Season 4 starts off strangely. It’s as if the Umbrellas insist on leaving each other, yet in this timeline there are people who remember parts of it. This becomes the impetus for a shadowy organization led by renegade scientists Gene and Jean Thibedeau (Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally). Their goal is a must-see, but their characters are incredibly creepy, which unfortunately doesn’t last until the end of the season. A sad waste of character development.

Season 4 has one gem: the sequel. In the first season, we weren’t told about Vanya’s (Elliot Page) powers, leading to an evolving storyline that ended with the end of the world averted by the siblings’ familial bonds keeping their sister in check.

Love is what kept them together, basically. But that revelation is why the first season was such a smash hit and why audiences wanted to see more, not less, and certainly not different. For example, some of the powers are not the same in some cases. See Alison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) as an example of what I’m talking about.

Even the masterful Feore can’t save this season. He’s woefully underused (again), and while his character has had four seasons to develop into the highly entertaining character we see in the comics, he fails to deliver on the implicit promise of learning more about Hargreaves. Instead, we’re left with more questions, and that’s the main reason the show falls short this time around.

Promises are broken. The first three episodes start out the same way, with a grim sense of purpose and a loose attempt to reunite the family despite their separation, but it’s as if they’re so far apart that there’s no possibility of reunion. Since this is essentially a superhero story, that’s a bit outside the formula.