‘La Brea’: In which they steal the title of Worst Series Finale

La Brea
“The Road Home, Part 2”
February 13, 2024

Well, here we are at the end of a very stupid and illogical road, and all I have to say is that I truly hope, with my entire being, from the depths of my soul, I hope that Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, the entire Lost writing room and everyone who had anything to do with that show — specifically the finale — watched La Brea from beginning to end, most especially this episode. And I know that’s unlikely. But if I could be President for one day, I would take the Lost kids captive and make them watch just this episode. Sure, it might be considered kidnapping and torture, but with my absolute immunity, I would get off scot-free. And it would be worth it to show them that, in fact, they had not written the worst series finale in TV history (I mean, they never had, but some people are assholes) because this, the series finale to La Brea, it exists.

Without further ado:

We begin with Gavin and Eve — and it’s really Eve, the actual Natalie Zea, and not some stand-in in a wig and bad jacket — together again, hiking up to a large oak tree at the top of a hill overlooking Los Angeles. Except, this isn’t a reunion, it’s a flashback to the moment when Eve told Gavin she was pregnant for the first time. And you’d be forgiven to not immediately catch on to that because …

Look. Nothing against Natalie Zea or Eoin Macken, but these people are 49 and 40 respectively, and VERY OBVIOUSLY not the versions of themselves when they were 17, 18 years younger. They can give us poorly-renedered CGI saber-toothed tigers, wooly mammoths, and pterodactyls, but not poorly-rendered CGI young Eve and Gavins?

The point is, Grandpa Gavin and Grandma Eve agree that they will return to this tree every time she gets pregnant.

Except not.

Right, so last we left these ding dongs, Dr. Sam, Izzy, Gavin, and Helena had gone through the red aurora which dropped them into 1965 for no good Goddamned reason except that the producers realized they could save money by telegraphing that they were in a particular time with an empty old gas station and a few old cars.

Which is exactly what they do: the group is at an old gas station where Dr. Sam uses a pay phone with all the dimes he had on him in 10,000 B.C. to call around to hospitals to find his daughter, Riley — which is on its face completely preposterous for many reasons but considering the preposterousity that we are about to find ourselves neck-deep in, this is the least of our worries — while Helena hotwires a car. When Dr. Sam announces he found Riley at Cedars Sinai, Helena gives him the car she just jacked, and tells him to go to her.

Meanwhile, she, Gavin, and Izzy are going to hotwire ANOTHER car, hope that no one in this gas station notices all their cars being stolen, go to Maya’s secret detention center, save Eve, and detonate an EMP bomb that Helena suddenly has with her? Where did she get that bomb? I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU MAKE ME GO BACK AND REWATCH THE FINAL MOMENTS OF THE LAST EPISODE TO CONFIRM THAT SHE DID NOT HAVE A BOMB WITH HER IN 10,000 B.C. ..

… yeah, fine, she had a backpack with her. I STILL WANT MY FIVE MINUTES BACK.

And thus begins the most chaotic, nonsensical, and unconnected string of events that I have ever seen on television, all it avoid showing Natalie Zea on screen because she refused to go to Australia to film the finale. Stick with me here:

Gavin, Izzy, and Helena arrive at Maya’s detention center and immediately split up. Gavin and Izzy find a cell door marked “HARRIS,” but when they open it, it’s empty because Natalie Zea refused to return to Australia.

Helena rejoins them and helpfully expoists that found a prisoner manifest, and it looks like Maya’s troops are planning to transfer someone to 10,000 B.C. RIGHT NOW! They all jump to the conclusion that this is Eve — per the “HARRIS” on the cell door — and decide they have to get back to the aurora RIGHT NOW! Well, Gavin and Izzy will get back to the aurora, Helena is going to hang back and detonate the EMP; she’ll meet them at the aurora later in what will be the third car she steals in a matter of an hour.

Quick question: Does Maya have some means of communication between the different time periods? It seems like she would have to, otherwise, how does she manage to have outposts in different eras? So then explain to me how that works? (Potatoes.)

Right, so, Gavin and Izzy drive back to the aurora which is helpfully in some remote wooded location — you know, like so much of Los Angeles is — and ram their pickup truck into the military vehicle that is parked there. The soliders inside are knocked unconscious — or killed, who knows, who cares — and Gavin and Izzy open the back to reveal Eve Josh because Natalie Zea refused to return to Australia!

Josh explains that he brought Riley to the hospital and then one day was grabbed by some guys who threw him into a prison cell with Eve. Then today a guard said that they were being transfered. Eve and Josh fought like hell, but the guards sedated him and he has no idea what happened to Eve because Natalie Zea refused to return to Australia. This, they decide, must mean Eve is still back at the detention center with Helena. I mean, that logic isn’t logicking —  there’s no reason why they couldn’t have taken her to the aurora earlier, or moved her to a different location in 1965, or even killed her — but sure, she’s offscreen somewhere because Natalie Zea refused to return to Australia with Helena.

