Abhiroop Das
Created by David Appelbaum, NBC’s ‘La Brea’ steps into its third and final season with Gavin and Eve drifting farther apart than ever. After nearly managing to escape 10,000 BC, the group finds themselves in an even worse situation, where multiple timeframes collapse upon each other to create a nightmarish reality where dinosaurs and humans must coexist. Desperate to find a way out, Gavin relies on atypical forms of communication in 2021, be it relying on archaeological discoveries or experimenting with the mysteriously colored auroras that keep popping up in different regions.
Before long, Gavin and his team realize that the mysterious happenings all over prehistoric Earth are not naturally occurring, but the result of a single mastermind, who wants them trapped here forever. By the end of this science fiction drama series, Gavin fights for everything at stake, determined to reunite with the love of his life. SPOILERS AHEAD.
La Brea Season 3 Plot Recap
‘La Brea’ begins in the immediate aftermath of the auroras’ collapse, with Gavin having no explanation of where Eve has gone. Though he has faint memories of interacting with a mysterious government operative, nothing seems to fall into place. Meanwhile, the dinosaur attacks get far more frequent, with one particular crash destroying their base and forcing them to flee. Luckily, Gavin is able to retrieve a laptop just in time, and it sends him a cryptic series of messages from someone who claims to know where Eve is. In return for more information, this sender asks him to find Sierra, which turns out to be the code name for a woman named Maya Schmidt. However, tragedy soon befalls the community when a raptor attacks Riley, leaving her with life-threatening injuries.
As Gavin searches for Maya, a woman he knew in his past as a government test subject, the team discovers two anomalous auroras, one red and one blue. Josh is convinced that going to the present is the only way to save Riley, and rushes in with her without second thought. When Ty tries to stop them, he too gets sucked into the alternate aurora and finds himself alone in 2021, merely a few weeks before the sinkhole is set to appear. The story then takes on a parallel format, with the anonymous messenger on the laptop guiding Gavin to locate a chip. Meanwhile, Ty convinces the 2021 versions of Sam, Gavin, and Scott about what is going on, and they all decide to help. Soon, the 2021 Gavin meets a mysterious woman, who turns out to be his half-sister Helena.
While Helena knows where the chip is, her intention is to go back to 1965, where Josh and Riley landed, in the hopes of ending time travel for good. In 2021, Gavin rejects that idea and instead hands over the chip to Ty, who returns to 10,000 BC, where Gavin and Sam have found Maya. Though she pretends to be a survivor at first, Maya is revealed to be the mastermind who has been using her company, Reisander Group, to create fighter jets capable of time travel. When she kidnaps Scott and sends him to the military base, we learn that Levi has been working there as a double agent. However, his cover gets blown when he tries to save Gavin and company, which ultimately leads to his death. Gavin is left with the knowledge that Eve is stuck in 1965, but to reach her, he has to beat Maya and find a way to destroy the auroras for good.
La Brea Season 3 Ending Explained: Is Eve Back? Does Everyone Return Home?
‘La Brea’ ends with the Harris family reuniting in 2021, after Gavin and Eve simultaneously destroy the time-traveling program in both 10,000 BC and 1965. With several moving parts dictating the story’s climax, Gavin has no choice but to trust his teammates to handle their end when the time comes. While he and Helena decide to take down Maya’s base of operations in the prehistoric world, Eve is left all alone in the 60s with the EMP device, whereas Sam decides to head to the present with an injured Riley. While that still doesn’t change the fact that Gavin’s team is vastly outnumbered and outgunned, all it does is force them to get creative. Using the temporal warping to their advantage, the crew unleashes the one thing Maya simply cannot prepare for: a gigantic T. rex.
Before long, the dinosaur completely overwhelms the Reisander Group’s defenses, giving Gavin enough room to infiltrate the base and dash towards the chip. When he is ultimately found, the second wave of this attack begins with the Tongva tribe, who soon land a decisive win over Maya and her soldiers. However, this attack comes at a cost, as the last two auroras, essentially the group’s ticket back home, dissipate. Worse, it’s revealed that Maya didn’t die in the initial charge, instead stealthily returning to hold Josh at gunpoint. Though she demands the chip in return for his safety, much like last time, the bargain hardly pans out. Helena, proven to be an excellent shot, kills Maya before the deal is made.
Though Gavin has been battling his lost memories this entire season, it is that same set of visions that eventually come to his rescue. After vaguely remembering a time when he flew far past the human limit during the Reisander Group’s experiments, he rallies everyone for one final, particularly risky mission. Using the chip as a test device, he plans to fly the remaining jet till it creates a distortion in the space-time fabric. As we already know, the color of the auroras doubles as a guide for where they lead, and in this case, all Gavin has to do is enter a blue aurora. Ironically, the T. rex turns out to be the last remaining enemy standing on the runway, representing every hurdle the past has hurled their way. For Gavin, however, this makes no difference as he takes off, bringing everyone back to the present.
