La Brea did something rather miraculous when it debuted its first season back in September 2021, by capturing viewers’ attention on a massive scale like few new shows can nowadays. The freshman sci-fi drama about the Lost-style survivors of a massive sinkhole event in Los Angeles, who quickly have to band together so they can figure out how to live in their own prehistoric world, became the number one new program among the 18-49 demographic, with the pilot reaching a whopping 19.8 million TV fans by mid-November.
With numbers like that, you can bet that NBC renewed the mystery-filled series (which stars Natalie Zea, Eoin Macken, and Chicago P.D. vet Jon Seda, among many others) promptly, so that fans would have a second season to look forward to after that shocking Season 1 ending left us with tons of major questions for La Brea Season 2 to answer. Luckily, if your desire for information on the upcoming season is large enough to fill a ginormous sinkhole of its own, we’re privy to several details you should know about La Brea Season 2!!
La Brea Season 2 Will Debut On September 27
Even though La Brea was renewed just a few weeks into its first season, that didn’t completely guarantee that La Brea Season 2 would arrive as part of the 2022 TV schedule. Luckily, those at NBC know a good thing when they’ve got it, as it was announced in mid-May 2022 that La Brea would return to its Tuesday timeslot in the fall. Even better, we now know that La Brea’s new season will premiere on September 27. On top of that, you’ll still be able to catch La Brea streaming on Peacock the next day if you happen to miss an episode, and can rewatch the entire first season there if you need a refresher on all the madness before Season 2 debuts!
The New Season Will Have 14 Episodes And Might Be Split Into Two Halves
La Brea Season 1 had 10 episodes, which did a great job of setting up the large number of characters, their conflicts, and the mysteries surrounding some of them (which we’ll discuss more in a bit). Even though it was sometimes difficult to side with the sinkhole survivors as they tried to live long enough to get back to our time, it was also hard not to want to see more of their prehistoric adventures.
Well, we now know that our prayers have been answered again, as The Sydney Morning Herald (the drama films in Australia) announced that La Brea Season 2 will have 14 episodes of sinkhole shenanigans for us to look forward to. However, a report from TVLine did note one potential drawback to the higher episode count, combined with the fast approaching premiere: La Brea’s second season might be split into two halves. This would allow all of the visual effects for the first half of the season to be completed so that the show can debut as planned toward the end of September, with the break making it easier for the team to finish up the VFX for the second half before La Brea returns to NBC.
Two Of La Brea’s Season 1 Actors Are Now Series Regulars
The La Brea Season 1 finale saw Gavin, Izzy, and Ella take a literal giant leap of faith by heading into their own (relatively tiny) sinkhole to find the others back in 10,000 B.C., meaning that we’ll spend even more time in this primeval era. With that, Deadline reports that two of Season 1’s recurring guest stars, Michelle Vergara Moore and Tonantzin Carmelo have now been given gigs as series regulars.
Vergara Moore, in fact, is the actress who plays Ella, the artist who came to realize that the visions she’d been using as inspiration for her artwork are really childhood memories of her time in 10,000 B.C., and then went into the past with Gavin and Izzy to try and save her friend, Veronica. Carmelo, meanwhile, will return as the leader of the Fort village and Tongva tribe member, Paara, who’s begun to develop a relationship with sinkhole survivor Ty, which will cause some dilemmas for him in Season 2.
The Title For Season 2’s Premiere Is “The Next Day”
As mentioned previously, La Brea did, indeed, leave fans with a number of big, fat cliffhangers at the end of Season 1. With the premiere coming up, we do know a bit more about the storylines for the second season, and we also know the title of the premiere. Though an early May 2022 report noted that the Season 2 debut would be titled “Three Days Later,” TV Line reported in late August that the title had changed to “The Next Day.” My guess is that the season will now pick up the action the day after the events of that shocking finale.
La Brea Season 2 Will ‘Expand’ The Series
The first season of La Brea was concerned with the modern day and those who’d traveled to 10,000 B.C. (whether that trip was on purpose or not), but when discussing the finale and what they have set for fans in Season 2, creator/executive producer/co-showrunner David Appelbaum told TV Insider that viewers would see even more in the upcoming episodes:
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].
Oh, boy! While Appelbaum’s reference to “new time periods” clearly means that La Brea will move beyond the giant-sloth past and the present day in its storytelling (and we’ll get into that next), who knows what “new worlds” could mean? Could the light that so many have traveled through to get to the very distant past and back to this day and age also head to some other planet and/or plane of existence? We’ll just have to wait and see!
La Brea Season 2 Will Explore A New Timeline
So, we know that La Brea is upping the ante when it comes to which time periods the show will follow, but that still leaves fans with the question of when part of Season 2 will take place. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in late June, Appelbaum revealed that some of the action will now be set in a very different era in the past:
This season will still largely take place in 10,000 B.C. However, we will no longer be telling a concurrent story in modern-day Los Angeles. Instead, we will be telling a story in 1988 Los Angeles. We think this will add a new layer of fun and intrigue to the episodes. It's also a story I don't think anyone in the audience would have expected when they first started watching the show. We love the idea of keeping our viewers on their toes and never knowing what's around the next corner.
“Fun and intrigue” indeed! And, as the above photo of Josh and Riley appears to confirm, this seems to mean that when they were sucked in by the time-travel light (along with Lilly) at the end of Season 1, it took them to the late ‘80s, as many fans suspected.
We’ll Get Some Answers About Silas And Rebecca Aldridge In Season 2
Two of the characters who seem to hold a lot of the answers about what’s going on in La Brea seem to be Silas and Dr. Rebecca Aldridge. All we really know so far is that Aldridge is a scientist who led an expedition into one of the time-travel light sinkholes, and she claims that Silas (who we’ve only seen as a mysterious villager in 10,000 B.C.) is also a scientist.
During Appelbaum’s chat with TV Insider, he confirmed that Season 2 will give fans additional answers about both of these enigmatic characters. After confirming that Silas really is Isaiah/Gavin’s grandfather and a scientific colleague of Aldridge’s, he also said:
Silas is going to be an important part of Season 2…We’re going to learn more about Silas and his connection to Aldridge and Gavin…[Aldridge is] 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.
Who’s ready to get more info on Silas and Aldridge (including exploring that futuristic-looking building she showed to Scott in the finale)? For that matter, you can probably count all the La Brea fans in on seeing where this wild experience takes everyone involved in La Brea Season 2. Luckily, we don’t have much longer to wait!
