The Umbrella Academy has closed its doors for a final time with its season 4 premiere on Netflix. With it comes fans saying goodbye to the Hargreeves family, the multiple apocalypses they’ve faced, and the world created by Gerard Way. As we’re closing out this chapter, Remezcla got a chance to speak with one of the Hargreeves siblings: David Castañeda aka Diego Hargreeves.
*Major spoilers below for The Umbrella Academy and Diego Hargreeves’ (David Castañeda) storyline in season 4*
Over four seasons we’ve been on this journey with Castañeda when it comes to Diego. We’ve watched him reunite with his siblings, open old wounds, fall in love, and try to come to grips with the family trauma all the siblings carry. In season 4, we’re getting a Diego who has let himself go a little, has become a family man, and who seems to be losing his grip on his life, aspirations, and his marriage.
For Castañeda, he feels like Diego has lost his sense of self worth. “I think he had sort of identified so long with being a superhero that now he was trying to identify as a father, as a husband. But I think it was through the wrong lens of feeling like he needed to prove a point that he was a better father than his father. So there was a lot of resentment to his family that he didn’t know he was sort of carrying.”
As the season goes on, we get to see Diego get his groove back. His powers return, he ends up in superhero fights, and tries to grapple with the man he was, the one he’s become, and the family he wants to fight for. But for long time viewers of The Umbrella Academy, they might feel a little conflicted about how this final season wraps up. For one thing, his wife Lila starts a relationship with his brother (it’s giving telenovela) and the show ends with the siblings being blipped out of existence.
Taking the Hargreeves out of the equation saves the universe and prevents the multiple apocalypses we’ve come to see them face over and over throughout the years. But it’s also going to be a shocking turn of events for fans who were hoping that the Hargreeves somehow figured it out and remained with their families, seemingly continuing their adventures long after the screen goes black. And from comments we’ve seen on social media already, there are plenty of fans angry with how their favorite show ultimately ended.
But for Castañeda, what happened was unavoidable and “needed to end that way.” He went on to say that “you have to close the chapter. And I think each season has sort of left it on a cliffhanger like “Oh what’s gonna happen next?” He even went as far as comparing it to the ending of Breaking Bad, that closes off the series with the death of its main character. “I think Breaking Bad to me is probably one of the best, if not the best TV show of all time. And I’m not trying to say that The Umbrella Academy is anywhere near that. I just really appreciate that Walter White died. Because it didn’t leave me with the sensation of: “Is today the day I’m going to get the news that Breaking Bad is coming back?”
And Castañeda knows this The Umbrella Academy ending is going to make fans angry. After all, fans are still angry about the ending of plenty of shows that have been gone for years, from Lost to Game of Thrones. But he hopes that this ending gives them a sense of closure. “That’s the thing about a lot of shows nowadays, you don’t get closure. You just don’t know where it’s going and you just kind of feel like you’ve been dropped off at a stop sign and you just don’t know if the car’s going to come back and pick you up. I’m ready for both. Look, the Titanic was one of the most beautiful movies and Jack died. He had to die.” So the Hargreeves had to be erased from the timeline to save it. Period.
As for how he feels about this 7 year journey that has taken him all over the world, given him a new family in the cast, and changed his life, Castañeda feels like he’s graduating. “It’s a wave of just being orgulloso and also sort of a sense of “I don’t know if it’ll ever be as good as this.” And I’m ok with that because each experience should be it’s own sort of pocket of whatever artifact…sort of when you’re walking through a museum and you’re like, “Oh, these are the things that I did in my life.” David Castañeda did this. And his Diego Hargreeves will be missed.
The Umbrella Academy final season is now on Netflix.