Though Gavin and his children make a successful return to 2021, Eve’s fate continues to be a mystery for quite some time after that. When Gavin doesn’t find her in the house, he realizes that there’s only one place left to look, one that is symbolically relevant to them. Since their third date all those years ago, Gavin and Eve have been returning to a hilltop that contains the sum of their memories in the form of pictures or artifacts. No matter how far away life pulls them, that tree remains a place where they can trust and return. Which is why Gavin’s faith is ultimately rewarded when Eve makes it to the spot, revealing that she managed to squeeze in through the last aurora right before she destroyed the device. The journey spanning millennia, as such, brings the Harrises closer than ever
Why Does Ty Stay Back in 10,000 BC? What Happens to Scott, Veronica, and Helena?
While most of the people from 2021 gladly return to their present timeline after enduring hell on Earth, Ty has the exact opposite reaction and chooses a life back in 10,000 BC. The reason for this is simple: his love for Paara. Throughout the season, Ty’s arc runs parallel to Gavin’s, in that both characters are looking for their respective partners. Much like how Eve is revealed to be fighting a battle of her own, we ultimately learn that Paara narrowly escaped death herself. Though she initially planned to reunite with Ty after the auroras crashed, a T.rex attacked her tribe, destroying the forts and taking dozens of lives along the way. While Paara survived the initial charge, she still ended up getting trapped under the rubble, and likely had to pretend to play dead in order to escape the T.rex’s attention. While we don’t know when exactly the attack took place, it takes Ty quite a while to locate and bring her to safety.
When Paara learns about Ty’s brief return to the present, she is surprised that he returned to 10,000 BC in the first place. Her voice carries a sense of sadness, in that she possibly always assumed that their relationship was temporary. However, Ty reveals that he didn’t just return to save his friends’ lives, but also because he has fully embraced 10,000 BC as his new home. Though he understands that the temporal shenanigans have now turned the place several times more hostile than before, he is willing to take the risk if it means living with the love of his life.
The fact that all the auroras are destroyed essentially means that he has no way of ever contacting 2021 again, unless some scientists figure out the science behind time travel once again. As such, it is fitting that his last trip to the present has him fixing the one mistake he regrets the most, not standing up for his ex-partner when he should have. Learning from his mistakes, he promises to be there with Paara every step of the way. For Scott, Veronica, and Helena, all of whom chose to return to the present, life takes on a completely new shade. Determined to right his wrongs, Scott reconciles with his ex-partner, who reveals that she never stopped loving him either. Veronica and Lucas also get their happy ending, with doctors confirming that their baby is healthy as ever. For Helena, who has been estranged from her family this entire time, returning to 2021 presents a chance to reunite with Gavin, and she gladly accepts it.
Does Riley Live or Die? Do She and Josh End up Together?
Riley has a close call with death, but ultimately survives the raptor attack after being treated by Sam. Though Sam hasn’t been a surgeon for quite some time, his skills haven’t waned one bit, and it shows in how he performs a life-saving operation on Riley without half of the equipment he needs. While Ty is sent to the present after entering the blue aurora, Josh and Riley end up getting teleported to 1965, where they are separated once again. After Riley is presumably found by others and taken to a hospital, she gets some help with the infection, but the doctors, limited by the technology of their time, fail to notice a diaphragm injury. However, Sam is able to diagnose it just in time and performs a surgery all by himself, buying Riley some precious time.
Saving Riley’s life is only half of the mission for Sam, as he still has to figure out a way to get them back to the present. As Gavin has no means of connecting with 1965, Sam has to rely purely on instinct and enter the aurora before it is shut down for good. At the end of the episode, we learn that Sam was successful in pulling off that maneuver and managed to get Riley admitted to his hospital, where she is on her path towards recovery. What’s even better is that she is also reunited with Josh at last, and this time, he doesn’t leave things to chance. The last time they shared a romantic moment, Josh was too nervous to confess his feelings, but that is no longer the case. Recalling back to the start of the series, when he and Riley met by pure chance, he reveals that he has been in love since that point on, and Riley reciprocates, bringing things full circle.
Are the Auroras Gone for Good? Is Time Travel Still Possible?
With the last two auroras getting destroyed in the final battle, time travel is most likely gone for good in the world of ‘La Brea.’ While Gavin does create a portal in the last minute, it is unlikely to sustain itself for too long, especially when it’s airborne. More importantly, the original research facility from 1965 is also destroyed thanks to Eve’s timely intervention, which means that the original research into the subject is also gone. The only means of reverse engineering the technology remains the chip, but knowing Gavin, there is a good chance that it is already destroyed or locked away in a safe place. Where this breaks the logic of things, however, is in the fact that the show is built around a closed loop. For time-travel to be erased, as such, creates a paradoxical reality that can no longer explain its own events.
‘La Brea’ avoids such a paradox by framing 10,000 BC, 1965, and 2021 not necessarily as the past and the present, but as non-linear coordinates on a timeframe. As such, any and all interferences with the past are still registered as an event taking place in the present, thus not disrupting any established timeline. This also allows for changes within the past, such as Ty saving his ex-partner from an accident. While time travel may technically be out of the picture, its effects still linger, particularly in how Scott now knows that his old, throwaway paleontology paper somehow holds the key to understanding temporal physics. Though there is a chance that the world might figure out time travel from scratch, it is likely that they have now learned their lesson and will tread with more respect towards history and the people who call the past their present.
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