‘La Brea’ Recap Before Watching Season 3: What Happens In Seasons 1 And 2?

An NBC original time travel thriller, La Brea aired its first season in 2021. The famous survival/time travel drama is all set to release its third season in a few days, so let’s discuss what we should know regarding the world and the characters of the series before we watch the third installment.

La Brea follows an earthquake that creates a giant sinkhole in Los Angeles, making people fall into the hole and end up in a different timeline. The story centers around the Harris family, from which Eve Harris and her son fell into the sinkhole, along with a lot of people, and tried to survive in the world of 10000 BC. Meanwhile, outside, Eve’s daughter Izzy and her father Gavin, who was somehow connected with these events unfolding, tried to find their family. Let’s see what secrets were hidden in the sinkhole and if Eve and her team would be able to unravel them.

Spoilers Ahead


How Did Gavin Reach The Timeline Of 1988?

Season 1 of La Brea began with the opening of the giant sinkhole that led Eve and her son, Josh, to fall into it along with many other people. Eve woke up in the forest and found her son, as well as many other survivors like her. Together, they tried to find out where they had ended up, but several obstacles came their way. Josh ended up getting attacked by a wolf. A therapist named Ty dealing with his own mental issues, and a doctor named Sam’s constant efforts to protect his daughter Riley from any kind of harm became some of the memorable situations from season 1. However, on the outside of the sinkhole in the city, we saw Gavin, who’d been discharged from his position as a military pilot after an incident, trying to get a job in a similar field, but his medical records were not in his favor as he was dealing with some mental issues, causing him to have visions. As Gavin came to know about the sinkhole and that his family had fallen into it, he quickly had visions of them being alive. Gavin had faith in his visions and believed that they were coming to him for a reason, so he contacted the rescue committee, led by Dr. Nathan, who initially didn’t trust Gavin’s words but later came to believe him. Gradually, more truth to the story surfaced, and we realized that the underground world where Eve and other people had fallen into through the sinkhole was an ancient period. The native settlers of the forest were all hunters or farmers. One of the leaders of the tribe was Salius, an elderly man who wanted to protect his grandson Isaiah.

As Eve and Ty became close friends, sharing stories of each other’s past, we came to know that Eve and Gavin were estranged, as Eve was having an extramarital relationship with Gavin’s coworker, Levi. Ty also opened up about his terminal brain tumor, which was why he tried to commit suicide repeatedly but couldn’t, thanks to Eve’s intervention.

Gavin and Nathan prepared for a rescue mission after making sure that the people inside the sinkhole were still alive. Gavin’s visions proved to be true, as he’d predicted all the tail numbers of the rescue planes that were destroyed in the sinkhole. Nathan gradually started trusting him, and along with him, he dug deeper into the mystery surrounding the sinkholes. They also found out about the sinkholes that had previously opened in the city and one of Nathan’s fellow scientists, Rebecca, was researching them. She had also prepared a rescue aircraft to go inside the sinkhole, so Gavin and Nathan, without wasting their time, approached Rebecca to include themselves in her plan.

It turned out that Levi, who had previously suffered a plane crash, also ended up inside the sinkhole, in the same wilderness. Eve found him alive and reunited with him. Both of them expressed their guilt as Levi revealed that before starting his journey, he had confided in Gavin regarding his affair with Eve. With the help of Levi, the group of survivors came to find a signal from a plane that was probably coming to rescue them. However, soon the group started finding the dead bodies of some survivors in a weird state. These survivors were affected by a peculiar rash that had killed them. After their deaths, when the settlers of this place found them, they put these dead bodies inside a circle created by stones, which was a protective circle according to their tradition.

Rebecca was already aware of time travel as well as the past of some of the crucial time travelers, like Silas and Isaiah. Both Silas and Isaiah were time travelers and important people behind the creation of the sinkholes, so Rebecca wanted to travel to the past to fix everything. It was revealed that Gavin was having visions having a mark on his wrist. This particular mark was also found in little Isaiah’s hand, which suggested that Gavin was Isaiah in the ancient timeline. Rebecca learned that Gavin had to travel to the timeline of 1988, where his mother belonged, to fix everything from the beginning; otherwise, they’d never be able to stop the opening of the sinkholes, which would destroy many families, including the Harrises. Rebecca traveled through the sinkhole and finally met Eve and the rest of the survivors. She told them about the time travel and how it centered around Gavin’s existence. However, in the sinkhole, Silas turned out to be a rival figure fighting against Rebecca, as he didn’t want to let his grandson leave this timeline, but Rebecca knew that to protect humanity, she needed to move these people to the timeline of 1988. Regarding the time travel, the survivors started arguing among themselves, some of them wanted to get back to their own timeline while others, like Scott and Lucas, wanted to travel to 1988 to fix the crux of the problem.

