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Fans of The Umbrella Academy might have felt a bit perplexed when they watched the fourth and final season on Netflix. Something was clearly missing. Sure, all the banter between siblings and impending apocalyptic devastation were all there, but what happened to Sloane, Luther’s wife, between seasons? It turns out that she fell victim to the greatest villain a superhero show can face – budget cuts.

Things got a little weird at the end of season three, with the universe being rewritten and the Hargreeves kids being stripped of their powers, but fans definitely remember that Luther fell in love with and married a member of the Sparrows before the Kugelblitz finally caught up with them. However, when they stepped out into the new universe, she was nowhere to be found - and Luther seemed surprisingly okay with it. Turns out, the showrunner wanted to include her in the storyline but couldn’t because the show’s episode count got cut down to six for the final season from the usual ten.

“I wanted Sloane to be alive,” Steve Blackman explains in an interview. “Just not remembering Luther and him trying to get her to love him again. For logistical reasons, we just couldn’t make it work. We just couldn’t make it happen.”

It is a shame because the exclusion feels glaring and frustrating, especially considering that Luther has always been a big, superstrong, gorilla-bodied softie who is led with his heart. The idea of him just accepting that his new wife doesn’t exist feels awkward. Similar to how House of the Dragon season two ended with such an anticlimactic note to save on the season’s budget, it has left many fans feeling let down by the show as it comes to a close.

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