Diksha Sundriyal
The fourth and final season of Netflix’s ‘The Umbrella Academy’ settles a lot of mysteries by introducing new concepts to the fore. In previous seasons, it was revealed that the reason behind the powers of the Hargreeves siblings is something called Marigold. While they are still processing the concept of this element and how it factors into their lives on a bigger level, another thing is introduced in the fourth season of the series. The siblings discover that there is something called Durango that exists alongside Marigold, but unlike the latter, it is much more destructive. But what exactly is it, and what does its existence mean for the world? SPOILERS AHEAD
Durango is the Anti-Matter Particle to Marigold
In ‘The Umbrella Academy,’ the superpowers that the Hargreeves siblings have come from a particle called Marigold, which was created by Reginald Hargreeves’ wife, Abigail. She was a brilliant scientist who wanted to test the boundaries of what was and wasn’t possible, and this led her to create a new element that could change the face of the world. However, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the reaction to Marigold’s creation was Durango. Abigail didn’t realize that when she created Marigold, a by-product was created that worked completely opposite to her creation. She had no control over the creation of Durango, and she had no control over what it would do to the world as well.
Earlier, it was revealed that Reginald Hargreeves is an alien who came to the Earth after his own world was destroyed. At the time, it wasn’t revealed what exactly brought about the end of his world, but the revelation of Durango puts everything into perspective. It turns out that when Abigail unintentionally created Durango, she had no idea what it could do. Somewhere down the line, intentionally or unintentionally, Durango and Marigold came in contact, and this led to a chain reaction that ended her world. She’d seen it happen in front of her eyes, and it was one of the reasons behind her death. She was crestfallen over what her invention had done to her world, claiming millions of lives and forcing others to flee, including Reginald. This is why, when she was brought back to life, she didn’t consider herself worthy of the act.
Abigail and Reginald had seen their own world being torn apart by the reaction between Marigold and Durango, which led to the creation of the Cleanse. This is why Reginald didn’t want anyone in the Umbrella Academy to come in contact with Jennifer, the only known person to have Durango. In each timeline, he tried his best to keep things contained, but in the end, he couldn’t have things his own way.
How did Durango Come to the Earth?
While ‘The Umbrella Academy’ explains what Durango is, it doesn’t explain how it came to the Earth. We know that Reginald Hargreeves brought Marigold with him, hoping to use it in a way that would help him get his wife back. But considering that he had seen what Durango could do, it would make sense that he didn’t bring the element with him. How did it make its way to Earth, then? Because a lot of things about Durango and Marigold are left unanswered, the mystery lingers over the true connection between the particles. It’s clear that Reginald wouldn’t have brought the particle with him, which means that its arrival on Earth was just as unforeseen as its creation by Abigail.
Durango is the balancing act for Marigold, which kind of means that wherever there is Marigold, there will be Durango. When Reginald Hargreeves released the Marigold on the Earth, the particle itself may have broken down in a way that Durango was unleashed on the Earth at the same time. What makes things even more interesting is that Durango doesn’t seem to work the way Marigold does. While Marigold is divided between different people, lending them their powers, Durango is concentrated within one person. It is unclear why Jennifer is the only person to have it and why, for every person getting their powers from Marigold, there wasn’t another person getting Durango.
A way to explain this is to see the fourth season as separate from what unfolds in the rest. At the beginning of this season, no one has powers. They only get it later from the Marigold that is intentionally given to them by Sy Grossman (who is really Abigail in disguise) because he wanted the Cleanse to happen. This means that Marigold exists in this timeline as well, even if the former wasn’t released into the world like it was in the first season timeline. Where there is Marigold, there is Durango, but because its release is not in the hands of its creator, it found its way out in the world and ended up inside Jennifer’s body. The moment she walked out of a giant squid, Reginald took her under his custody and created a fake town to contain her there so that she could never, even by mistake, come in contact with Marigold and trigger the end of the world.
