‘La Brea’ Boss Teases New Worlds & Time Periods and What’s Next in the Love Triangle in Season 2

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the La Brea Season 1 finale “Topanga.”]

The La Brea Season 1 finale, much like the nine episodes before it, is one surprise after another.

Eve (Natalie Zea) is able to get Isiah (Diesel La Torraca) through the portal to 1988 Topanga, thus allowing him to grow up and become her husband Gavin (Eoin Macken), the father of Josh (Jack Martin) and Izzy (Zyra Gorecki). As for Lilly (Chloe De Los Santos), who grows up to be Ella, she does make it through the portal, too … only it’s not until it’s about to close and it pulses before taking her, Josh, and Riley (Veronica St. Clair) somewhere (and somewhen). Meanwhile, Gavin, Izzy, and Ella jump through the portal they find in a sinkhole close to Seattle (thanks to a map in Ella’s jacket from her time in 10,000 BC).

So what’s next? TV Insider turned to creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner David Appelbaum for scoop on Season 2.

How many time periods will we see in Season 2?

David Appelbaum: I don’t want to say exactly the answer to that, but we will be exploring new worlds and new time periods that we hadn’t seen in Season 1. One of the things we always want to do with the show is expand what it can be. So I think moving into new territory like that will be one of the exciting things [of Season 2].

Can you confirm that it’s more than two?

[Laughs] No, I can’t.

Gavin, Izzy, and Ella think they’ve made it to 10,000 BC. Have they arrived the same day as Isiah and the others went through the light?

Yes, they have. They’re in the same time period in 10,000 BC as everybody else. That’ll be one of the fun things in Season 2 is tracking Gavin, Izzy, and Ella as they try to get to Eve and everyone in the clearing and seeing these people who were in this modern world for a season now having to contend with the elements of 10,000 BC.

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What did you want to do with their landing and their first creature encounter?

We really just wanted to see something iconic in 10,000 BC. That’s why we showed that woolly mammoth character. And that’s something that we’ve been thinking about for a long time — that and the saber-toothed tiger. We really wanted to make this fun statement of now Gavin and Izzy and Ella have been thrust into this world that Eve and Josh had been in. That was the most dynamic visual that we could think of.

Josh, Riley, and Lilly have been taken somewhere. It’s the same light that was to take Isiah to 1988, but can you definitively say that’s when it took them?

I don’t want to say definitively when it took them, but it has taken them to a different time period and we’re going to watch them and see what happens to them in this new world that they’re encountering. There’s gonna be a lot of fun in exploring completely different terrain than we’ve seen so far on the show.

With Josh and Riley going through the light, something that we didn’t know happens until now, has everything that’s happened so far still happened or might some things have changed because of time travel?

That’s one of the fun things about a time travel show. When they stopped the plane from taking off, then the plane disappeared from the excavation site. So there will be opportunities for playing with time travel like that. We’ll definitely be able to keep things like that open, but it’ll be a case by case thing where we find ways to play with those ideas.

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What can you say about the journey you want Josh and Riley to take by going through the light and how it relates to what we’ve seen of them so far?

We’ll continue to develop Josh and Riley’s relationship and their romantic story. That was something we were just kind of scratching the surface of in Season 1. So they’re going to be put on a completely new and exciting adventure and in a new world, but their relationship and their romantic story is going to continue to be at the heart of their journey.

It seems like Levi [Nicholas Gonzalez] would be more than happy to start things up again, but Eve maybe seems torn after what she’s learned about Gavin? Where do the three stand in terms of their feelings?

Like with any good love triangle, it’s a difficult choice. Because of what Eve’s learned about Gavin and his visions have been real, it’s forced her to reconsider her relationship with him. She feels a lot of guilt over the dissolution of their marriage and does have strong feelings for him, but at the same time she can’t help but care about Levi, who was there for her in her difficult period and has continued to be there for her now that he’s come down to 10,000 BC.

