#I needed this out of my system | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

witchinatree · 4 months ago

Text

this version of season 4 has been rotating itself in my mind so i will be just elaborating on it. also it has 10 episodes because it should have had 10 episodes.

episode 1 would be similar to how it was in the show, except it would absolutely have to include glimpses into the lives they lived before.we see first-hand how reginald's plan worked, and this was the perfect timeline everyone wanted. we also absolutely need to experience all of the tension between the siblings being worked through, it really pisses me off that allison never apologized to luther. see the detailed way they live and whatnot, emphasis on five and viktor being close because i missed that so much this season!! they were my favorite sibling dynamic!!

we see some remnants of earlier trauma, sometimes sissy says something but he hears harold. when five is alone sometimes he sees the faces of his dead siblings and the apocalypse he was stuck in. lila will talk to five and each of them will see the worst versions of the other, the handler's daughter and the man who killed her parents. klaus still sees the ghosts of the vietnam war and gets jumpy around fireworks/loud noises. ben looks at harlan and sees the dead bodies of two of his siblings, and everyone else looks at ben and blames themselves (if we're keeping that weird brain-washing plot. i really don't know how to fix that either tbh). luther has trouble being by himself, so sometimes he gets overly attached to sloane. diego constantly checks on lila to make sure she isn't dead, like patch was. if allison's throat gets sore she feels like she can't speak, even if it's just seasonal allergies. there's probably some other various traumatic reactions because they go through soooo much shit and i feel very bad for them.

the episode ends with ben leaving grace's birthday party (i thought that was actually a good excuse to have the family together, despite everything i'm sure they aren't all meeting up EVERY weekend or anything. some of the siblings are obviously closer than others but the whole group still have a lot of issues to work through) and bumping into a woman named jennifer. it would be a really really funny thing if they did that stupid meet-cute thing where they bump into each other and she drops whatever she's carrying and they accidentally touch hands when ben is trying to help her pick her stuff up. this ben is not that major asshole we saw in season 4 because that honestly just felt like an exaggeration of his character in season 3?? and i think he could've grown and been at least a decent person in 6 years??

of course this accidental interaction starts 'the cleanse' (except this will not erase the timeline from existence, it just destroys everything it touches because it confused me and i thought that was what it did until they all died LMFAOO??? i was so lost it was not funny)

episode 2 starts with ben. suddenly ben is seeing jennifer everywhere. grocery stores, around the neighborhood, he genuinely thinks she is stalking him and vice-versa. the glowing rash or whatever is growing on both of their arms again, but neither of them notice for a few episodes. five does notice but he just wants to be fucking retired give him like a day or two to get back into it.

in this universe the gene-jean cult or whatever are still around, they have the memories of the alternate timelines just like before but the cleanse isn't their goal. their goal is to find and kill the members of the various academies from all the timelines they can remember (which are decently recognizable) (this can also give us a glimpse into the other kids who were mysteriously born, maybe we see them getting murdered or just attacked in general.) they think killing them will 'fix their timeline' because all of their fragments center around these people. we see five and lila still go to these meetings undercover but lila does not hide it from diego. he's in the police force like he was going to be in season 1, why would he be jealous of lila going to these boring ass cult-like meetings?

side note, jennifer was not in a fucking squid. hence, the 'cleanse' is not something this cult is familiar with

episode 3 dives into the domestic lives everyone lives and just how perfect they are. unsettlingly perfect. unfamiliarly perfect. maybe we get some more flashbacks to explain how they got to this point in all of their lives because a 6 year time skip with no elaboration is kind of crazy. just saying. maybe we get some classic klaus and ben shenanigans because i miss that too. we can see klaus never gave up on trying to be ben's brother again, and it brought them closer despite how much ben tried to fight it. this could be considered a 'filler' episode (which is not a bad thing) but it's also meant to emphasize how happy and perfect everything is and how tragic it will be to lose it all again

episode 4 bounces between the cult and showing how all of the siblings seem to be triggering each other. i really just want there to be build up for how these perfect lives cannot be lived together yet, because of the hell they went through and how it didn't actually bring them closer together, no matter how badly some of them wish it did. the cult is just kinda doing their thing, establishing their goals and the sheer amount of them there are. maybe ben and klaus find themselves in that creepy cult-town again, because ben was weirdly drawn to it, only to find out it's where jennifer lives.

