La Brea Showrunner Previews 'Incredibly High Stakes' Of Season 2 Finale And Setting Up Season 3

The second season of La Brea will come to an end with a two-part finale, and all signs point toward a TV event that will deliver some answers while raising brand new questions. On the heels of Levi destroying the Lazarus building and seemingly ruining all chances of the survivors getting home, Gavin and Co. will find a reason for hope… with the possibility of deep despair. Showrunner David Appelbaum spoke with CinemaBlend ahead of the finale on February 28, and previewed the “incredibly high stakes” and how the two-parter will set the stage for what comes next.

As of the end of the penultimate episode (available streaming with a Peacock subscription), the survivors’ hopes of getting home are about as grim as they’ve been in some time, and that’s assuming that everybody who had been in Lazarus survives the explosion completely intact! The promo for the two-part finale reveals that they’ll get some hopeful news, however: there’s a second portal. While fans will have to tune in for all the details, David Appelbaum previewed how high the stakes are with this second portal in play:

They're incredibly high. From the very beginning of the series, everyone's trying to survive, but first and foremost, they're trying to get home. What we wanted to place in front of them was a real opportunity to try and do that. We're putting that in front of them again, and it seems like they're gonna have their best shot, and the question is, will they be able to do that? That's gonna be the case for Gavin, Eve, and the Harris family, but also for all our other characters.

“Will they be able to do that?” is a very big question heading into the final adventures of Season 2, especially considering how much La Brea fundamentally changed everything with the Season 1 finale! If that’s any kind of precedent of what could come of this finale's sky-high stakes as the 10,000 BC crew tries to get home, then fans won’t want to miss this two-parter. The series has already been renewed for Season 3, so the journey definitely isn't on the verge of ending. Appelbaum continued:

Beyond that story, there's so many other personal stories for our other characters that we've been telling throughout the season. They're going to be coming to a head throughout this two-hour episode as well. I think if you're a fan of the show, and you've been following it, it's gonna be a really satisfying conclusion for the season.

While Levi’s explosion was definitely the big cliffhanger of the penultimate episode, there are a lot of unanswered questions for many of the characters, and no guarantee that they’ll all live to make it to Season 3 in 10,000 BC. Ty seemingly lost his access to the treatment he needs for his cancer when Lazarus was destroyed, and he’s only one of the characters whose future may not be too bright if they don’t catch a break in the finale!

Although there will be some answers on the way in the two-parter, fittingly called “The Journey, Part 1” and “The Journey, Part 2,” the showrunner explained whether or not the Season 2 finale will tie off all the loose ends that are currently still dangling. David Appelbaum shared:

Definitely not. It definitely does resolve some stories in dramatic ways, but the fun thing about the finale is that it resolves some stories, but it also sets up a lot of new ones. One of the exciting things about our finale is what it sets up for Season 3. A lot of surprising things end up in 10,000 BC, and a lot of people will leave 10,000 BC and go to places that we never might have expected. So I think going into Season 3, things are kind of flipped on their head in a fun, exciting way. We're starting from a very interesting and different place as we get into the next season.

Change is on the way to 10,000 BC, for better or worse! It sounds like the episodes will leave fans on an exciting note heading into hiatus ahead of Season 3, although perhaps not as exciting in a good way for the characters. “Exciting” for them on this show in Season 2 can mean exploding towers and killer underground wasps, after all!

There is one major plotline that is going to get some resolution in the finale, but according to David Appelbaum, fans may not see it coming the way that it finally ends. He addressed how the two-part event will handle Gavin’s game-changing vision of Eve dying, saying:

It takes center stage at the beginning of the two-part episode, where Gavin is going to realize that the journey to get into this new portal may in fact bring this vision to a head. And that by doing so, it might end up costing Eve's life. It's going to endanger Eve's life, but there's going to be some really surprising twists along the way. Whether Eve is going to live or die is going to be kind of center stage, but I don't think it's going to end the way that anyone is going to expect. I think the fans of the show always like the out-of-left-field twists and turns that we throw at them and we definitely have a lot of those in this finale.

Are we in for a self-fulfilling prophecy with the possibility that attempting to reach the new portal and return safely home will ultimately result in Eve’s death and the Harris family despairing? Gavin’s visions aren’t exactly a perfect science, and La Brea has two hours to resolve whether or not it’s possible to change what he saw… or if he correctly interpreted what he saw in the first place. We can only speculate for now, and Appelbaum seems to think that nobody will see it coming!

It’s not hard to believe that that fans will be surprised, because how many really could have predicted just a few episodes ago that Levi would successfully destroy Lazarus and ruin the hopes of getting home via that portal? That act seemed like a point of no return for Levi, but the story isn’t over yet. When asked if there’s any coming back for Levi after what he did in last week’s penultimate episode, the showrunner shared:

It's a long journey for him and it's not going to be resolved even within the course of the season. He's taken away the way home not just for Gavin and Eve, but for everyone, and it's something that has real ramifications. Only after he's done the deed does he realize the true nature of what he's done. That guilt is something that's going to eat at him through the end of Season 2, and even into Season 3. It's something that he'll have to grapple with. But ours is a hopeful show, and I think he's on an arc towards redemption. But it won't be an easy one for him.

Well, even if all the details about how Season 2 of La Brea will end won’t be revealed until the episodes air, I think it’s safe to say at this point that fans are lucky to already know that Season 3 is guaranteed! It should be an eventful two hours of television, as you can see in the preview:

Tune in to NBC on Tuesday, February 28 at 9 p.m. ET for the two-hour Season 2 finale of La Brea, and check back with CinemaBlend for more from showrunner David Appelbaum. You can also find so post-La Brea viewing options for when March begins with our 2023 TV premiere schedule.