'The Umbrella Academy' ends with powerful scene from Elliot Page, vomit on a van, and infectious Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman
"We're so lucky we got to have four seasons, lucky to go into the fourth knowing it was the final," Page said
With the release of The Umbrella Academy Season 4, we're saying goodbye to the Netflix hit, based on the graphic novels by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. Starring Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Casta?eda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min and Ritu Arya, the cast are still coming to terms with this chapter in their professional and personal lives coming to an end.
"It took its time to really land with us," Page told Yahoo Canada. "We're not going to be back on set together and playing these characters, and seeing and working with the crew that we've worked with for years and years and years and years."
"But I think all in all it was just bittersweet in this sense that we're so lucky we got to have four seasons, lucky to go into the fourth knowing it was the final. Hopefully we can have those conclusions feel good for the audience and answer certain questions."
"Our show is gruelling to film, I mean there's a lot of things going on, a lot of long days, people are putting their time and energy and blood, sweat and tears into all of this," Min added. "So towards the end of the season ... I think we were just focused on like, let's finish this strong. Let's do the work. And we were all kind of exhausted at that point as well."
"I don't think it's still even hit me now. I think maybe after this press tour and the show comes out, that probably is when it really will hit."
For showrunner Steve Blackman, the final day of shooting was "very emotional."
"I purposely put the last scene on the very last day and the actors were exhausted, but I reminded them when we were about to start, I said, 'Guys, this is it. This is the last time you'll be together as a family, as a group of actors,' and it just hit them," he said. "I think it was very sad and a lot of the emotion you see in that final scene is real."
"Granted, we shot 13 hours in that same sequence by the end of the day, they weren't so happy with it, but it's a lot of genuine feelings that this has been a fun ride together. I think what you see there is a lot of what they were experiencing emotionally in real life. It was a very sad final moment. Bittersweet, I would say."
'A lot of feelings, a lot of anger'
We'd say the most impactful performance from the final season of The Umbrella Academy comes from Page, who plays Viktor Hargreeves. The character has one particular moment where he confronts his father (played by Colm Feore) in a really powerful way, both emotionally and visually, getting out all his feelings about how his father has treated Viktor and his siblings.
"I think that moment was really fulfilling and cathartic for Viktor, he's definitely been holding on to a lot, a lot of feelings, a lot of anger," Page said. "And he does get a moment where he really gets to express a lot to his father about how he's been treated, about how all of the siblings have been treated, about how his father even just sort of looks at life in general."
"It was just very meaningful when I think of where this character started at the beginning to where we find him this season, and as an actor, just enjoyable, juicy stuff to get to act."
'That rolling of the van led very close to actual vomit'
But as has been the formula for The Umbrella Academy and a core component of why the series captivated audiences in its original season, there's still a lot of fun in Season 4 of the show. For example, in one scene, the Hargreeves siblings are together in a van and start vomiting.
"That whole sequence in the van was done in the studio, out the studio, out on the road and when we had the rolling thing, when we went upside down, ... all that stuff ... took forever," Hopper explained.
"That rolling of the van led very close to actual vomit," Sheehan added. "[Tom Hopper] and Aidan Gallagher were very green around the gills."
"It was freezing cold out in the real world when we were shooting those things, but it was also quite soon after we'd begun filming. ... Just thrilling to feel that relaxed with the group in front of camera, all of us wedged into the van and feeling like we could riff and improvise."
Blackman explained that moment was his attempt to really lean into relatable elements of family road trips.
"When we rolled them, we rolled them in a real van on a rotisserie and they were all saying, 'This is going to be so much fun,' until they all almost threw up in real life after like five takes of them spinning over and over again," he said. "But there's no VFX in that shot. All the stuff flying around was just the stuff we put into it."
"So they were all game. It was a very nauseating day to spin them over and over in that van, but they were all great, and the vomit was added later on through VFX. That's not their vomit."
Adding to that comedy for Season 4 was the introduction of real-life married couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, playing Gene and Jean Thibodeau. Decked out in matching outfits with the most fun banter between the couple, they're a great addition to close out the series.
"I didn't think I'd get them, but then when I phoned them it turns out they're super fans of the show, and they're like, 'We want to be in the show,'" Blackman said. "They love that they can act together as husband and wife, and they're playing husband and wife."
"The costumes you see, they picked them out. I had a whole different vibe for them and they said, 'We'd really like to pick our costumes.' I'm like, 'Go for it!' They were delightful. I said to them the only rule I had for them is, could you try doing one of my lines, and then you could do whatever you wanted. There was tons of riffing and jokes. The crew had to hold their laughter in a lot of the time because they said such funny things that weren't scripted."