Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for the Netflix series, The Umbrella Academy.
From the Eagles’ “Hotel California” to The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, our collective imagination is full of mysterious hotels that seem to function almost like liminal spaces. These eerily charming inns offer guests comfortable accommodations and some much-needed relaxation, but they also harbor secrets the human mind isn’t prepared to understand. The newest addition to this ever-growing list of creepy hotels is The Umbrella Academy’s Hotel Obsidian, the main location of the Netflix’s series third season. A past-its-prime fancy establishment that accepts guests of all kinds, the Obsidian has a complicated and shady history. But exactly makes this quaint art deco building so extraordinary?
The Obsidian makes its first appearance in the Umbrella Academy universe in the very first episode of Season 3, “Meet the Family”. Upon returning from 1963 Dallas to their childhood home only to find out that they don’t belong there anymore, Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Five (Aidan Gallagher), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), and Viktor (Elliot Page) need a place to crash and figure out what to do next. Having been kicked out of the Hargreeves residence by the new members of the Sparrow Academy, they take shelter in the Obsidian. The hotel comes highly recommended by Klaus, who has spent many drunken nights in its rooms. In fact, he claims to be a regular that even has his own suite. So when the concierge signals that he has no idea who Klaus is, it’s yet another indicator that there is something wrong with the timeline.
Still, the Obsidian takes in all kinds of people, whether they know the concierge or not. They accept even alleged JFK shooters, provided, of course, that you pay upfront for your stay. Thus, our heroes take residence in two of its rooms. Their party soon gets bigger with the arrival of Diego’s so-called son, Stanley (Javon “Wanna” Walton), a 12-year-old with a penchant for trouble who ends up being the key to finding out the truth about the Obsidian. While cleaning the hotel rooms as a punishment for his shenanigans, Stan finds a colorful suite with a white buffalo head hanging above the fireplace. Below the buffalo head is a harpoon that the boy accidentally shoots at the wall with a pachinko machine, revealing a secret passage.
Now, poor Stan isn’t in the right state of mind to check out his new discovery, what with the harpoon going through Klaus’ chest and everything. But his pseudo-parents aren’t about to close this open door without even taking a peek at what’s on the other side. Diego and Lila (Ritu Arya) cross the passage behind the wall only to come out at a different version of the same room, with a white buffalo’s tail hanging from the wall. Later on in the season, we find out that this is the other-dimensional Hotel Oblivion, and that the creature that chopped off two of Diego’s fingers is one of the dreadful Guardians.
The real Hotel Obsidian is located in Hamilton, Canada, and goes by the name of Royal Connaught. Well, at least on the outside. The building’s facade, slightly altered with VFX, made its Umbrella Academy debut in Season 3’s first official trailer. Fans were quick to come up with theories about the place. Those that read the comics written by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá noticed the similarities between the Obsidian and the Hotel Oblivion from the eponymous third volume of the series. Still, with the show’s script seemingly deviating from the comics, many thought it was nothing more than an Easter egg.
However, the Obsidian is no throwaway reference. Yes, the show’s script does stray from Way and Bá’s original story, but the Oblivion remains an important part of the plot — and the Obsidian is closely connected to it. In Episode 8, “Wedding at the End of the World," it is revealed that Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) ordered the construction of the Obsidian in 1918, after discovering a portal to another dimension. The hotel was built around this interdimensional gateway, with the portal itself hidden behind a wall of Sir Reginald’s own personal quarters: the White Buffalo Suite.
The white buffalo is an extremely significant animal for Reggie. In his office at the Academy, there is also a picture of a white buffalo walking through a pasture. From the White Buffalo Suite, Sir Reginald Hargreeves commanded expeditions into the Oblivion in search of something he refers to as “the Seven Bells."
Metaphorically, the bells are a kind of reset button for the universe, put in place by whoever or whatever created it. Reggie has been trying to reach them for well over a century. But as his soldiers came back mortally injured from the other side or didn’t come back at all, he realized that he would need a special kind of army to face the Guardians and allow him access to the bells. This is probably why he bothered with buying all those kids in 1989 and raising them to be superheroes.
Possibly due to its quasi-supernatural origin, the Obsidian is the last building standing as the Kugelblitz wreaks havoc all over the world. The hotel’s lonely concierge is the last regular human to be devoured by the black hole’s energy waves. The Umbrellas' plan was to await the end safely inside the Obsidian, alongside Sloane (Genesis Rodriguez) and Ben (Justin H. Min), following future Five’s advice not to save the world. Alas, their plans are Kugelblitzed by Sir Reginald, who is having none of this “letting the world die” business.
By the end of the season, Reginald convinces all his surviving children, Sparrows and Umbrellas alike, that they must cross the bridge between the Obsidian and the Oblivion to stop the apocalypse once again. He does that by killing Luther and pinning it on one of the Guardians, thus making all nay-sayers angry enough to go looking for revenge. They enter the passageway just as the Kugelblitz is about to swallow Luther’s body, as well as Klaus, who was pushed away from the door by his father. After a bloody fight against the three Guardians, they manage to activate the universe's reset button, only to realize that Reginald planned on using their own lives to fuel it.
Reginald never truly cared about saving the universe. After all, he was already looking for a way into the Oblivion way before the universe was even in danger. What he wanted was to rebuild the world in his own image and bring his beloved Abigail (Lisa Ripo-Martell) back to life. He makes a pact with Allison, promising her a world with Claire (Coco Assad) and Ray (Yusuf Gatewood) in exchange for the Umbrellas' support in his quest. But when he realizes that familial love wouldn’t be enough to get him what he wanted, he pulls out the murder card. Fortunately, Allison has a crisis of consciousness seeing her siblings being drained of their life forces and stops Reginald before he gets to press the button.
Unfortunately, though, she isn’t fast enough to stop him from laying out the template for his universe. To make matters worse, she takes it upon herself to press the button. When the Hargreeves children come to, the world is back in place, and they all seem to be unharmed. Allison has her daughter and the love of her life waiting for her at home, and, for a second, everything seems to have turned out fine. However, we soon learn that Reginald Hargreeves appears to have taken over the world, with Abigail at his side, and that the Umbrellas, Ben, and Lila are all powerless. Sloane is nowhere to be found, and neither is the Obsidian — at least for the time being.
Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy is streaming on Netflix.