OK, and as stupid as all that is, we now have to go to the Dr. Sam/Riley story which is somehow both less logical and even stupider.

Dr. Sam finds Riley in her hospital room, alone and completely unsupervised. He discovers that she has a fever, and laments that they didn’t really give antibiotics. IN 1965.

When Dr. Sam realizes she is also experiencing acid reflux, he diagnoses her with having a torn diaphram from the dinosaur attack. So obviously, there’s only one thing to do: Dr. Sam will have to perform a laparotomy on his own daughter, by himself, right there in this hospital without anyone noticing. Don’t worry: he locked the door, so they’re all good.

YEP. DEFINITELY. THIS IS DEFINITELY HOW HOSPITALS WORK. THIS IS HOW HOSPITALS, AND SURGERY, AND MODERN MEDICINE DEFINITELY WORK AND I AM NOT GOING TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS.

But great news, gang: the operation is a success, and within MINUTES, he has arrived at the aurora with his unconscious, recently operated-upon daughter in the backseat.

And I know I literally just said that I wasn’t going to ask any questions, BUT HOW DID HE GET RILEY OUT OF THE HOSPITAL WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING? Like, hold up, look. The characters, they are all worried about the auroras closing up. “OH NO HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE BEFORE THE AURORA CLOSES UP?!” they are constantly yelling in each other’s faces, and suggesting that they only stay open for an hour or two. And yet, while this aurora was open, Dr. Sam was able to drive to Cedars Sinai (which is very close to Hollywood, and about an hour from Pasadena which is close to where the aurora is supposed to have opened up), find his daughter, realize his daughter needed surgery, surreptiously steal the supplies for said surgery AND PERFORM IT, sneak his post-surgical daughter out of the hospital without anyone noticing and drive the hour back to Pasadena before this aurora closed back up again?

Oh whatthefuckever. So Dr. Sam and an unconscious Riley arrive and he explains that he needs to return her to 2021 so that she can get antibiotics — which, again, THEY HAD IN 1965 — and so Josh helps Dr. Sam carry her to the aurora, and poof! they are gone.

That’s when Helena arrives, alone, explaining that  Natalie Zea refused to return to Australia she found Eve, and together they fought the guards. But ultimately, Eve took the EMP and stayed behind to destroy the facility, sending Helena to tell her family to go back to 10,000, find the microchip and finish the job because Natalie Zea refused to return to Australia and she’ll meet them in 2021.

Because it definitely makes more sense to leave the mom and wife behind alone to fight a phalanx of guards and detonate an EMP, and not, say, the single woman with no family but a shit ton of weapons training.

“Guess we have to go back to 10,000 B.C. for like the 17th time and not, say, just go back to 2021 and live our lives,” say the three stupidest people on Earth.

Meanwhile, back in 10,000 B.C. Ty, Scott, Veronica, Lucas, and this Ruth woman are like, “This aurora isn’t going to stay open forever, so let’s get everyone from the village and go home already, but not before we find some dumb subplot to distract us and create artificial tension.”

Speaking of, in the soldiers’ Jeep, Ty finds the engagement ring he made Paara, and the soldiers explain that they found it in a village that had been attacked by a dinosaur, leaving everyone dead. They give him directions, so obviously, he, Scott, Lucas, and Veronica drive off to this village instead of, you know, SENDING THE PREGNANT WOMAN BACK TO 2021.

The group finds the destroyed village, and for some reason, Veronica and Lucas stay in the Jeep while Ty and Scott search among the bodies for Paara. And guess what! Tonantzin Carmelo, like Jack Martin and Veronica St. Clair (but not Natalie Zea!) agreed to fly down to Australia to film the finale They find her alive! But pinned under a collapsed building. Ty and Scott free her just in time for the T-Rex — because we were not going to end this series without a T-Rex, uh-duh — to arrive in the village, pissed off and hungry. And I suppose it was a good idea that Lucas and Veronica stayed in the Jeep because they race to the rescue and everyone gets away from the T-Rex safely.

Oh, and Lucas has changed his mind about going back to 2021; he wants to now, but not until after plot happens.

When everyone returns to the auroral meeting spot, we find that the Harris family has returned to 10,000 B.C., while everyone else is hurredily getting their asses into that blue aurora and back to 2021 as fast as they possibly can. This includes Veronica, FINALLY, while Lucas watches on having a sad, because he feels compelled to stay back and help Gavin find and destroy this McGuffin microchip.

