[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Season 3 of La Brea.]

The Big Picture

The final season of ‘La Brea’ features unexpected character developments, deviating from the creator’s initial plans. The show aims to answer all lingering questions and provide a compelling and emotional ending for its fans. The series maintains a fast pace with constant twists and turns, balancing the family drama with the sci-fi elements.

From creator David Appelbaum, the third and final season of the NBC series La Brea will finally let fans of the series know who will make it out of the primeval land they’ve been stuck in since a massive sinkhole opened in Los Angeles and pulled them into it. But before they make those reveals, there’s still a journey left to be taken, as the Harris family works to reunite yet again, communities must merge and learn to get along, dinosaur attacks must be survived, and they face any number of twists and turns still to come.

After watching the first half of the season, which is only six episodes in total, Collider got the opportunity to chat with showrunner Appelbaum about how his original vision for La Brea has evolved over three seasons and the changes that came up along the way. He talked about knowing the emotional resolution and how the Harris family’s story would end up from the beginning, which character was set to die in the pilot and why that changed, giving fans a satisfying ending to the series, keeping a fast pace to the twists and turns, that no one’s safety is guaranteed, the biggest production challenges of Season 3, and whether he has any possible spinoff ideas.

La Brea When a massive sinkhole opens in L.A., the Harris family is split in two. Eve and her son are sent to a mysterious world. Gavin discovers that his visions may hold the key to bringing them home. Release Date September 28, 2021 Creator David Appelbaum Main Genre Sci-Fi Rating TV-14 Seasons 3

David Appelbaum Always Knew How the Harris Family Story Would End
Image via NBC

Collider: How close is this final season and the end game for this series to what you originally thought it might be? When we spoke at the end of Season 2, you told me that you knew what you wanted the final scene of the series to be. Is that what the final scene of this season will be?

APPELBAUM: From the beginning, I’ve always had certain landmarks that I’ve tried to hold onto. I knew how I wanted to emotionally wrap up the show, but not for everything. There are certain stories and characters that have evolved in ways that I didn’t expect, like Lucas and Veronica, for instance. Those two characters, when the story began, were both outcasts and really unlikable characters, in a lot of ways. Now they’ve become really relatable and are dealing with such a human story of potentially becoming parents. I didn’t expect that and their ending will be different than I had anticipated for them. But there are certain things, like how the Harris family’s story would end, that I’ve held onto all this time and have continued and will end up how I expected it would for them. There’s an ebb and flow. You get lots of new ideas from your collaborators. You get lots of feedback from the executives and from the producers you’re working with. Things do change a lot and you have to be open to changing because you’re not doing it in a vacuum, but it’s also important to keep certain signposts along the way.

Related ‘La Brea’ Season 3: Premiere Date, Cast, Plot, and Everything We Know So Far About the Final Episodes NBC’s sci-fi adventure series is coming to an end in early 2024.

It’s not uncommon for shows to think they were going to kill a character off that ended up sticking around and stayed like through the entire run of the series. Did that happen here at all? Was there anyone that you thought was maybe a little bit more disposable than they actually turned out to be?

APPELBAUM: Actually, Sam’s character, in my initial conception of the story, was supposed to die at the end of the pilot, but he didn’t. That was one of like the first notes that I got. They were like, “We love this character.” This is before Jon Seda was cast or we had shot anything, but they just loved that character and said, “Can we keep him alive and see where he goes?” So, we did and it changed everything. That’s one circumstance where it definitely did not go as I initially thought it would.

Having watched the first three episodes of Season 3, it feels like a lot has happened and that there is also still a lot left to happen. Do things pick up even more and get even crazier for the second half of the season? How did you want to pace things, going into the end of the series?

APPELBAUM: One of the hallmarks of the show is that there is a fast pace and there are twists and turns constantly, and we keep that pace up through the season. That’s just one of the hallmarks of the show. The way that I like stories is to be constantly surprised and having a series of twists and turns. That doesn’t shift. These episodes are jam-packed. You’re learning so much about people and are brought to surprising places. There’s a lot of story to tell and we tried to pack in as much as we could, which is exciting. It’s about, can you balance all of that? Can you squeeze it all in? That was definitely one of the challenges of the season.

David Appelbaum Says the Series Finale is Their Best and Most Emotional Episode Yet
Image via NBC

Do you feel like you were able to wrap up all the unanswered questions? Even if every question isn’t answered, do you feel like it will still be a satisfying ending for fans?

APPELBAUM: Oh, yeah, 100%. We knew before we began writing that this was gonna be our last season, so we wrote towards that to make these endings for the characters as compelling and cathartic and emotional as we could. Also, for those mythology and serialized questions, we wanted to give the audience the answers and not leave hanging chads. That was really our goal, to make this a really impactful ending. The series finale is our best episode. It’s the biggest episode we’ve done. It’s the most emotional episode we’ve done. Everything in the season is building towards that, so it’s this real thrill ride that is crafted towards this goal of having a wallop of an ending. I hope people are crying, and I hope people are moved. I hope they just really feel like that investment for all these hours of television they put in had been worth it, and I think it will be.

Would it be fair to assume that whatever happens to this group of characters who have thought about getting home since all of this started, that they won’t all be making it home, either because they’re no longer with us or because they chose not to leave?

APPELBAUM: Yes, absolutely. Not everyone will make it home. That’s one of the questions of the series. Can they even get home, and who will make it home? We’ve shown that you never know when someone will meet their end or when something surprising will happen. I don’t think anyone’s safety is guaranteed in the show. There will be several moments like that, that people will be surprised by.

