How long does it take to fall in love? The penultimate episode of The Umbrella Academy offers one answer: six years, five months, and two days. That’s roughly how long Five and Lila spend wandering the endless maze of subway tunnels before they end up acting on their mutual attraction, pausing their quest to cancel the apocalypse in favor of holing up in a cheerful little universe for two. Of course, we get to experience this story a little faster than Five and Lila experience it.
In a montage that runs a little under four minutes, The Umbrella Academy gives us those six years. We see Five and Lila wander, argue, and play checkers; feast on roasted subway rats and give each other minor surgeries and haircuts; and, at last, nuzzle on the subway car before waking up in the same bed. None of this is surprising, exactly.
The Umbrella Academy has been fairly unsubtle in teasing a flirtation between these two all season, and it’s totally plausible that they might fall for each other — probably in general and definitely in this specific situation. They are, after all, each other’s one constant in an ever-shifting rotation of alternate universes. It doesn’t hurt that the execution of this sequence is so strong.
Neville Kidd, The Umbrella Academy ’s longtime cinematographer, does a credible job selling this love story over a compressed timeline. A well-chosen song — “Ahead by a Century” by The Tragically Hip — does some emotional heavy lifting, and Aidan Gallagher .