La Brea creator unpacks the 4 huge cliffhangers from the Season 1 finale: 'It's a long journey'

La Brea Season 1 is now in the books, with a Season 2 order to look forward to in the future. In watching all the craziness, if there's one truth to cling to about the NBC show's first season, it's that the Harris family really went through it. With mom, Eve (Natalie Zea), and son, Josh (Jack Martin), falling into a massive Los Angeles sinkhole that landed them in 10,000 BC, and father, Gavin (Eoin Macken) and daughter, Izzy (Zyra Gorecki), working to find their loved ones in the now via visions and science, they had us rooting for them to survive and get back to one another. 

**SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers below for the La Brea Season 1 finale, "Topanga"**

In last night's season finale, reuniting the Harris clan was absolutely a case of one step forward, one step back. In an exclusive postmortem, creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner David Appelbaum tells SYFY WIRE he and the rest of the writers have been working towards that jaw-dropping collection of cliffhangers all season.

"There's so many cliffhangers at the end of Season 1: Josh and Riley [Veronica St. Clair] going through that light; Scott [Rohan Mirchandaney] and Aldridge [Ming-Zhu Hii] finding that building; and Gavin and Izzy jumping into 10,000 BC," Applebaum says. "There's a lot of things the audience is gonna want to pick up with so we will keep [those stories] moving going forward."

In particular, having Izzy and Gavin jump into the sinkhole and turn up on a beach with a Mastodon went back to Applebaum's earliest network pitches.

"That moment of putting them in 10,000 BC, was a moment that we knew we wanted to strive to because of the journey that they've been on," he explains. "It just opens up a lot of interesting story possibilities moving onto Season 2, so that one moment was something that we always knew was going to happen."

As for the Harris family almost being at least in the same time together, only to have it yanked away by Josh's disappearance in the light, Appelbaum warns that the show is a marathon when it comes to the Harris clan. "One of the central parts of the show is this family and how they are going to be reunited. Separating them and keeping them apart, both across time and emotionally, is one of the central parts of the show. Can they heal the rifts that exist in their relationships? That is one of the big journeys that they're all on, is trying to be reunited. It's a long journey and not making it an easy thing is part of what inspired that idea to send Josh away into the light at the end of Season 1."

As for the cliffhanger where Aldrich reveals to Scott that she's built some kind of huge building in 10,000 BC, we're intrigued. But more importantly, we want more of that odd couple in Season 2. 

Appelbaum laughingly agrees: "Scott is one of the most fun characters to write for. He has an inherent sense of humor. We all heard his voice in our heads from very early on. Putting him with anyone can be fun, but particularly someone like Aldrich is fun because Scott is very into the mysteries and the mythology of this world. And she's the one who holds so many of the answers to that. Seeing the back and forth because of that dynamic is a lot of fun. Aldridge is going to be a really important part in Season 2, as she does claim responsibility for this building. And she is going to be someone who brings us inside of it."

Asked if Season 2 will pick up right from where Season 1 left off, or if there will be a time jump, Appelbaum offers, "I don't want to say exactly when the show's going to pick up. But the show is an adventure ride and a thrill ride. What's really important is that we keep that story momentum going forward, that we had at the end of Season 1."