Steve Blackman: Hi, I’m Steve Blackman, showrunner, creator, and executive producer of Umbrella Academy, and these are things you might’ve missed.
[CLIP] Nick Offerman (as Dr. Gene Thibedeau) Come. We want to show you something.
Steve Blackman: The artifacts in Gene and Jean’s barn, we wanted to find a collection of things that the fans would easily recognize. We take things from all four seasons. Things from Hazel and Cha-Cha, things that we saw on the farmhouse in Season 2, things from the Oblivion hotel in Season 3, and some things from Season 4. When we first shot it, we didn’t actually have enough of them, so we went back and we digitally added a lot of other artifacts. So what you’re seeing is, some of them were really there, but a lot of artifacts have been put in by VFX to even add more artifacts.
[CLIP] Aidan Gallagher (as Number Five): What are you doing?
[CLIP] Ritu Arya (as Lila Pitts): What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going home.
Steve Blackman: The symbol on the cover on the book that Five finds in the subway was a callback to Season 1, and it was on the Meritech sign. Now that symbol is actually an old alchemy symbol. The old alchemy symbols played with matter and how matter can be changed in the magic subway that they take through timelines.
[CLIP] Colm Feore (as Sir Reginald Hargreeves): It’s time, children.
Steve Blackman: The Minerva is a much beloved flying machine from the graphic novel. It’s actually what Hargreeves used to collect all of the children. So it was important for us to see it a few times during the show. So we get to see a small version of it in the pilot, but really, we get to see the full Minerva in all its glory in Season 4, piloted by the amazing Pogo.
[CLIP] Pogo (voiced by Adam Godley): Buckle up, children. Prepare for departure.
[CLIP] Man 1: I’m here to help. What’s your name?
Victoria Sawal (as Jennifer): Jennifer.
Steve Blackman: The Jennifer incident is a huge part of the graphic novel. It’s a story that defines Ben’s death. So I wanted to pepper in through the seasons moments where the audience may or may not notice that they’re seeing references to Jennifer.
[CLIP] Robert Sheehan (as Klaus Hargreeves): Ben died during the Jennifer incident.
[CLIP] Colm Feore (as Sir Reginald Hargreeves): Tragic.
[CLIP] Robert Sheehan (as Klaus Hargreeves): Oh, tragic. I’m not finished.
Steve Blackman: In Ben’s room, he has all these wonderful drawings. And then he finally meets her in Season 4. And the idea is that in all the timelines, he’s destined to be pulled towards Jennifer. So if you go back, you’ll see that her face, her name, exists in all of the seasons.
[CLIP] Man 1: We are out of time, sir.
[CLIP] Colm Feore (as Sir Reginald Hargreeves): Take the shot.
Steve Blackman: So in the Season 2 finale, Ben saves Viktor. And we wanted to come full circle and have Viktor saving Ben. We found these two characters were, in a way, both outliers in the family, and it felt right, that in this alternate timeline, that one would save the other. We wanted to get some references to Gerard Way and get his name in the show a few different ways. In Season 3, Sloane is reading a book called The Jetset Life. And that was a callback to the My Chemical Romance song, “The Jetset Life [Is Gonna Kill You],” one of the songs that we love from the band.
[CLIP] Colm Feore (as Sir Reginald Hargreeves): On the 12th hour of the 8th day of August, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
Steve Blackman: We wanted to make the final moment really special and say that, in this final timeline, things have all come back to normal. All the other timelines don’t exist, and it’s just a normal life. But there’s lots of things we threw in just for fun for the audience.
One of the children is playing with a doll, and if you look closely, it looks exactly like me, with my black hat, my jacket, and the Diet Coke that I usually have in my hands. So that was cute. That was a nice surprise by the cast and crew. You also get to see the Swedes, you get to see Hazel and Agnes, the Handler, and if you look carefully in the background, you can see Gabriel Bá, who’s doing a drawing, but also in the background we have his brother Fábio, and there’s a few other surprises if you look really carefully.
[CLIP ] Robert Sheehan (as Klaus Hargreeves): You know, I just wanna say … I love you guys.
Steve Blackman: To the fans, I say thank you. Thank you for your love and your support over the years. It means so much to myself, the cast, and the crew to know that the hard work we do, you enjoyed so much. And the feedback you give us, we love listening to. And things have changed in the show based on a lot of the feedback that you give us. But we’ve always felt supported and loved from the fans around the world, and we thank you for being with this family for as long as you have.
[CLIP] Megan Mullally (as Dr. Jean Thibedeau) Might be time for a Chikkadoo.
[CLIP] Nick Offerman (as Dr. Gene Thibedeau): I’ll fetch the wagon.
Steve Blackman: Thanks for watching, and to dive deeper into The Umbrella Academy or other Netflix shows, go to Tudum.com.