Did Sir Reginald Hargreeves have a hidden agenda in sending Luther to the moon in Luther, Umbrella Academy "Number One." Unlike his siblings, Luther is the only one of the Hargreeves children still loyal to Reginald and his Academy and claims to have been sent to the moon by his father to watch out for any unknown threats that might be heading Earth's way.
Eventually, Luther discovers that all the reports he sent from the moon were never even opened, proving that the entire mission was a fabrication and a betrayal of Luther's unerring trust in Reginald. Pogo claims that Reginald's intention was to give Luther a sense of purpose and a focus after the accident that resulted in his physical abnormalities, and sending him to the moon for four years was a way of providing this. Later in The , Reginald tells Klaus that he wished he had burned the unread reports instead of leaving them for Luther to find. As a result of the revelation, Luther goes on a downward spiral and loses faith in what he previously held dear.
However, these events still leave the impression that Reginald's true intentions in sending Luther to the moon run a bit deeper, and season 3 provided some background. Putting together all the clues in The Umbrella Academy, it could be argued that the real reason Reginald sent Luther to the moon was to make Number One hate his father as much as the rest of the Academy. Even more practically, Reginald needed somebody on the moon to guard his frozen wife, and Luther was the perfect choice.
Luther's Moon Mission Made Him A Better Leader
Viewers already know that the overall goal of The Umbrella Academy's Reginald Hargreeves was to bring the siblings back together so that they could save the world, presumably from the apocalypse. The old man even sacrificed his own life to reunite the Umbrella Academy back at the Hargreeves mansion in one of his many deaths. While it wasn't yet clear in season 1 how the siblings will save the world, they almost certainly needed a leader while doing so, and that role is traditionally taken by Luther. As things were before his moon mission, however, Luther was incapable of being that leading hero.
Reginald's real reason for sending Luther to the moon was to make him a more effective Number One. Luther couldn't be the leader the Umbrella Academy needed when he was the only one who didn't hate their father. Viktor wrote his book, Five rebelled, Klaus became an addict, and so on. For various reasons, every one of the siblings held a grudge against Umbrella Academy founder Reginald Hargreeves apart from Luther, and this disconnect meant the others could never respect Luther as a leader. Number One's blind faith in Reginald frustrated the other of the Academy, and because of that, there was no way they'd follow him.
Therefore, the moon mission lie might've been Reginald's way of making Luther hate him so that the big man could relate to his siblings and lead them more effectively while removing the animosity they felt towards their brother and his unbreakable loyalty. This explanation doesn't just tie in with Reginald's overall agenda in The Umbrella Academy but also explains why such a diligent and cautious man carelessly left the unread reports lying around the house – he expected Luther to find them. Of course, telling this to The Umbrella Academy's seemingly-immortal Klaus would've given the plot away, so Reginald feigns annoyance during their seance, pretending he regretted not burning the reports when, in truth, his grand design to make Luther the Umbrella Academy's leader again was going swimmingly.
How The Umbrella Academy Season 3 s The Luther Moon Theory
Although Luther's moon mission was a while back in The Umbrella Academy, season 3 managed to subtly confirm all the same reasoning behind it and more. Season 3 saw Reginald strategically manipulate Luther, illustrating that his adoptive father views Number One as pliable and easy to control. This aligns with the theory that Reginald sent Luther to the moon just to toy with him. However, it also helps explain why Luther actually did have an important mission on the moon: protecting Reginald's frozen dead wife, Abigail Hargreeves. This hidden layer to the mission was unknown to Luther (and the audience) at the time, but if Luther is as easy to fool as Reginald seems to think, it would be easy to offer him a quick cover-up explanation if he did learn about Abigail while on the moon. Either way, Luther's moon mission remains one of Reginald Hargreeves' cruelest tricks in The Umbrella Academy.
