Diksha Sundriyal
‘The Umbrella Academy’ is a TV show about superheroes who are a part of a dysfunctional family that was raised by an extremely uncaring father. There are seven members of the team, and with the Commission, and other side characters and whatnot, it becomes difficult to keep track of everyone. Hence, location becomes an important part of the show. Every team, be it the heroes or villains, gets their base of operations, which makes it easier to follow every character.
In Season 3, after discovering that their home has been taken over by the Sparrows, the members of the Umbrella Academy check into Hotel Obsidian. Klaus seems to be in love with the place, where no one cares what anyone else is up to. There’s a weird vibe to the place, and at once, it becomes clear that there is something wrong with it. By the end of the season, we discover that it does, after all, harbor a rather shocking secret. Here’s everything you need to know about the place.
What is Hotel Obsidian?
Hotel Obsidian is the key to resetting the timeline. In 1918, Reginald Hargreeves went in search of a portal that would allow him to change the timeline so that he could bring his dead wife, Abigail, back to life. When he finds it, he constructs an elaborate hotel around it and names it Hotel Obsidian. While the rest of the hotel is open for business, there is one room that is out of bounds for everyone- the White Buffalo Suite.
Diego and Lila discover the entrance to the portal behind a wall. When they cross over to the other side, they find another Hotel Obsidian, but it has only one resident: a murderous samurai. In the last episode of Season 3, Reginald takes the members of the Umbrella Academy to the other side, eventually revealing that it is actually a pocket dimension. The copy of Hotel Obsidian here is a machine that, when fuelled with the golden particles that give the Umbrella Academy and the Sparrows their powers, allows a person to reset the timeline.
While Reginald Hargreeves built Hotel Obsidian, no one knows who made the portal, the pocket dimension, and the machine. Hargreeves guesses that it must have been the same person who made the universe. So, there is not much to go on there. While hopefully, the show will shed more light on it in the next season, the comics counterpart of Hotel Obsidian is an entirely different beast.
In the comics, it is actually named Hotel Oblivion. It is also situated in a pocket dimension and was built by Hargreeves, but Oblivion serves as a prison for all the supervillains defeated by the Umbrella Academy. In the comics, the supervillains escape and create a lot of problems for the Umbrella Academy, who didn’t even know about the prison’s existence. Another dangerous thing about Oblivion is that it also serves as a trap for a monster who is released when all the villains break out of it.
While the two hotels differ in their purpose, they are both known for their unsavory food and offering a view that looks like the end of the world. The show takes a different route with the Hotel Obsidian storyline, but this also leaves room for the real Hotel Oblivion. Who knows, in the new timeline, we’ll get to see this prison and meet all the villains that the Umbrella Academy never knew they defeated.
