Reginald Hargreeves

Lore & Background

In the television series, Reginald is portrayed by Colm Feore and appears in all four seasons in a main role. Feore joined the series in February 2018. He is revealed in the first season finale to be an alien from another planet who came to Earth following the death of his wife and the destruction of his home planet. Before leaving, he unleashed a jar of golden particles (largely implied to be the "marigolds" that brought the 43 children into existence).

Upon arriving to Earth, he created an umbrella manufacturing company and became a billionaire entrepreneur. In 1920, he completed construction of the Hotel Obsidian, which he intentionally built near an alternate dimension that would supposedly rewrite the world. He sent a team of soldiers to eliminate the guardians of the Hotel Oblivion, but they were all killed; Reginald did not give up and later recruited the Umbrella Academy to complete the mission.

In the first episode of the series, he kills himself (a fact that is not revealed until later in the season) to reunite the children for his funeral. His primary motive was to bring them together for his own purposes; the apocalypse was a consequence of their reunion, not the direct goal of his suicide. He appears in the second season as a younger version of himself who works for the Majestic 12. In Season 2, Episode 6, he meets with his children at a tropical bar as they ask him for help in stopping the apocalypse and, while taunting them, he criticizes Five's inability to control his time travel properly but does not provide advice that Five uses to reverse time—Five reverses time using his own abilities after being shot.

Later in the season, Reginald reveals his alien persona and kills the Majestic 12. The third season reveals that following the meeting at the tropical bar with the Umbrella siblings, he chose to adopt a new set of children in 1989, dubbing them The Sparrow Academy, who have ousted the Umbrellas in the present. He is also significantly different from his original counterpart, having been sedated for years by his children, following a disagreement in 2014 with an alternate Pogo which led to his assistant leaving and bestowing the pills to the Sparrows.

Reader's Guide

Sir Reginald Hargreeves serves as the cold-hearted founder of the Umbrella Academy. He is an alien disguised as a wealthy entrepreneur and world-renowned scientist who received the Nobel Prize for his work in the cerebral advancement of the chimpanzee. He adopted seven super-powered children and transformed them into the superhero team called "the Umbrella Academy." He refuses to let the children call him father, demanding they address him by his codename The Monocle instead, and refers to them by number assigned in terms of "usefulness."

In the television series, he kills himself in the first episode to reunite the children for his funeral and stop the apocalypse. In the second season, he appears as a younger version working for the Majestic 12, later revealing his alien persona and killing them. In the third season, after being sedated for years by his Sparrow Academy children, he is taken off pills by Klaus and regains his abrasive personality. He kills Luther to force the Umbrellas and Sparrows into Hotel Oblivion, where his children were meant to represent seven bells in a process that would drain their powers and kill them.

Allison kills Reginald and resets the universe, resulting in a new universe where Reginald has gained control over the city and his wife has been resurrected.