David Castañeda reacted strongly to the series finale of The Umbrella Academy: That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
The actor says the blowback over the Netflix’s show’s shocking ending is actually a good thing: “I’m very proud of how this whole thing played out.”
Though The Umbrella Academy‘s finale left many fans in turmoil earlier this month, show star David Castañeda isn’t worried. In fact, he thinks the backlash is a good thing.
In the final season of Netflix’s quirky superhero drama, fans saw the relationship between Castañeda’s Diego Hargreeves and Ritu Arya’s Lila fade into a morose, passionless marriage that eventually led to romance between Lila and Diego’s brother, Number Five, played by Aidan Gallagher. Many online commenters called the plot point unnecessary and complained that its development felt rushed in comparison to the years-long buildup of Diego and Lila.
“I really love that they are always taking chances,” Castañeda says, addressing the pushback, in an exclusive preview obtained by The Hollywood Reporter of Tuesday’s episode of the I’ve Never Said This Before With Tommy DiDario podcast. “I love that they’re like, ‘Oh, you think it’s going to be a buddy-buddy thing, and then you flip it on Five and Diego, and it gets people angry. I saw it and I was like, ‘Oh my God, people are getting really angry at this.’ And I think that’s good. It’s good to have some sort of reaction to something that things can be flipped upside down.”
The actor adds that it’s good practice to stay curious. “Why does that make you angry?” he says. “What about these characters made you feel comfort, and also, what are they showing about ourselves?”
Fans were also shocked by the show’s explosive ending, when in the last moments of the finale, the dearly beloved main cast of adopted siblings sacrificed themselves in a scheme to save the universe once and for all. The lethal ending was also a permanent one, leaving very few possibilities for spinoffs or surprise comebacks and upsetting many viewers.
“Castañeda says he was surprised when he first learned about the goodbye. “When [I got] the pages, I was kind of hoping they were dummy sides,” he says. But when he realized they weren’t, Castañeda said the scene ended up feeling just right.
“I’m very proud of how this whole thing played out,” he says. “I’m really happy with the work that we all did during season four.”
The actor says he cried after the group was done filming. “I am happy [with] how it ended, and I’m happy because the experience of shooting the whole season and the whole series,” he says. “It was the funnest season to shoot. … There was a lot of effort and a lot of love and a lot of creative output that came through.”