episodes 5 and 6 show the siblings seem to be pushing each other away as ben's condition gets worse, maybe there is some culmination event where klaus gets to yell at his siblings again because i really loved that for him. maybe he can be mad that they never take him seriously because he's trying to warn them about the cult town but they're all (excluding ben viktor and five) (ben isn't here because the town thing freaked him out) (viktor and five just wouldn't do klaus like that tbh) like lmao are you sure you didn't just piss them all off. this means five gives up on his retirement plan and reveals to the group that ben has this weird looking thing on his arm and they could all be in danger, backing up klaus' claim. they all start arguing and luther suggests they find reginald to fix this. this makes people even angrier except diego backs him up. diego is willing to do anything to keep his family safe and he doesn't see an alternative option, so him and luther convince them all to go see reginald. at the same time we can see ben and jennifer off in their own world again, trying to figure out what is drawing them to each other and they start talking about the thing growing on both of their arms.

episode 7 is at reginald's house, similar to that other one but reginald gets to be actually evil. abigail too. they're both living in this world of their creation and have complete power over it. reginald's first instinct is to kill ben, which upsets viktor and causes him to attack. he gets an actually good monologue about how reginald never cared about any of the siblings and if anyone deserves to die it would be him. no one really disagrees with viktor but they stop him because they need reginald alive to explain what the hell is going on with ben. idk how exactly it would show that the two of them are evil married couple in charge of the entire world other than.. they're in charge of the entire world? power corrupts? that's all i've got i fear. we can see ben and jennifer's condition worsening at the same time, as well as their relationship growing. their relationship = the cleanse reaction.

episode 8 shows even more of this tension between the siblings because none of them know what to do about ben and something they do ends up on the news, giving their location to the cult that wants them dead. maybe they're the last kids left alive? maybe they're just the next targets? maybe the cult was struggling to find any more of them until then? who knows. writing with these other 35 kids is just a nightmare because they were not anything ever. that event that landed them on the news means all of them are in horrible states, viktor goes to play the violin for harlan before gearing up to search for ben. luther talks things through with sloane and they both agree to go look for him. allison doesn't tell ray and claire what's going on but she spends some extra time with them. diego and lila start talking to lila's parents about watching their kids, so they can find ben. klaus is struggling with ben disappearing because it reminds him of when he lost umbrella ben, and dave helps him through that almost-relapse. five tries to blink but the conflict and struggles in his mind with his siblings fucks with his blink, it's purple now, and he's in the subway. he's alone again in this mysterious place and he doesn't know how to get back, so he starts freaking the fuck out. he works his way out and realizes he needs to explore that, but he can't do it alone. there's only one other person who could blink into the subway, lila, who could copy his power. he doesn't want to blink his siblings because he doesn't know if his trauma-affected powers will hurt them too. they get lost for those 7 years at the same time as the rest of the siblings are individually looking for ben. five and lila do NOT fall in love, five never stops looking for his way home but he unravels and falls apart because it reminds him so much of the apocalypse. this can also be an interesting way to explore all of the other mystery kids because of all of the possible combinations of timelines. finally, five and lila find themselves in five's apocalypse, and it just breaks him. lila gets super worried about him but she's also struggling without her husband and kids, so she can't actually support him as much as he needs. this episode would basically just be the subway again except there's no five and lila romance and instead it's just an exploration of five's trauma and he also blames himself for taking lila away from her family. lila finds five's notebook and needs his help to decipher it, and together they find their way home. around the same time, viktor finds ben and jennifer in the same place they were before. they aren't flesh masses because that made me kind of sad and also confused, rather they're just covered in that red reaction and neither of them seem to act like themselves. viktor calls his siblings and they get over whatever bullshit conflict they had to come together and save ben.

episode 9 has all of the siblings together, and they realize ben isn't going to leave jennifer so they have a bit more time to regroup and figure out how to save him. they go back to luther and sloane's apartment where they are attacked by the cult members. this is one of those sick ass fight scenes with the upbeat music that i loved so much in season 1 and 2. they all realize how dangerous everything has turned out to be, and those of them who have family without powers go back to say their goodbyes. luther and sloane are both going to save ben, but diego and lila say goodbye to their kids and lila's parents, allison says goodbye to ray and claire, klaus says goodbye to dave (this one would hurt the most imo. more emphasis on it because klaus would choose dave over anything in the world but he knows he can't), five goes with viktor to say goodbye to harlan and sissy, and all of them go back to ben and jennifer.

