The Kugelblitz, which roughly translates from German as a ball of lightning, is the main terror in season three of The Umbrella Academy. A raging red, black hole that causes the third apocalypse for our ragtag team of superheroes to resolve before it destroys the entire universe. This swirling vortex of doom is their greatest enemy yet and may prove unstoppable. But what is the Kugelblitz, and what caused it to form in the first place?
Unlike normal black holes that just slowly devour everything in their path, the Kugelblitz is a deceptive beast. It’s selective with its destruction. At first, starting with small animals, building up to humans and then desecrating entire neighbors with each mounting shockwave. If you are to touch the vortex or step too close into its atmosphere, you are instantly vaporized. Marcus is the first to fall for its hypnotizing grip. He is mesmerized by its beauty and tries to caress the black hole. Marcus’ body is then stripped from the bone, and he is turned to ash. With each shockwave, other victims come to a similar end.
The Kugelblitz manages to wipe out the known universe in mere days, with only Hotel Obsidian and the super-humans themselves remaining. They plan to defeat this beast once and for all, forming a force field around the vortex and slowly condensing it. Once the Kugelblitz is small enough to fit within Christopher, the floating cube. Christopher seals the black hole inside himself. Unfortunately, the vortex of doom comes back even stronger than before, exploding out of Christopher, killing him and Fei in one seismic blast. It grows exponentially from this point on until all is lost. Our heroes’ only hope is to escape into another dimension, following a tunnel into Hotel Oblivion. Here they attempt to reset the timeline and prevent the Kugelblitz from ever existing. But what caused it to appear in the first place?
Midway through the third season, the gang discovered what exactly caused the Kugelblitz to manifest. Five figures out that the Grandfather paradox is to blame for the arrival of this ‘extra kinky black hole.’ This time paradox is caused when an individual travels back in time and either cancels their own existence or mixes with their other-self. The Umbrellas find themselves in another timeline where they could plausibly interact with their own doppelgangers.
Klaus discovers that all the Umbrella sibling’s mothers are dead and eerily died before the Umbrellas were even born. Harlan confesses to Viktor that he is the reason they don’t exist in this new timeline because he accidentally killed their mothers. When Harlan’s own mother died, he let out a monumental blast of energy that connected with the Umbrellas’ mothers, destroying them in the process. Allison kills Harlan once she finds out this awful truth.
Five journeys into the near future and heads to The Commission to try and fix this paradoxical nightmare. At their headquarters, he uncovers a hidden bunker, which happens to be paradox-proof, and finds his future self inside. Elder Five (The Founder) explains to younger Five that the Kugelblitz is an unstoppable force of nature. He warns Five against saving the world, which baffles our time-hopping child. In the end, Reginald has to hack into an alien computer in the portal world of Hotel Oblivion to reset the timeline once and for all. The Kugelblitz was unbeatable in their current timeline.
