Welcome Back La Brea and Wormhole Time Travel Science Fiction Lovers!
The second episode of season three “Don’t Look Up” represents a major pivot to the story arc after the superb third season opener of La Brea “Sierra”.
The episode title is an ironic play on words for vicious pterodactyls which attack our wormhole survivors from the sky in 10,000 BC. The scenes are realistically presented and artfully reminding the viewers of pterodactyls as seen in the hit film series Jurassic Park and Jurassic World.
In “Don’t Look Up”, since many members of the cast are no longer recurring or regular characters in La Brea season three as we shared in our analysis of episode one “Sierra“, series creator David Appelbaum discussed casting challenges during the pandemic during his recent interview with TVLine on “actor availability issues, There are so many situations and opportunities that come out through production that you write towards and you embrace in a pandemic and across a 17-hour time gap, can present problems, but that’s the job. You figure it out, and it is what it is. I think we’ve been able to hold onto what the heart of the show has always been, which is about this family trying to get back to each other. This is an action-adventure story about scale and scope and entertainment, and making it really emotional and making it exciting are the things that we’ve always held true to”.
“Don’t Look Up” dovetails the first episode which was aptly named for a person referred to by that military call sign “Sierra” that involved Gavin (Eoin Macken) and Levi’s (Nicholas Gonzales) past life during their armed forces service earlier in the twenty-first century. Sierra’s actual name is Maya Schmidt (Claudia Ware). No doubt we will learn more about the importance of Maya in season three episode three that is aptly named “Maya”.
Don’t Look Up:
This exciting episode was written by Christopher Hollier and directed by Cherie Nowlan opens with Ty (Chiké Okonkwo) sitting in a restaurant called ‘The Sand Dollar’ somewhere near a Southern California beach subsequent to being transported by a dual colored aurora from 10,000 BC to early September 2021 in Los Angeles.
Ty’s arrival in the future of 2021 is a scant few weeks before the original wormhole sinkhole portal that began the adventure over two years ago.
The waitress (Shawnee Jones) brings Ty beer saying he needs it after Ty had ordered virtually everything on their menu. Ty blithely says “it’s just nice to eat something you don’t have to catch” which puts an inquisitive look on the waitresses face. The sincerely friendly waitress presses Ty on what he is deep in thought about; “a break up?” Ty shares it’s a bit more complicated than that, indirectly relating he just got back to Los Angeles after a trip where he was forced to leave his friends as well as the woman he loved.
The scene segues to the fort village where Paara’s (Tonantzin Carmelo) second in command is a warrior named Ruth (Chantelle Jamieson). Interestingly, the hierarchy in the fort is female with Ruth, her daughter Leyla (Edyll Ismail) and a female warrior (Sharon Brooks) now in charge of the fort. As is appropriate, the men follow Ruth’s orders without question during Paara’s absence.
With Gavin’s and the survivors allies Ty in the future of 2021, Levi taken prisoner by the military soldiers, and Fort Leader Paara away for the time being, things quickly go from bad to worse because Ruth does not trust Gavin and his “Sky People” like Paara did. Viewers will learn why Ruth feels this way was as the episode continues.
The relationship between Sam (Jon Seda) and Gavin compounds the growing friction in the episode. Gavin tries to reason with Sam that his son Josh (Jack Martin) and Sam’s daughter Riley (Veronica St. Clair) may have been (were) sucked into the red side of the dual red / blue aurora wormhole portal that sent Ty ‘Back To The Future’ of 2021. Sam will not cooperate. This represents a juxtaposition of their characters with Gavin having become reasonable and Sam recalcitrant and obstreperous. Gavin shares with Sam that he believes Maya ‘Sierra’ Schmidt may be able to confirm that Josh and Riley could have been sent to the same time period as Eve (Natalie Zea) who disappeared in time last season. Sam storms out of the village fort.
Meanwhile our young lovers, and parents to be Veronica (Lily Santiago) and Lucas (Josh McKenzie) are with Izzy (Zyra Gorecki), other survivors including the constantly complaining Judah (Damien Fotiou). They have all been assigned gardening duties by Ruth. Naturally, Judah is not happy with his work assignment forcing Lucas to tell him to “shut it”.
Veronica says if Judah keeps complaining they will “kick his ass”. The fun part of this interaction is that the Judah character provides good comic stress relief for viewers due to his constant bitching about everything and anything!
Outside the village fort, a warning horn sound is heard. We find Sam with the body of a dead villager. Ruth demands to know why Sam has even been allowed to touch the deceased person whose body limbs have been twisted and mangled as if from a fall from a great height, perhaps from a tree.
Gavin suggests that the village person was accidentally killed. Ruth suspects someone from the nearby military from the future that kidnapped Levi and Maya’s daughter Petra (Asmara Feik) killed the man. Both ideas prove to be incorrect. We will learn soon enough it was pterodactyls that killed the man.
Ruth orders everyone to search for clues. Veronica and Scott (Rohan Mirchananey) are paired up and they discuss Ruth who is the village fort tyrant. Veronica says to Scott that everybody needs to calm down and things will be alright.
Scott disagrees sharing with Veronica that Ruth has a bad temper and personality similar to Judah. When asked how he knows, Scott says he learned Ruth killed her husband stabbing him with a knife, dumping hubby in the river. We must assume that Scott found out about Ruth when Scott visited the fort village in the past. Veronica’s eyes get larger!