episode 10 is very similar to the last episode of season 4, we can see reginald trying to kill ben or jennifer but viktor goes off and kills him because i think he earned it. this gets abigail to fight with her alien shit or whatever, can she even fight?? i've decided she can i guess. so now they have remnants of the cult and reginald's followers trying to kill them while they try to save ben from the cleanse. they realize that the durango will destroy the entire world unless they can cancel it out with the marigold, but abigail just thinks this world should be destroyed now that reginald is gone. eventually the cult and reginald's followers had started fighting each other, like how you can get a minecraft zombie and skeleton to fight each other if you get the skeleton to shoot the zombie LMFAOO, and abigail is badly injured by viktor so he can return to the fight. the flesh mass can come back now i guess.. so they can merge into one and become that massive threat.. but you can still see the forms of ben and jennifer at the bottom. they don't know how to fight it because they can't touch it and knives won't injure it, so they start talking about the marigold again. they know viktor can extract marigold, but they don't know the risks, or if he could extract durango. they realize this is their only option, and viktor gets a bittersweet moment about making up for ending the world so many times and umbrella ben's sacrifice to stop him from ending it. all of the siblings talk things through and say their goodbyes, tearfully and stressfully. we see emphasis on five, he is not crying but he's dead silent, he's just been going through it since the age of 13. viktor extracts each of their marigolds and they feel themselves lose part of their lives, and part of their family. finally, viktor extracts the marigold from ben's form and it pauses the cleanse, now that it's just durango. it's still there but it's not actively growing and ben gets to say his awkward goodbye as well, it wouldn't be the same but it would be really emotional. viktor takes the durango and we can see as his power flashes red and orange, and the rash immediately spreads through his whole body, but he doesn't become the flesh mass. he has enough marigold to balance the durango, and it just neutralizes the entire reaction. viktor collapses and dies, unable to actually sustain that much power and the reaction it caused inside of him.

cut to a year later (i know what i said about time skips but trust okay) and they're in a graveyard, hosting that same picnic, but in front of a grave marked 'viktor hargreeves.' the family looks closer than ever, even ben seems to be getting involved with them rather than watching from the outside. we see the reveal of violin tattoos right under the umbrella ones, calling back to viktor getting left out of the umbrella tattoos. sissy also has one but there's no umbrella (obv). the family looks happy, not as happy as they once were, but everything will be okay. once again, it was not their fault. they deserved to live.

also pls pls pls this is NOT viktor hate i love him so fucking much and every time i think about this i cry a little bit because it makes me really sad to imagine it but also from a narrative or literary standpoint i know big words it would be a really satisfying character arc for him. and i know this probably has some plot holes as well and can be kind of all over the place, but if i actually ever have the chance to sit down and write this in depth i might do it. i just try to avoid dialogue because i always feel like i get it wrong, like in the back of my mind it's just "he would not fucking say that." and i've never written fanfiction, this is the closest i've ever gotten so..

i have posted a LOT about the issues i had with season 4 of TUA but i'm going to say everything i've been thinking right here right now. i cannot get this shit out of my head.

i think a lot of it ties back to the flaws i noticed in season 3, they tried to take on too much and abandoned the previous storylines that were waiting for them (viktor's traumatic relationship with leonard, five's trauma in general, lila's parents dying because of five, DAVE, etc etc) and we were all expecting them to tie it all together in season 4

instead they just.. added more..???? jennifer and abigail were thrown in late season 3 and were just suddenly supposed to be super important to us (they were not.) the subway that takes you to other timelines (objectively cool as fuck, why is this only introduced in the last season of The Timeline Show)

and i'm still really upset that reginald is an alien because it makes no fucking sense. i always assumed he created the mystery 43 babies (why else would he seek them out and already have a plan for them) but the alien route was.. ill-fitting. i think it would've worked better if he fell in love with abigail, who was an alien and created marigold, and then his hubris and curiosity was what unleashed it into the world and doomed the timeline. "sure this mystery chemical destroyed the planet my wife is from but i'm reginald hargreeves so that won't happen to me!" [happens to him] also i wish abigail was not just used as "see! abuser not so bad! abuser have wife! he love wife :]" because. what. and then her weird complaints about reginald in episode 6 that came out of nowhere confused me. they just should've written her entirely different if they were gonna have her at all

AAALSO i hated that they regressed all of the characters back to how they were in season 1 (or worse??). luther was living in the old umbrella academy building because apparently he will never leave it?? after everything?? diego's life was different but he was still doing this weird job shit (discount batman and mail carrier are the same thing) and he was miserable with his loving wife and kids (who ARE you.). allison's husband left her again (what the hell raymond) and she was still the neglectful single mother of claire?? after EVERYTHING I KNOW I ALREADY SAID THAT BUT GOD. klaus actually had something going for him, if only his recovery wasn't made into a joke, and then he relapsed and got kidnapped and was just very.. season 1 klaus.. but with no ghost ben anymore. five.. eugh. he was not season 1 five he was just NotFive. crazy how they had a magnus archives crossover and just brought in NotThem to take five am i right guys. ben's also different because it's not the same ben from season 1 but they just made him really fucking mean. like worse than season 3 because there wasn't that underlying "please i just want to be loved" thing. crypto bro ben was funny as fuck though. and VIKTOR just fucked off by himself after working so hard to be part of the family again. glad he got to transition and become canada's #1 manslut but jesus, just abandoned everything you did to be part of the family huh.

