'La Brea's' Season 2 Midseason Finale Saw the Harris Family Make a Big Leap. Here's What That Means for the Rest of the Season

Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Season 2 midseason finale of La Brea, titled "1988." Read at your own risk!

The Harris family is heading back to 10,000 BC, possibly for good. 

NBC's La Brea just ended its Season 2 midseason finale with a literal fall — OK, a jump — back to the ice age, and this time everybody went on purpose, even though they knew they might never make it back to modern civilization. 

Knowing that Caroline (Melissa Neal) was planning to infiltrate Lazarus and shut down the time portal for good (in order to stop the sinkholes, tidal waves, and earthquakes), Gavin (Eoin Macken), Eve (Natalie Zea), Izzy (Zyra Gorecki), and Josh (Jack Martin) decided to stay in 1988 and live out their lives from there. But then Caroline broke some unfortunate news: She was locked out of the building, and only Gavin's handprint can get them inside. 

Does it make any sense that Gavin's grown-up handprint would get them into the building? Absolutely not, but whatever. 

Now, the whole Harris fam is following Grandma back in time, along with Riley (Veronica St. Clair) and Sam (Jon Seda), who are still hoping to get home to the rest of their family. Levi Delgado (Nicholas Gonzalez) is just going to stay in 1988 alone, apparently, with plans for a beer on the beach. 

That's where the midseason finale left us, with a big family leap into the Hollywood sign sinkhole, where danger most definitely awaits. Not only do they have to get past all the spooky guards waiting to stop Caroline's plans, but they'll also have to deal with the drama newly cooked up by the other survivors — namely Scott (Rohan Mirchandaney). 

Basically, in order to save Lucas (Josh McKenzie) from a mysterious disease, a deal was made with Taamet (Martin Sensmeier) to get the treatment. Taamet tricked Scott into fully letting him go and then promised he would be back to wreak havoc and get revenge. Plus, there's simply no way that the other sinkhole survivors are going to be happy that Eve and Gavin came back just to shut down any chance of them getting home. 

It also feels important to mention that Lucas and Veronica (Lily Santiago) kissed, which is certainly a development. 

But, those who did not make the leap? Well, what they're up to will be a mystery for a lot longer.

"The back half of the season is going to exclusively be in 10,000 BC. We won't be in other time periods," creator David Appelbaum tells Metacritic.

La Brea won't be back for a few months, but there's a lot to contemplate in the meantime. To help with that, here, Applebaum explains what comes next and reveals how much of the series he has mapped out. 

Theoretically, if this plan succeeds to shut down the portal, what does the show look like? Is it about making a life in 10,000 BC? 

"Will their plan succeed?" is a good question. It's not going to be such a simple thing. But yes, it is about survival. It's not an easy place to live, so there will be lots of character stories that emerge from that. People won't lose sight of still wanting to find a way to get home, but there's a major problem with that because what we've learned is that by opening this portal, it creates sinkholes and devastation, so wanting to get home comes at a cost. 

It's going to be an interesting moral dilemma for our characters. There's also the Harris family that's now reunited, so that's a new mode for the show: exploring their dynamics, seeing them come together as a family. But also, even though they're back together physically, it's going to be hard to reunite them all emotionally.

Is this the end of my favorite character, Levi Delgado? 

[Laughs] I don't want to give that away. There are some surprises coming is all I'll say. 

I feel like the other people in the clearing are not going to be so thrilled at the decision Gavin and Eve have made because they all still want to go home, right? 

Yeah, that's an interesting thing you hit on. Once they find out what they're planning — to shut down the portal — people are going to be upset and it's going to cause division within the people in the clearing, because they're basically deciding to take away their only chance of getting home. That is something that is going to drive story as we get later into the season, pitting people against each other and causing even more of these internal conflicts, especially complicating the idea of having to live together knowing that people are making decisions like that. 

Will we see the survivors make this place a home, instead of a camp for now like it has been so far? 

I think that's something that they're going to be trying to do in the back half of the season. Make more permanent structures, create a leadership structure within the clearing. 10,000 BC is a difficult place to live. How do you contend against these animals? But also, we want to find moments of joy and levity and hope, so it's that balance. Characters never lose sight of wanting to get home, but while they're here, they've got to make the best of it. 

Why is Taamet so angry and what is he going to do now that Scott has let him go? 

He's going to continue to be a problem for our people. On the one hand, he wants revenge for being captured and treated like he was, so he has an emotional need to come back, but we're going to find out that he's tied to a larger mythology and connected to people in the building in ways that will be surprising. Taamet and the exiles are going to have a continuing story into the back half of the season, but most importantly for our characters, for Scott, he's let this guy go. He's going to be dealing with the emotional ramifications of that. 

There is clearly a whole history with this building that we have yet to learn. Will there be flashbacks? Why is there so much tension? 

We're not going to be telling flashback stories within the building, but that is something we did discuss, for sure. We are going to learn more about the relationship between James and Kira [and] between James and Caroline. James and Caroline are going to meet, and there will be continuing tension because of them. But Gavin's father is going to be one of the central forces in the back half of the season. On the one hand, he holds the key to potentially getting us home — he's in charge of the building which has this portal — but at the same time, we're not sure if he's someone we can trust, knowing his history of working with the exiles, sending people to capture his wife. So, there's this real complicated give and take, and the back and forth of that is going to be one of the driving forces of the back half of the season. That is kind of the heart of the show. 

So will we have all those answers by the end of the season, as to what happened between all the scientists? 

We're gonna get a lot more. But one of the things we also want to make sure the audience knows is that this is just the beginning of the story of 10,000 BC. We've told the story about a building and the people who created this, but this isn't the only thing that's down here. There are deeper things going on, and as we get later into the season, we start to unpeel some of those layers as well. 

How much of this mythology do you have laid out? Do you see where this all ends? 

From the time that I conceived the idea, I had ideas of deeper places I wanted to go, things to do in later seasons. Right now, we're in the process of talking about big ideas for Season 3, but I've always wanted to leave myself open. I've never put an end date on the show. I know what the last scene of the show will be and how I'd like to end it, but I don't want to say that it's going to end at a particular time. I think there's lots of places and character stories to explore [and] new mythology to explore. It's the kind of show that whenever the time does come, I do have ideas about how I'd like to wrap it up, but I'd like to keep going as long as they'll let me.