going to be okay."

But will it though? After some kick-ass fight scenes and a surprise victory over all the guardians, everything seems okay. That is, until Klaus suddenly reappears from the dead and confirms that Reginald did indeed kill Luther.

Daddy Hargreeves has a plan though. "Somewhere in this hotel is the key to restoring the universe," he reminds them. And then another guardian shows up, mortally wounding Five and Klaus. Luther returns just in time to save the day, but he's only there as a ghost summoned by a dying Klaus, so there's not a lot of time for his sad goodbye with Sloane.

Is it a bit silly that they're already married after knowing each other for like a day? Sure, but Luther's pretty silly too, and Sloane's a catch, so we approve nonetheless.

Meanwhile, gooey cockroaches appear on the final guardian's face again, because, like a cockroach, he's tough to kill. In response, Reginald quickly commands everyone to stand on the sigil symbols that Five spotted on the lobby floor, except Allison, because clearly some messed-up shit's coming and he doesn't want his only ally to be affected too.

With seven Umbrellas and Sparrows united, the energy balls that power their gifts from inside create a combined lightning-like force that sweeps out and destroys the guardian. And with that, everything falls away to reveal a cheap, Netflix version of the Matrix. Reginald saw this coming, of course, and in fact, he wanted this to happen.

As everyone's life force is sucked away by Reginald's apparatus, the world's worst father reveals that, "The hotel was just a facade... It's a machine in other dimension. Whoever created the universe used this machine."

At this point, it's still unclear what Reginald wants to achieve, but if you cast your minds back, you'll remember that in season one, Reginald released some of this energy out of a jar and into the sky on his alien homeworld. Rockets launched all around him to unknown destinations before Hargreeves departed for earth, tracking down the energy that gave the children their powers back on October 1, 1989.

While this explained how Reginald knew all these miraculous babies would develop superpowers on the same day, the show never explained exactly why he needed the children and their gifts. But now, we know.

Using said gifts, his children are now strong enough to defeat the guardians and bring their unique energy into this machine hidden away in the hotel that Reginald built. As he points out now in these disturbing last moments, the particles inside their bodies are the only things that can fuel this device.

"You're killing them," cries Allison as she watches the energy get sucked out of her siblings. "Everything in life has a price," replies Reginald, the ultimate capitalist. Realising the mistake she's made, Allison tries to use her rumour powers on Hargreeves, but they can't break through a force field that's been erected around him.

So instead, Allison grabs an axe off the floor and forces her way through. With that, the sigil is broken, so all of her now drained, zombie-like siblings are released. And before Reginald can stop her, Allison then uses the axe to slice off a large chunk of his head. Even alien Hargreeves can't survive that, or so you'd think. Because yes, his bloody corpse is now stretched out on the floor, but we haven't reached the end just yet...

As everyone starts to recover, Allison eyes a button on the computer console that pretty much screams, "Don't press me." But aren't those the most enticing buttons to press?

Despite her sibling's protests, Allison gives in and presses the button. Wouldn't you? And with that, everything fades away...

We then cut to Allison stepping out of a taxi in the rain. The house she enters is clearly familiar to her because she knows about the key hidden under a pot outside. In she goes to find Claire, her child, now alive and well, no longer erased by timeline meddling. And then her husband shows up too, giving Allison the happy ending she's always longed for.

But is this real? Did Reginald's machine rewrite reality to give Allison what she wanted? That would certainly explain why he stopped her from joining the others in the sigil, and that would also explain why she decided to press that button. That must have been the deal they made, because Reginald knew that he could manipulate her with the promise of seeing Claire again.

It's also possible that Allison is simply dead now, enjoying her perfect life in heaven. But that doesn't explain away her button-pushing so easily. And would she really be in heaven after everything she's done, especially this season with Luther? On top of all that, Allison's death here also wouldn't explain what happened to everyone else too.

Because we then cut to the others stepping out of an elevator into a courtyard which turns out to be the Obsidian Memorial Park. In the middle is a statue of Reginald's face, which was donated by him on October 1, 1989. A curious choice of date indeed...

Luther also steps out, alive and well somehow. He's also got his regular body back, without all the gorilla hair and muscle. Diego's fingers have grown back too, and Five's arm is back where it should be as well.

Everything seems good, until the Umbrellas suddenly realise that they no longer have their powers. That's likely because of the machine which drained them of the energy particles that power these gifts. But it could potentially also have something to do with this new timeline everyone finds themselves in.

With Sloane missing, Luther runs off to find his wife, and Klaus goes after him. Sparrow Ben, the only Sparrow remaining, says "I'm out bitches" and leaves too, in classic Sparrow-Ben style.

When Diego questions what everyone should do next, Lila suggests they simply live their lives, so off everyone goes, leaving behind just Viktor, who calls the Reginald statue an "asshole" before heading off too.

Given everything they've just been through, not to mention this weird new world they find themselves in, it does seem odd that the Umbrellas would all split up and abandon each other that quickly. Sure, an easy, powerless life is what most of them have longed for, and maybe they're just fed up of all this repetitive apocalypse BS, but still, do they care that little for each other at this point?

Looking ahead, we imagine it won't be long before the Hargreeves children rally again when they realise how bleak this world actually is.

Because, in the final moments of the season, we pan up away from the courtyard to reveal a cityscape dominated by numerous buildings named after Reginald. It seems as though Hargreeves has remade the world in his own image, positioning himself alive and well at the top of it all like a ruler surveying his kingdom. And most shockingly of all, his wife, Abigail Hargreeves is alive, standing there next to him.

Mommy Hargreeves last appeared properly in season one flashbacks when she told Reginald to leave their alien homeworld without her.

"I will die here, but you won’t," she said. "I won't allow it. The world needs you, Reggie."

Since then, we've only seen Abigail briefly on the moon in what we presume was a stasis container labelled A13G5. So it seems that Reginald always held onto the idea of bringing her back, and now he has using the inter-dimensional machine hidden away in his hotel.

In the comics, this hotel was a secret prison designed to contain the Umbrella Academy's greatest foes. But here, Obsidian was all part of a much larger scheme to "fix" the world, according to Hargreeves' vision.

And yes, the way that Reginald constantly manipulates, abuses, and even kills people is abhorrent. Make no mistake about that. But it turns out that he did it all for love. In fact, every single thing that's happened on this show is a direct result of Reginald trying to bring Abigail back.

From releasing the energy particles on his planet to building the hotel around this bizarre machine, not to mention him training up the children who housed said particles, everything has led to this moment, to Reginald powering the one machine that could bring his wife back from the dead.

So, when you think about it in those terms, The Umbrella Academy is actually a love story, albeit one that's twisted and traumatic and all kinds of messed up for everyone else involved. But still kind of cute, right?

With all these revelations, season four will likely be a very different beast from the borderline repetitive apocalypse showdowns that fans have become used to. And Sparrow Ben's journey to Yeouido could be the key to all of this if that sneaky post-credits scene is to be believed...

The Umbrella Academy season 3 is now available to stream on Netflix.