my vision for the ending of TUA would go something like this

ending of season 3, pretty much the same but they all have their powers and reginald's head getting sliced in half did not reveal him to be some alien freak. also at some point abigail would have been introduced. i don't feel like rewriting season 3 too okay i'm cutting corners.

luther finds sloane when he goes back to where the umbrella academy building used to be, but it's now a very lovely apartment that the two of them live in together. they host all of the family gatherings for sentimental and space reasons. i think luther would explore the stripper idea but decide not to follow it because of sloane. sloane would be fine with it but luther would still get worried.

diego and lila live in the same house somewhat nearby. lila's family (they do get to be alive but lila does have to overcome the trauma of losing them while simultaneously getting them back) are their neighbors, it was the compromise they came to because diego wanted their house to be their space but lila wanted her family close. they have three kids who are each loved and names get to be in the fucking show. (looking at you mystery twin. grace and coco (?) didn't really get much attention either). they have a big backyard that the kids all play in together when they're visiting

allison and ray are still together and they have claire (maybe another kid...) they also live somewhat nearby the rest of the umbrella family because i refuse to let them separate. i don't have much to say about them other than RAY DID NOT WALK OUT ON HER.

klaus and dave live in allison and ray's neighborhood. maybe they adopted a kid? maybe they didn't? i think their family would be really cute either way. klaus is still overcoming his addiction and dave supports him through it. it's not made into a joke and actually gives klaus a lot of depth and emotional moments. also just in general dave meeting the rest of the family would be really really sweet

five gets to retire. he lives with viktor in my mind. full circle on viktor being the person who always waited for him and offered him a place to stay after he got home in season 1. five would not actually be getting a retirement pay because he has never had a real job so he's just vik's roommate now. he could have a romance plotline with a woman working at the department store down the street named delores. she looks familiar.

ben lives alone and works at a tech company? honestly i don't know what i would do with him in the pre-plot but it would not be put him in jail?? me personally. i think he would probably move further away than everyone else but stay close enough so he could visit sloane sometimes. he still feels like an outsider but doesn't know how to tell the umbrellas he wants to be their brother now

and viktor lives with sissy harlan and five (previously mentioned). his transition gets to actually be explored (PLEASE.), harlan is in therapy, and sissy is a strong working woman!! again i don't really know what to do with him pre-plot. just know he's the happiest he's ever been!!!

and just in general, a lot of this happiness from all of them comes from their powers and that they can finally be one big happy family together (whether ben likes it or not). setting up the inherent tragedy that comes with perfection

episode 1 opens by showing everything i just explained, the tragedy of getting everything you want or whatever the title was. their powers are still integral to their lives. they're either tied to their careers (luther would probably be like a wrestler or something again, diego could try police work again because i want that to be explored) or other aspects of their existence (allison still finds herself doubting how much of her life is real, klaus' relapses are always caused by his trauma surrounding ghosts, five sometimes space jumps when he wants to be alone [also i think he could feel some sort of shame/guilt because he lives with viktor and can't really contribute much without the commission. not really his fault though because of his insanely fucked timeline], ben uses the squid to carry things or grab things that are far away, and viktor plays the violin to help him remind himself that he is in control of his power now, and he won't end the world again)

the main conflict starts when ben meets a new woman named jennifer and shakes her hand when introducing himself (starting the marigold/durango reaction that builds very slowly throughout the season.) it could be romantic but i think it's just devestating. they're slowly realizing they're losing everything they worked so hard for because of something they can't control

yadda yadda yadda figuring shit out while also having conflicts in their life from the earlier seasons and it culminates in the old umbrella academy building, viktor is the only person who can remove the durango and marigold from ben and jennifer and save the world. he finally gets to be the hero, be the one to stop the end of the world instead of cause it, but he needs to take the marigold from each of the siblings in order to balance the amount of durango jennifer had (no idk why he would let the other like 30 something marigold kids keep theirs i really don't know how to fix that. why would they do this to me)

each of the siblings have to give up part of their lives, part of their identities, and it's hard for them!!! they struggle a lot to agree to do it!!! and it's also harder for them because they don't know if viktor will survive doing this. but he's the only one who can? is his life more important than the existence of everything and everyone? ultimately, they all give up their marigold, and viktor takes all of it and the durango to save everyone. it cancels itself out and stops the cleanse reaction, and i think it would kill viktor (but it doesn't have to). we see that same clip of the 'perfect world' but they get to be in it. they were never the problem. lila and diego play in the park with their kids. allison ray and claire are walking together. klaus and dave are talking on a bench. luther and sloane are carrying a large basket of food. ben and five are helping them set up the picnic. harlan is sitting in the grass with sissy next to him. each of the adults have a small violin tattoo on their wrists. their lives will never be as perfect as they were before, but they can finally just rest and move on. because it was never their fault.

also reginald dies. fuck that guy

72 notes · View notes