‘La Brea’: Eoin Macken on Latest Shocker for Gavin & Search for Eve

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for La Brea Season 3 Episode 4 “Fire Storm.”]

At this point, Gavin (Eoin Macken) should just expect more major family reveals on La Brea. (But hey, he’s running out of time for those, with just two episodes left.) The latest gives him answers in the 2021 timeline.

Gavin’s taken at gunpoint by a mysterious woman just as he’s waiting to meet his contact, with Ty (Chiké Okonkwo) and Sam (Jon Seda) waiting outside. Eventually, that woman introduces herself as Helena (Emily Wiseman), Gavin’s half-sister(!), and together, they hid the microchip—in 10,000 B.C., Maya (Claudia Ware) tells Gavin it’s the key to the military weaponizing time travel—to try to put a stop to that project. They have the same father, who only cared about his work: time travel. (Yes, now this Gavin, too, knows about that. “Yeah, his family sucks. They don’t make life easy, right?” Macken remarks.)

It’s not that Gavin trusts Helena at that point, given that “he’s at a point where he doesn’t really trust anybody and he just doesn’t really know who to trust anymore,” Macken tells TV Insider. “But he’s also at a point where he kind of has no choice. She’s very persuasive, but he’s in a situation where he doesn’t even have any other ways to go. He’s already been down so many other roads. I think there’s a certain sense of desperation to it, and he just has to go with it and hope that it’s right, which I think is kind of what ends up happening. I think when he’s in that situation where everything that he’s done keeps changing on him, he’s like, ‘You know what? I just gotta kind of go with this.'”

Mark Taylor/NBC

Helena then takes him to a double aurora and reveals the Blue goes to 10,000 BC and the Red to 1965, which is where the program originated—and they’re headed to shut it down. But that’s when Sam and Ty find them, with the latter telling Gavin he needs to get the microchip to 10,000 BC and Eve’s life depends on it. Gavin gives it to him and tells him which aurora to go through.

“Chiké in real life is also a very trustworthy person. He brings that into Ty’s character,” says Macken. “Ty is the only one who seems to not have any motivations that are colored by having a love for family. Ty is actually probably the most straightforward and honest at this stage while everyone else has still got personal motivations towards getting their daughter back or finding a wife and son. So I think it’s actually easier to trust Ty than anybody else at this stage. He’s also the only one who seems to know what’s going on because he did [time travel], and he also does come back, which is a big sacrifice.”

Ty did reunite with the Gavin and Sam in 10,000 BC upon going through the aurora, and if you liked those three together no matter which timeline, you’re not alone. “I thought putting us in the 2021 timeline was super fun because we already knew those characters and had been on this journey. It was fun to start them fresh a little bit,” Macken shares. “It gave it an extra flavor, which I thought was really nice for this season.”

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Gavin needed the microchip so that he could trade it for Eve, but he’s not necessarily feeling more hopeful than he already was. “Gavin’s firmly always believed that he is going to get her back,” according to Macken. “That’s also partly what brings him on this journey towards the finale episode, which you’re going to love, by the way. They shot it differently. The way it’s shot is awesome and it’s definitely my favorite episode of the whole show, and it doesn’t tie it together in the way that — it does it in such a clever way that’s super fun. But I think he’s always had to believe that he’s going to get her back. That’s what he’s been quite firm about, which I think is great about his character, that he believes wholeheartedly that he will get his wife back and nothing’s going to stop him from doing that.”

The audience knows not to trust Maya, after Scott (Rohan Mirchandaney) calls her out on lying about knowing why the project wanted him and his paper in 2021 and he subsequently goes missing. “I don’t think [Gavin] ever does really trust Maya, and it’s clear that he shouldn’t,” notes Macken. “Gavin’s in a situation whereby he was trusting his own memories and his own ideas for so long and then that all got turned on its head in Season 2 by his father and all these other things.” Rather, now, he’s relying on people to (hopefully) get him what he wants. “He doesn’t have any choice. So he kind of just has to trust people at this stage because he doesn’t have any other options.”

Poor Gavin! “Yeah, he’s not having a great time of it,” Macken agrees.

La Brea, Tuesdays, 9/8c, NBC