“The Umbrella Academy Star David Castañeda Reflects on Final Season’s Post-Credits Scene: Embracing the Cycle of Life”
Spoilers ahead for Umbrella Academy season 4!
The series comes to a bitter-sweet conclusion where the Hargreeves siblings sacrifice their lives, essentially removing their existence to save humanity from an impending doom. After battling a myriad of apocalypses and facing twisted and overlapping time zones, the siblings realize that they are part of the problem!
However, after their ultimate sacrifice, the post-credit scene shows eight blooming marigolds which have a deeper symbolic meaning. David Castañeda who played Diego Hargreeves spoke to Screen Rant about that scene and what it signified.
“I think it is the cycle of life interpretation that in the end, that’s what we finally turn into, right? So, we become part of the plants and the trees, and it’s sort of closure,” he said. The actor further explained that even though the siblings are not alive in flesh and bones, their spirits are still in existence somewhere.
“They might not be here, but the spirit of who they are is still here, and they were able to do what they were supposed to do, which is save the world and the ultimate sacrifice,'” he added. According to Castañeda, the eight golden flowers—representing each sibling—meant that they did not completely vanish.
The flowers seem to work as epitaphs, signaling a cleanse that resets the timeline as well as a symbol of their heroism. On the contrary, some theories suggest that the marigold particles, which have been associated with the Hargreaves powers, indicate that the power still exists. And those particles, associated since birth with the siblings, could threaten the timeline they had saved.
The golden particle is reminiscent of the first episode of the show where rapid pregnancies were set in motion which led to the birth of the powerful Hargreaves siblings. So, the ending could have two different meanings, opening up the show’s future possibilities!