WARNING: This article contains spoilers for La Brea season 2 episode 1.La Brea season 2 kicked off in spectacular fare, with another sinkhole opening in Hollywood in 1988. NBC has a strong reputation for science-fiction TV shows, and La Brea is certainly one of the most unusual. It's a time travel series following the same format as Lost; the characters even reference Lost when discussing the mysteries they are faced with, ensuring viewers will notice the striking parallels throughout watching La Brea season 1 and 2.
La Brea season 1 kicked off with a sinkhole forming in Los Angeles; at the bottom of the sinkhole was a rift transporting those unlucky enough to fall into it to the year 10,000BC, at the tail end of the last Ice Age. It didn't take long for the survivors to learn this was only the latest sinkhole, and season 1's ending revealed the rifts had been caused by a group of scientists who had established a base for themselves in this time period. La Brea season 2 will clearly build on these revelations, hopefully explaining just who is responsible for the temporal chaos - and why.
The characters of La Brea season 2 face an escalating crisis, however. Two of their members slipped through a rift to 1988, and they're understandably eager to get back to their families. To their surprise, they learned a sinkhole had opened beneath the Hollywood sign in 1988, causing a large part of the sign to collapse. This event never happened in their own timeline, meaning things really are in a state of flux. It's possible the events of La Brea season 1 have introduced an even greater temporal instability, creating the season 2 Hollywood sinkhole and potentially threatening the fabric of time and space.
Why The Sinkholes Send Everyone To Los Angeles
Until La Brea season 2 episode 1, viewers had assumed any sinkhole in the future led to the corresponding geographical location in the world of 10,000BC, initially explaining why the sinkholes sent everyone to Los Angeles. That no longer seems to be the case for the 2022 sci-fi TV show, however, with Gavin leading a small group through a sinkhole in Seattle and finding himself in Los Angeles. As bewildering as this may be for Gavin, from an in-universe perspective the time travel "rules" seem to be making sense. In season 1, one scientist suggested time is best understood as a circle. The experiment at Los Angeles in 10,000BC presumably lies at the center of the circle, and all the rifts and sinkholes lead towards the center. From an out-of-universe perspective, of course, this approach helps keep the budget down.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions, however. The Hollywood sinkhole suggests whatever experiments are being conducted 10,000 years ago have gone dangerously out of control. Time seems remarkably fluid throughout the show - and especially in La Brea season 2 - but it can surely only manage so many changes and alterations before it begins to break. It is, however, quite possible that this is the very reason these mysterious scientists are conducting their experiments in the first place.
Episodes of La Brea release on NBC on Mondays at 9:00 pm ET. Episodes are available for exclusive streaming on Peacock the next day.