‘The Umbrella Academy’: Who are Jean and Gene, and why did they create the Keepers?

Season 4 of The Umbrella Academy introduces Dr. Gene Thibedeau (Nick Offerman) and Dr. Jean Thibedeau (Megan Mullally). More than simple villains for the season, the leaders of the Keepers echo the Hargreeves siblings’ past mistakes.

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

Since the first season of The Umbrella Academy, the Hargreeves siblings have been fighting to stop the apocalypse. Unfortunately, their meddling with the timeline frequently results in new end-of-the-world threats. At the end of season 3, the siblings had to join forces with Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) to reboot the universe, as existence itself was consumed by a time paradox. Little did they know Sir Reginald intended to save the world but also rewrite the timeline to resurrect his dead wife, Abigail (Lisa Repo-Martell).

In the new timeline, the Hargreeves siblings no longer have special powers. In addition, Sir Reginald gave himself a position of wealth and prestige while abandoning his children to their own luck. However, the universe reboot is flawed, with some people remembering events from different timelines. Two of these people are Jean and Gene, who lost everything pursuing the cause of the “Umbrella Effect.”

What is the “Umbrella Effect” and how it relates to the Keepers?

When Jean and Gene realized they lived in a fake timeline, they tried to present their discoveries to the scientific community. Jean named the phenomenon of maintaining memories of the previous timeline the “Umbrella Effect” because everything people remembered was connected to the Umbrella Academy. Jean and Gene became a joke at universities and lost their titles, leading them to found the Keepers.

The Keepers are an organization with support groups where people can safely share their experiences with the Umbrella Effect. Furthermore, Keepers are obsessed with finding artifacts, objects from different timelines that eventually resurface in the new one. These objects include Umbrella Academy figurines, comic books, and VHS movies starring Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampma). Jean and Gene collect these artifacts and use them as proof to radicalize other Keepers, creating an underground network that includes even CIA agents.

The Keepers’ ultimate goal is to kickstart the Cleanse, which they understand as the erasure of the fake timeline and the return of everyone to the original reality. Jean and Gene are dangerous because they will do whatever it takes to achieve their objective. That includes killing the Hargreeves siblings when they dare to stand in the way of the Cleanse. Plus, since they have a literal army of followers, they are a menace even for superpowered people.

The ending of The Umbrella Academy proves Jean and Gene were somewhat right since the Cleanse does have the potential to fix the multiverse by erasing Marigold’s existence. However, by then, neither Jean nor Gene is alive to see the fruits of their hard work.