Back at the village fort, Sam tries to leave to find Riley near the area of the dual colored aurora wormhole portal where she disappeared. Sam is stopped by village warriors guarding the gate.
Inevitably Sam’s bellicose behavior causes a fight to break out resulting in Sam and Gavin being locked up by mean ole’ Ruth.
Later we will learn that Ruth has good reasons for being so stern with the “Sky People” who do not follow orders like Sam and Gavin.
Back To The Future in 2021, Ty has tracked down Sam while he is on duty at the hospital where he works asking for his help.
Sam thinks Ty is crazy when he gives Sam a list of things and events that will transpire in the next 24 hours including details about his daughter Riley that no one should be aware of.
Thank goodness Ty has a great memory for dates and events or we would all be up the proverbial creek with even a frakking paddle!
Back in the fort, Izzy is practicing self defense with a bow and arrows. Leyla confronts Izzy, rudely snatching the bow from her.
Ruth is observing Izzy and Leyla bickering, and chastises them both, ultimately orders Leyla to teach Izzy how to use the weapon.
Reluctantly, but nevertheless as a product of Ruth forcing Leyla and Izzy to work together, they all set aside their differences and become friends. In the meantime Lucas requests that Ruth release Sam and Gavin.
Suddenly, as Lucas and Ruth are discussing the release of Sam and Gavin, the village fort tower guard falls to the ground dead.
Nearby we hear the horrible sounds of flying pterodactyls screeching as they decide to turn their attack on Ruth and Lucas who escape within a inch of their lives!
This disaster proves to everyone that there are more important things than bickering; such as the Ouroboros spirals Scott and Veronica have observed nearby.
They then learn that the pterodactyls lay their eggs in these spirals AND one such spiral is in the proximity of the village.
This is what precipitated the pterodactyl attacks in the first place. How and why? Because our resident genius Scott remembered that Ouroboros spirals are really their egg nests.
What the pterodactyls are doing is protecting their eggs in these spirals. Next we find out one spiral is in the proximity of the village fort. All of this motivates the village fort people and our survivors to learn to work together to move the pterodactyl eggs outside the vicinity of the fort.
Ultimately, by making them all safer, a kumbaya moment is achieved ending the tension between the two disparate groups of human beings separated by 12,000 years of history.
Ruth shares with Lucas and Riley that her grandfather was a “Sky Person” from the 1960’s as the villagers refer to people who were deposited in their time by the wormhole sinkhole portals.
Ruth is observed giving Veronica and Lucas a small rocket her grandfather had cherished. We shall see if that rocket may play a role in a future episode.
After successfully luring the pterodactyls away from the fort, our heroes find a hiding place to observe as the flying beasts examine their egg in the new Ouroboros Scott, Veronica and Lucas made to make certain their offspring is safe and sound.
Once this is accomplished, Gavin decides to seek out two people to make amends for his past behavioral outbursts when he was an alcoholic and not providing for his family.
First Gavin finds Izzy asking her to forgive his former behavior.
Second is Sam with whom Gavin shares that the military base may be in the same location in 10,000 BC where Levi and Petra are.
Additionally, Gavin believes the base is in the same place as it was in 2021 with Maya ‘Sierra’ Schmidt there. Is there an alternate Time Travel Facility at the military base in 10,000 BC, and was Gavin involved in the future but somehow lost his memory of it ? Also, is this where Riley, Josh and perhaps Eve are? Most likely. We shall see.
As the episode winds down, 2021 Sam visits Ty at the restaurant. Sam demands to know how Ty knew about the future events he mentioned. Ty, to an incredulous Sam, reveals the entire story to the 2021 version of Sam.
Both agree to visit the Los Angeles air base with someone who was stationed there. Who could that be viewers wonder? You guessed it, the person is none other than 2021 Gavin who has been arrested on a drunken binge!
The final sequence finds us with Ty and Sam who bail out a 2021 Gavin from the Los Angeles county jail after his latest alcoholic binge (pre wormhole) caused by Gavin’s visions The three agree to find the secret base in 2021!
La Brea items for our consideration: Will Ty be successful in 2021 with the Sam and Gavin of that time period? What happened at the air force base that caused this all to happen? Will Gavin be able to recover his memories of “Sierra”? For these and other answers, tune in next week for episode three named “Maya” or the military code name “Sierra” to find out if Ty, Gavin and Sam will be successful in helping their friends and family trapped in 10,000 BC!
Join us on each of the next four weeks on X (Twitter) to enjoy a fun live tweet for the final season of La Brea when we will find out the secrets of season three in 10,000 BC in order to hopefully find “The Road Home” Back To The Future!
We will be back in the near future with more of La Brea season three as well as your favorite television series and movie analysis. In the meantime, please feel free to share this article with your friends, co-workers and or family and leave your comments!
We look forward to you visiting our dedicated review and analysis web site here in the future! Or as many of our readers and visitors often do, visit TeamWHR on Twitter, or visit me on Twitter by clicking the text links or images avatars in this news story. I and TeamWHR look forward to Seeing You on The Other Side!“
Thank you. 
Best Regards,
Kenn of #TeamWHR