In the present timeline, we saw Gavin, who had also learned the truth about his existence, decide to take the risk of traveling to 1988 so that he could fix the issue. Gavin and Nathan had been able to find a very old sinkhole that had previously been opened. Gavin decided to take the leap of faith without considering what would happen next. Izzy, his daughter, also chose to accompany him. The two of them jumped into the sinkhole, but instead of reaching 1988, they ended up in the timeline of 10,000 BC.


How Did Gavin Survive?

At the end of the first season, the group of survivors, including Rebecca, was scattered into different groups. Rebecca, taking Scott with her, portaled through a different part of the timeline to find a building that had another portal to travel back to 1988. Gavin, on the other hand, ended up in 10000 BC and finally met with Eve and her group of survivors, while on the other hand, we saw Eve’s son, Josh, and Riley had already portaled back to the timeline of 1988 and had been able to find Caroline, Gavin’s mother. Gavin, in the ancient timeline, found his grandfather, Silas, but they were attacked by a group of warriors named the Exiles. The peaceful settlers of this timeline, led by Para, a native woman, tried to protect the survivors while the Exiles were trying to kill them. Para and Ty developed a romantic relationship; meanwhile, Gavin and Eve became closer, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to continue the relationship with Gavin.

We have already witnessed a lot of deaths in the previous season, but in season 2, we had to say goodbye to Rebecca, who was attacked by the Exiles and lost her life. But before passing away, she told Gavin to reach the building and portal back to 1988. Gavin met his father, James, in the building and found out that his father was a complicated and dangerous man who was the main scientist behind these time-traveling sinkholes. James knew that in the future, humanity would face a major scarcity of resources, so he’d created the sinkholes to travel back in time to give humanity access to these resources. Running away from James’ men, Gavin, Eve, and other survivors managed to portal back to 1988, where finally Gavin met his mother Caroline, who wanted her son to stay away from James. However, in this timeline, Caroline was herself in a dangerous situation because of her knowledge regarding time travel, which made her a target for several groups of dangerous people. One of those groups had already attempted to attack Caroline, but Gavin managed to rescue her and run away. Gavin, Eve, and the rest of the group decided to jump back into the sinkhole, leading to the timeline of 10000 BC, where they had to save the rest of the survivors and stop Silas from making further mistakes. But before jumping, Gavin had a vision of Eve’s death, which he decided to hide from everyone. Without giving it much thought, Gavin and the rest of his team jumped into the sinkhole to reach the 10000 BC timeline.

According to Rebecca, the time-traveling machine that was operated by James needed a virus installation to stop the opening of the sinkholes. Therefore, Gavin and his team’s sole mission was to reach the building, defeat James, and install the virus in the machine. However, James made a deal with Gavin’s team and asked him not to upload the virus; otherwise, Eve wouldn’t survive in the timeline. James also managed to make a deal with Ty by giving him a cure for his terminal disease, but Gavin knew that in order to stop the time travel, James needed to die. James had the journal of a scientist named Dr. Herold, who had previously researched these portals, so Gavin’s mission became to get his hands on the journal, but several obstacles stood in their way. One of them was Levi, who wanted to kill James and destroy his machine so that everything could go back to normalcy. Levi had previously lost his family due to the opening of the sinkhole, so he wanted to take revenge on James. With the help of Levi, James’ tower was destroyed in an explosion, causing huge damage to his machine, but James survived the attack.

When Gavin, Eve, and the rest of their team thought the situation was over and they could now set out on their journey back to their own timeline, they found several other portals opening in the sky. Gavin communicates with Silas, asking him to decode the journal of Dr. Herold, and it is discovered that the team would once again have to portal back in time to fix the mess. However, in the timeline of 10000 BC, in which Eve was supposed to die, we saw Gavin losing his life due to a vicious monster attack. But as Eve and the rest of the survivors portaled back into a different timeline, when James was still operating the machine in his building, they found Gavin was alive. In that timeline, James once again tried to attack Gavin, attempting to kill him, but Gavin shot James to death to end his madness. Together, they decided to travel back in time, but accidentally, Eve got separated from the group. She had no idea which timeline she was going to end up in, but in the concluding scene of La Brea, we saw Gavin and his team end up in the pre-hominid era, where they found a giant footstep of a T-rex. In the upcoming season of La Brea, let’s see how Gavin and his team would navigate the pre-hominid timeline and save themselves from the dinosaurs.


Poulami Nanda
Poulami Nanda
Poulami Nanda hails from a medical background, yet her journey is to cross the boundaries of medicine and survive in the cinematic world. The surrealistic beauty of cinema and art has attracted her from a very young age. She loves to write poems, songs, and stories, but her dream is to write films someday. She has also worked as a painter, but nothing attracts her more than cinema. Through her writings, she wants to explore the world of cinema more and more and take her readers on the same ride.


 

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