This show really works in two parts. There’s the emotional family drama of it and there’s all the cool sci-fi and time travel stuff. This season, the family is separated again and now they are also dinosaurs. When things get particularly crazy, like time travel and fighting off dinosaurs, is it always the family drama of it all that you want to make sure you keep pulling people back to and keep them grounded with?

APPELBAUM: Definitely. That’s always been at the heart of the show and was at the heart of the conception of the show, from the opening images. Eve and Josh fall into a sinkhole, and Gavin and Izzy are left behind. That idea of a family separated and trying to get back to each other is what the show has always been, in different iterations. In Season 3, it’s a new iteration, now that Eve is somewhere and they don’t know where she is. Finding her is the overarching goal of the season. So, it’s been about grounding it in that family story. Can they ever get back to each other? And once they’re back, will they get along? That is really the heart of the show and is the heart of the season.

A Love of ‘Jurassic Park’ Inspired the Human and Dinosaur Interactions on ‘La Brea’
Image via NBC

How did you approach deciding which dinosaurs you wanted to bring into the season?

APPELBAUM: I love Jurassic Park. I love depictions of dinosaurs, especially when humans are interacting with them. Anything about dinosaurs, I will definitely watch, and there are so many to choose from. You’ve gotta have a T-Rex because that’s the best one. In Episode 1, you’ll see Spinosaurus, which are bigger than T-Rex and have those scaly backs that I think are just so cool to look at, so that was one that we really wanted to bring in. And then, there are several others, throughout the season, that we have as well. What’s exciting and what’s visually appealing were the main driving factors for those, but you’ve also gotta have the T-Rex.

Did you ever feel bad about how many times you kept ripping the Harris family apart? They just can’t catch a break, no matter what happens.

APPELBAUM: It just makes the journey all the more satisfying. The harder it is to reunite them, the more the audience is invested in that. The goal is to make the audience desperate to want this family to get back together, so the more challenges and obstacles you throw in front of them, the more that the audience will want it to happen. They’re not a very lucky family, but it is a journey that I think is going to be a really emotionally satisfying one.

If they ever get to where they’re reunited and someplace other than where they are now, they’re certainly going to have stories to share with the grandchildren.

APPELBAUM: That’s right.

Gavin Harris and His Family History Are at the Center of Season 3 of ‘La Brea’
Image via NBC

Last season, we were teased about Gavin’s sister and that it might not be the best idea for him to cross paths with her. Will we meet her in Season 3? What can you say about how she’ll play into things?

APPELBAUM: Gavin’s backstory and his history are really at the center of Season 3. We started the show with the understanding that Gavin has visions, but didn’t know why. And then, ultimately, we learned that he had this connection to 10,000 B.C. And then, Season 2 further expanded that by learning about his father, James, and his family’s connection to that building. We go even deeper in Season 3 and learn more about things that he had no idea about, including his family. Learning about his family, his sister included, is going to be crucial to the plot and also to how they’re gonna get home. Whether his sister appears in the season, I can’t give that away, but the specter of his family continues to play a huge role in the story.

I thought it was really interesting to see Izzy connecting with Layla, a warrior woman in the community they’re forced to merge with because of the dinosaurs. It’s easy to see why she’d want to have that sort of strength herself. Why was that something you wanted to explore this season?

APPELBAUM: She’s a character who is at the center of the story emotionally, but we haven’t had as much opportunity to investigate who she is and how she’s grown. We had an opportunity this year to shine more of a light on her and see how she’s grown up and come into herself. Also, just as an actor, Zyra Gorecki, who plays her, is a real fantastic presence and has grown so much over the course of these years of the show. We wanted to give her the platform to show what she can do. She’s just a really dynamic actor. And it’s an opportunity to show a different side of Izzy than we might have known before. Being in 10,000 B.C. has taught everyone something about who they are. When you have to fight for your survival, you realize what’s important to you and the things that you value, and who you want to be, and Izzy’s story is reflective of that.

What would you say were the biggest production challenges that were specific to this season?

APPELBAUM: One of them was that we moved locations, at the beginning of the year, from Melbourne, Australia to the Gold Coast of Australia. We had to pick up the production and move there, and find new crew members and new places to shoot. That was one of the big challenges at the beginning of the season. We also wanted to make this season the biggest one that it’s ever been. How do you top yourself, when you open the series with a sinkhole? It’s hard to sink higher, but this season does it. It’s the most complex season, in terms of production and the visual effects work. The visual effects work is really the best that we’ve done, in part because we had more time in post-production to really work it and go through different iterations of it and fine tune it. Now, what the audience will see is much more akin to a blockbuster movie than what you would see on anything you’d ever see on network television. It’s real epic spectacle.

David Appelbaum Says He Definitely Has ‘La Brea’ Spinoff Ideas
Image via NBC

Because this seems like a show that could continue in different ways, have you thought about possible spin-off ideas?

APPELBAUM: Definitely. I have ideas. You never know what will happen. Shows have complicated and surprising afterlives. I definitely have ideas of where I’d like to bring the show, but this is the end of this story that we’re telling in Season 3. We’re not gonna leave cliffhangers. We’re gonna wrap things up in a really satisfying way. I definitely have ideas of where else I could take the concept, but what’s most important is that, for the audience, this is gonna be the most satisfying conclusion that they deserve for having stuck with the show for all these years.

La Brea airs on NBC and is available to stream on Peacock. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Peacock