To do that, these dummies (Gavin, Lucas, Scott, Izzy, Josh, Helena) lure the T-rex behind them with the Jeep, drive up to the base and use the dinosaur to break into the grounds, distracting the soldiers. As they are running to the lab where the microchip is being held — which, obviously they know the exact location of despite never having set foot on the base before — Scott catches sight of Petra and decides they need to save her? From her mother?

So Lucas joins Scott on this weird “Save Petra” mission, while the Harrises head into a hangar where the microchip is. Gavin collects the chip just as Maya surrounds them with a bunch of soliders.

But that’s when the villagers show up with their bows and arrows against the AR-15s and save the day.

It happens off-screen, obviously, but the bad guys are defeated, yay! Except they hear an explosion nearby and realize that the dual aurora has finally expired. SAD FACES ALL AROUND. Now how will they get home except to wait for the next aurora to open up somewhere in about half an hour?

Well, Helena actually has an answer for that: she leads Gavin and the rest back into the hangar where she reveals a stealth bomber turned Time Machine. She and Gavin will ride in the cockpit and everyone else will be tucked away in cargo which I hope is properly pressurized or they’ll have a whole other set of problems.

But before they can climb in and fly away, Maya reappears, grabs Josh, and holds a gun to him, demanding that Gavin hand over the microchip. So Gavin throws the chip to Maya, and when she lets go of Josh, Helena shoots her dead. In front of her daughter, Petra. So thanks for that, Scott.

Then everyone gets in the plane which is now a time machine thanks to the microchip — so I guess it was a good thing they didn’t destroy it back in 2021 when they had ALL THE CHANCES IN THE WORLD — and take off to fly back to 2021, but not before the T-Rex tries to eat them. But don’t worry they get away at the last second, hooray.

Though it would have been truly hilarious if the T-Rex had managed to crash the plane and eat all the survivors. Had that happened, this would have been my favorite show of all time.

BUT IT DIDN’T.

In 2021, they land in some wooded field somewhere — and I’m sure the U.S. government is completely cool with strange stealth bombers landing on the outskirts of Los Angeles, I’m sure they are totally chill with that happening — and Gavin’s biggest concern is to invite his sister Helena over for dinner before she wanders off-screen. Just A++ writing, guys.

As for everyone else:

Josh swings by the hospital to tell Riley that he’s in love with her.

Veronica and Lucas get an ultrasound done, and Scott pops in to exposit that he dumped Petra off with her grandparents. That must have a been a fun conversation: “Hey! I’m some weird stranger you don’t know. Here’s your granddaughter I rescued in 10,000 B.C. Sorry about my friends and I killing your daughter. OK BYE.”

Scott then stalks his ex-girlfriend, finds her, and is like “Hey, I’m cool now.” They kiss.

Dr. Sam doesn’t get a divorce.

Ty is happy back in 10,000 B.C. living without running water, air conditioning, or medicine.

And Gavin, Izzy, and Josh go to the tree from the first scene where they are finally reunited with Natalie Zea Eve because the tree is actually in Los Angeles and Not Australia. She tells them something about letters? In a box? Eve wrote her family a bunch of letters when she was a prisoner in 1965 and somehow managed to bury them at this tree which is nowhere near where she was being held? But I have no idea what it has to do with literally anything? And then they go home and live happily ever after and are not quarantined by the government to be closely studied as time travelers, AND YOU GUYS WHAT EVEN WAS THIS SHOW? 

I have so many questions and there is a part of me that just wants to hit publish without addressing any of them and walk away and never think about this, the worst show I’ve ever recapped in my life, ever again.

Instead, let’s pick this trash heap apart:

The biggest problem this show about time travel created is that they did not spend a single solitary second thinking about the consequences of time travel. They sent Ty into an aurora that sent him into 2021 a few weeks before the sinkhole that sent them all (except Gavin and Izzy) into 10,000 B.C. occurred. Fine. He then meets Dr. Sam, Gavin, and Scott, and tells them about the sinkhole and the whole 10,000 B.C. thing before it happens.

And that’s where everything gets screwy.

1. By meeting these people before the sinkhole, they should all now have a memory of meeting Ty before the sinkhole, and therefore know him when they are in 10,000 B.C. together.

2. Speaking of the sinkhole, why would any of them be anywhere near La Brea and Wilshire on that day? And why wouldn’t they go to the government or any official and be like, “Look, you might not believe us, but maybe you will since there’s a weird black ops program happening right under your nose over at this Air Force base, but you’re going to want to close off the whole La Brea tar pits area for a few days around this date because shit’s about to go down?” But if they don’t fall into the sinkhole, then Ty can’t come back and tell them about the sinkhole, which creates its own terrible paradox BECAUSE THE WRITERS HAVEN’T THOUGHT ANY OF THIS THROUGH.