Levi loves Eve. But he’s also an honorable man and a good man and knows that she’s struggling, so he doesn’t want to take advantage of anything and pursue a relationship. And also they’ve been on this wild journey and adventure trying to survive and to save Josh. So there hasn’t really been an opportunity in Season 1 to move their romance forward. But I think in Season 2, we’re going to push that story forward. We’re going to delve more into their complicated feelings for each other. There’s going to be an evolution in all of their relationships, but that soapy melodrama is definitely a fun aspect of the show that we want to give more time to.

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How’s Gavin feeling? Like Josh said to Levi, Gavin was his best friend.

Gavin, in a lot of ways, feels betrayed by what his best friend did. But he’s also a reasonable and rational person and understands that everyone was going through a difficult time. That’s another complicated relationship that we do want to explore — Gavin and Levi’s — because they do have this deep connection and history. At some point, we do want to thrust them together and seeing them having to be together and work together with this tension hanging over them will be an interesting story to track.

What did you want to do with the relationships in the Harris family — whether people are together or not — in the first season to set up where the second season is taking them?

One of the central parts of the show is trying to find out if this family can be reconnected. They are separated, on the one hand, by distance and time now, but one of the central parts of their story will be about, will they be able to get back together? But they’re also fractured emotionally. There’s so much complicated history that happened before the events of the story began and even if we do at some point get them together, there’s going to be a lot of turmoil and division between them that it’ll be hard to put everything neatly back together. That physical and emotional separation of the family and trying to heal those fractures is the heart of their relationships.

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There’s good news and bad news for Ty [Chiké Okonkwo]: He’s maybe found love, but he’s also still dying. Talk about his decision to stay.

Ty, when we met his character at the beginning of the season, was at the lowest point in his life where he was about to commit suicide. But over the course of this first season, he’s found reasons to live, both in how he’s been helping and forming friendships with people in the clearing and through this budding relationship with Paara [Tonantzin Carmelo] who he’s been on this adventure with and has started to form feelings for. He’s realized that whatever remaining time he has left, he’d rather spend it with her and the people that he’s grown to care about. He’s really taken a big journey in terms of what he wants out of his life.

How will Marybeth’s [Karina Logue] death affect Lucas [Josh McKenzie]?

Whenever a child loses a parent, it’s a huge and devastating moment in their lives, and he’s going to have to reckon with that particularly because their relationship has been so fraught for so long. Only just recently have they started to begin to mend fences, and then the moment that they did, she’s taken away from him. He’s really going to be in a dark and confused place about who he is and how he moves forward. It’s going to stir up a lot of complicated feelings for him and really is going to affect the story that he’s moving forward with.

What can you definitively say we know is true about Silas so far?

He is Isiah’s grandfather, which means he’s Gavin’s grandfather, and he and Aldridge [Ming-Zhu Hii] are colleagues and scientists.

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What can you say about when he’s from?

[Laughs] I don’t want to say anything about that yet, but Silas is going to be an important part of Season 2 and understanding his connection to this world and deepening his connection to Gavin is going to be one of the fun and exciting things that we’ll get to learn about.

One of the coolest things about the show is that we’re giving the audience answers. We are setting up a lot of mysteries, but I think sometimes shows will set up mysteries and never come back to them. But we are planning to give answers to them and then turn over new mysteries that the audience will be interested in. We’re going to learn more about Silas and his connection to Aldridge and Gavin.

What’s going on with Rebecca and Scott [Rohan Mirchandaney] and that building?

In Season 2, we’re going to explore that building and see why it’s there and understand more about the mysteries and what Aldridge’s connection to it is.

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Ask Matt: Is 'La Brea' Meant to Be a Joke?

Can you say how many times Aldridge has made a trip through a portal?

[Laughs] I don’t think I can.

Is that something that’s going to come up in Season 2? The fact that she’s apparently made multiple trips?

Yeah. She’s going to be another character who is important to the show and the mythology and these sinkholes and this building. There are a lot of things we’re going to learn about her as we get into Season 2.

La Brea, Season 2, TBA, NBC