Even though his death was the inciting event that kicked off the whole series, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) has remained a major player throughout both seasons of The Umbrella Academy. Thanks to their jump back through time into the 1960s, the Hargreeves siblings were able to meet a much younger version of their future adoptive dad during season 2—and true to form, Sir Reg treated them with a mix of suspicion and total disdain. And judging by the twisty final moments of the season, the Hargreeves kids meeting their future dad may have created a time paradox that puts their actual existence in jeopardy, since Hargreeves was so disappointed by his future children that he set out to do a better job, thereby creating an entirely different family named the Sparrow Academy.

But let's stick with Hargreeves for a second, because viewers were treated to a major reveal about his identity in the penultimate episode of the season. Though he was a mysterious figure throughout season 1, fans of the Umbrella Academy graphic novel series have known Hargreeves's deal from the jump, because on the page the truth is revealed immediately. On screen, it took nineteen episodes for us to discover it. Spoilers follow.

umbrella academy sir reginald hargreeves
Netflix

In the comics, Hargreeves is revealed to be an alien almost immediately, which explains his obsession with space—remember when he sent his favorite child, Luther (Tom Hopper), to the moon on a mysterious and poorly-explained mission that left him deeply psychologically damaged by loneliness? Good times.

Early in season 2, Diego (David Castañeda) and Five (Aidan Gallagher) discover that Hargreeves is working with a shadowy cabal named The Majestic 12, who are seemingly plotting to have President Kennedy assassinated. Despite Diego's best efforts to intervene, Kennedy is killed on November 22, 1963—but Hargreeves's involvement turns out to be more complicated. When he goes to meet with the Majestic-12, he's furious, because he was given assurances that Kennedy wouldn't be harmed. But the group's leader shrugs off his concerns, pointing out that Kennedy had to be killed because he had "pissed off too many people." (In real life, one of the many conspiracy theories about JFK's death was that he was murdered because he was getting too close to the truth about alien life on Earth.)

This is where things get interesting. Majestic-12's head honcho says that nothing has changed in terms of the deal Hargreeves made with their organization. "The rocket technology you supplied us with will enable us to beat the Russians to the moon," he says, "and when we do arrive, five or six years from now, your interests on the dark side of the moon won’t be affected.” Hmmm. When Hargreeves says he'll stop sharing his technology, the leader threatens to "tell the world who he really is."

And what is that, exactly? We still don't know for sure, but what we do know is that Hargreeves responds to this threat by casually unzipping the back of his head and peeling off his entire face, which is some kind of nightmarish human skin mask. Off camera, in his true form, he massacres the entire room full of Majestic-12 agents, and although we don't see any of what's happening, the closed captions for this scene include the sound effect "Flesh tearing," so.

Now, it's technically still possible that the show could deviate from the comics and have Hargreeves turn out to be some other kind of non-human creature. (What if he's a werewolf, hence his interest in the moon?) But given that the graphic novels' creator, Gerard Way, is heavily involved with the show, it's pretty likely that good ol' Sir Reg really is an extraterrestrial.

Another popular fan theory about Hargreeves which circulated after season 1 is that he's actually an adult version of Number Five. Season 2 not only conclusively disproves this mind-bending theory, but references it in a sly way by introducing an actual older version of Number Five, who is most definitely not Sir Reginald and spends most of his time onscreen bickering with his younger self.

So now that we (pretty much) know what Hargreeves's whole deal is, what does that mean for future seasons of The Umbrella Academy? What are his "interests on the dark side of the moon," and did he ever succeed in achieving whatever his goals there were? Will the creation of the Sparrow Academy give him the chance to push his outer space agenda further than he was able to the first time around? With all these questions, it's gonna be a long hiatus.