“The Umbrella Academy” star says it was 'thrilling' to finally learn how Ben died

“In many ways we experienced the show and the scripts in the same way that the fans do," Justin H. Min tells "Entertainment Weekly."

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy season 4.

This week marks the final season of Netflix’s superhero series The Umbrella Academy, which, among other things, brings a final resolution to one of the longest-running mysteries in the story. In these last six episodes, viewers finally learn how exactly Ben Hargreeves (Justin H. Min) died.

Ben was originally adopted by eccentric billionaire/disguised alien Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) alongside six other supernaturally gifted children who were all born on the same day at the same time. Ben's power allows him to generate monstrous tentacles from his body, which can prove useful in a fight. But when the main story of The Umbrella Academy began, years after the adoption, Ben was dead, and only visible as a ghost to his medium brother Klaus (Robert Sheehan). The “how” and “why” of his death was never clarified… until now.

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Over the course of season 4, Ben’s adoptive siblings, like Victor (Elliot Page), start asking each other what they remember about their brother’s death. They soon find out that they all have the same vague answer: “Ben died because we failed as a team.” In flashback, it is revealed that Ben was killed by Sir Reginald himself.

“It was thrilling,” Min tells Entertainment Weekly of finally getting the answer. “In many ways we experienced the show and the scripts in the same way that the fans do, because there's not a lot of pre-discussion about what's going to happen or the backstories of our characters. Our amazing writers are piecing together all these different things and tying up loose ends as they go.”

Related: The Umbrella Academy showrunner previews the 'madness and chaos' of final season

Min continues, “so in the first three seasons, I had no idea that he had been killed by Reginald. So when I first read that script I was surprised, and it was just exciting and thrilling to play. I'm glad because a lot of the fans obviously have been so curious about how Ben died and the mysteries surrounding the Jennifer incident, and so I'm glad we finally get to reveal those things.”

Eagle-eyed viewers had picked up scattered references to an unexplained “Jennifer Incident,” especially in season 3 when Ben was brought back to life as a member of the alternate-universe Sparrow Academy, and assumed it might have something to do with his death. Indeed it does: Season 4 introduces the character Jennifer (Victoria Sawal), whose power, when combined with Ben’s, inevitably brings about the apocalypse. Preventing such an occurrence is why Sir Reginald killed him back in the day.

The Umbrella Academy is based on a comic of the same name written by Gerard Way ( of band My Chemical Romance) with art by Gabriel Bá. That comic is still ongoing, and may end up having a different explanation for Ben’s death.

Related: The Umbrella Academy cast recaps show before final season: 'Somehow, all this leads to a meme'

“It was one of the unanswered questions when I talked to Gerard, who has a slightly different take on it and is still figuring that out for down the road,” Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman tells EW. “But I like the idea that in every timeline they're toxic together, that somehow or other, them coming together leads to the worst thing in the world. I like the idea that, even though not all of them were there (because Five wasn't there and Lila wasn't there), there's a shared trauma of what it must've been like to be around for Ben’s death.”

The Umbrella Academy season 4 is streaming now on Netflix. 

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.