La Brea is on the way back to NBC in the 2024 TV schedule for the third and final season, which will run for just six episodes. The show has a lot of stories to wrap up within that shortened season, and it will reportedly do so with a lot less of one of the original series regulars. The news comes following a reveal from showrunner David Appelbaum about new conflicts and characters, and suggests that fans should have big questions about what's in store.
What To Expect, According To The Showrunner
The Season 2 finale (available streaming now with a Peacock Premium subscription) ended on a dino-sized cliffhanger, with the auroras opening up from different times to allow some creatures from the past to arrive in 10,000 B.C. That included a T-rex, although the episode only showed the foot and the head in silhouette. That was more than enough to send Gavin, Izzy, and Josh running for their lives. Eve, of course, wasn't with them after she was pulled through one of the many portals that opened, leaving her family with no way of knowing where (or when) she was, let alone with the means to know how to reunite with her in La Brea Season 3.
I spoke with showrunner David Appelbaum for the Season 2 finale back in February, when he previewed the incredibly high-stakes of the episode that would set up Season 3 and addressed Eve's fate. When asked about the threats facing the survivors in the new season, Appelbaum shared:
The dinosaurs will definitely be a threat but I think one of the the big challenges moving forward is always about survival and about leadership and about how we can coexist together. One of the things that I've always found interesting about the show is about taking a disparate group of people and putting them together in an inhospitable place, and seeing how they function.
While the opened portals mean that just about anything from any time period could have passed through to 10,000 B.C., that doesn't mean dinosaurs are going to be the biggest threat for Gavin and Co. in the final batch of episodes. It does seem like the place that has always been at least somewhat inhospitable is going to be even more so when La Brea returns! David Appelbaum continued:
We're going to be putting them in new places, new situations in Season 3, that they're not used to and they're gonna be forced to either get along or they're gonna die trying. There's going to be new conflicts, new characters that we're going to be introducing, both amongst clearing members and new people in 10,000 BC. We have a lot of really exciting stuff coming up. [I] don't want to give away too much of what we're doing, but it's a really action-packed and exciting season that we have planned.
Of course, it's possible that plans for Season 3 shifted since I spoke with David Appelbaum in February, not least because of the WGA writers strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike. Still, the blueprint was for new characters and new conflicts... without much word on what to expect for Eve.
Natalie Zea Will Appear In Less Of Season 3
While Eve was still alive when she was pulled through a portal at the end of Season 2, there was no guarantee of how her story would continue. Now, it appears that it won't continue very much on screen, as TVLine reports that the La Brea leading lady's presence in Season 3 will be seriously reduced from the first two. Considering that there are only six episodes, that likely means fans should prepare themselves for not too much of Natalie Zea as Eve before the final credits role.
According to the outlet, Natalie Zea filmed all of her Season 3 scenes in Los Angeles rather than returning to the set in Australia, and the first episode of the final season is expected to feature Gavin discovering a clue about his wife's whereabouts. If Zea was able to film in LA, perhaps that means that Eve returned at least close to the present day, and her family will be able to join her by the very end. At least, that's a best-case happy-ending scenario!
For now, you can see just what La Brea looks like with less of its leading lady when Season 3 arrives on Tuesday, January 9 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. It's one of the earliest major network TV shows to arrive in the new year, but won't last too long into 2024 with a six-episode order. At the time of writing, Natalie Zea has not commented on her role in Season 3.
