‘The Umbrella Academy’ season 4: What is the Cleanse?

First, there was the moon explosion, then the nuclear holocaust, and finally, the Kugelblitz. Season 4 of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy couldn’t avoid its own apocalyptic event, a mysterious phenomenon known as the Cleanse.

Warning: the following article contains spoilers for season 4 of The Umbrella Academy.

Season 4 of The Umbrella Academy introduces the Keepers, an underground network of people who share memories of different timelines. These people believe they live in a fake world and work towards unleashing the Cleanse. In their worldview, the Cleanse is a process through which the fake reality is erased, and people can return to the original timeline.

Things get more complicated once it’s revealed Marigold, the source of the Hargreeves’ powers, is a substance designed by Abigail (Colm Feore), Sir Reginald’s (Lisa Repo-Martell) wife. Abigail wanted to craft an element that echoed the creation energy of the universe itself, but she accidentally developed a second substance, Durango. Together, Durango and Marigold give birth to an unstoppable monster capable of destroying the entire planet. That’s exactly what happens in the series finale when Ben (Justin H. Min) and Jennifer (Victoria Sawal) fuse their flesh and give birth to the Cleanse monster.

So, what is the Cleanse? Is it the key to fixing the timeline or a monstrous apocalypse? Well, the answer is both.

The Cleanse is a world-eating monster and timeline-fixing technology

When Abigail created Marigold, she tried to play god. The universe’s response made Durango appear out of thin air to fix Abigail’s mistake. The Cleanse monster seeks Marigold to absorb, as its purpose is to unite it with its Durango so that both substances can cancel each other. Left alone, the monster would only grow bigger and stronger, eventually devouring the whole world. However, the Hargreeves siblings decide to sacrifice themselves to the Cleanse monster, allowing it to swallow them whole and, with them, all the remaining Marigold.

The process of uniting Marigold and Durango also has shocking effects on the timeline. As season 4 reveals, when Sir Reginald unleashed Marigold on Earth and caused the birth of the 43 mysterious children, he put into motion events that would lead to the multiverse.

The Umbrella Academy’s constant meddling with history has led to the appearance of uncountable timelines. That’s bad because all of these timelines clash with each other and are fated to end horribly with an apocalyptic event. In other words, the Hargreeves cause all of the apocalypses across the multiverse, and only their disappearance can fix things.

When the Cleanse monster absorbs the members of the Umbrella Academy, they cease to exist. That’s a fate worse than death, as they are fully erased from history, and it’s like they were never born. This process also deletes the multiple timelines, restoring a single constant flow to time-space. So, while the Cleanse is a monster, its ability to nullify Marigold also allows it to restore the original timeline and wipe out Marigold’s influence on the planet. Who would guess that the Keepers were right, after all?