3. And then what about the dopplegangers? “What dopplegangers, Therese?” WELL LET ME EXPLAIN. The show never suggests that by destroying Maya’s program they prevented the sinkhole from happening in the first place (because that’s a needle too hard for these writers to figure out how to thread), which means by all logic the sinkhole has to have happened.

Which in turn means one of two things happened: either Dr. Sam and Scott knowingly fell into that sinkhole and Gavin didn’t bother to warn Eve, and his children to stay away from that area, much less any of the other characters that we’ve gotten to know. OR everyone who returns to 2021 now has two versions of themselves walking around — the ones who haven’t fallen into the sinkhole (yet) and the ones who have been to 10,000 B.C. and back.

Now, you could make the argument that the stealth bomber that Gavin flew the survivors back in returned to a time post-sinkhole, and therefore the original versions have all fallen in and these versions will just pick up and take their places in 2021.

EXCEPT Dr. Sam and Riley mess this all up because they go from 1965 to 2021 in the original aurora which should take them to a 2021 that still has a week or two to go before the sinkhole happens, which means at the very very very least, there are two Dr. Sams and Rileys out there, right? RIGHT?

BUT ALSO, the entire time Ty was back in 2021, the original Ty was also running around in 2021. And that is interesting and had potential for some interesting storytelling. But instead, the writers opted to avoid that altogether and have Ty alter the timeline with his ex-wife in ways that could have unpredictable consequences.

YOU KNOW WHAT? WE’RE JUST GOING TO MOVE ON BEFORE I HAVE A STROKE.

Soooo the time travel program. What, exactly, was Helena’s whole mission, to destroy Maya’s time travel program? OK, so how was that accomplished? Maybe by blowing up all the facilities in 1965, but what about the facilities in 10,000 B.C., aren’t they still there? How are the auroras still being powered if the program was destroyed? “OK, but MICROCHIP,”  you say. “That’s why the writers didn’t have Gavin and Helena destroy the microchip when they originally stole it in 2021, because they needed it for reasons.” You mean to tell me that the entirety of a complicated and presumably multi-billion (trillion?) dollar time travel project is being kept on a single microchip? What kind of planning is that?

BUT FINE. Let’s say all that’s true. But if they destroy Maya’s time travel program in 2021, how does James get his hands on it in 2074? And if James doesn’t develop it in 2074, then little Gavin doesn’t travel to 10,000 B.C. and then travel to 1980 or whenthefuckever and Josh and Izzy never exist. SO EXPLAIN THAT ONE TO ME, WRITERS.

And while you’re at it, I have a few more questions for you:

• What happend to Silas?
• What happened to Leyla? She was all hot and bothered to get to 2021 in the previous episode, so did she just stay back in 10,000 B.C. after all that?
• WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH SCOTT’S PAPER? Levi literally beat the shit out of him for information on this paper and for what? FOR WHY?
• If Maya was in charge of the Air Force base in 10,000 B.C. the entire time, what was going on with her daughter Petra being lost in the woods? Did she send her out there? Did she run away?
• Go back to the box of letters thing? Did Eve write those as a prisoner? Or is this suggesting that after destroying the facility, Eve got stuck in 1965 for a while? Which makes a sort of sense. But if she did, and she did after the time travel program was destroyed, how’d she get to 2021? Did she live through all those years? Is Eve 56 years older than the rest of them? I mean, based on the first scene, age doesn’t mean anything on this show, so I guess it’s possible.
• Did I imagine Scott being stabbed in the second to last episode? (~Checks the video.~ No, I did not: he got slashed in the leg.) SO HOW IS HE RUNNING AROUND ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE 15 MINUTES LATER?
• I’m still REAL MAD about the introduction of a whole-ass sister in the final moments of the show BUT WHATEVER.
• Where is the U.S. government in all of this and why isn’t there more panic about these sinkholes that keep opening up and stealth bombers that keep appearing from GOD KNOWS WHERE?
• If these people are just sashaying back and forth through these auroras, what’s stopping, say, a poorly-rendered CGI saber-toothed tiger from wandering into 1965? Hmm?
• Finally, and perhaps most infuriatingly of all, if all these dinosaurs have made their way into 10,000 B.C. — and, granted, we don’t know how many have — wouldn’t that change the fossil record in pretty fucking remarkable ways? WOULDN’T THAT BE BIG NEWS?

You know what? I don’t care. If the writers couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck about any of this, why should I? I’m going to go make myself a martini and toast the fact that I never ever ever have to think about La Brea ever again. Thank you all, don’t fall into any sinkholes, but if you do, for the love of God, bring supplies.

La Brea streams on Peacock though I don’t know why you’d do that to yourself.