La Brea Boss Is Planning a Lot More Surprises in Season 2 After That Shocking Finale

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of La Brea. Read at your own risk!] 

Sad news, Tar Heads: La Brea Tuesdays are over, but only for now. Season 1 of NBC's delightfully bonkers drama about a sinkhole that opens up in Los Angeles and turns out to be a portal to 10,000 BC has now ended, with a few twists to keep us anxiously awaiting the debut of Season 2. Creator David Appelbaum does not yet know when Season 2 will premiere, but the writers' room is hard at work on what comes next for the survivors of that epic sinkhole. 

In the meantime, we've got a lot to discuss after that finale. Isaiah/Lil' Gavin (Diesel La Torraca) made it through the light to what we are told is 1988, meaning Josh (Jack Martin) and Izzy (Zyra Gorecki) won't be erased from existence. However, neither are exactly "safe." Izzy just jumped through another, smaller sinkhole with her dad Gavin (Eoin Macken) and Ella/Lily (Michelle Vergara Moore) to land in Seattle, 10,000 BC with plans to get to Los Angeles, somehow. Meanwhile, Josh, Riley (Veronica St. Clair), and Lily (Chloe De Los Santos) all got sucked into the same light that allegedly took Isaiah/Lil' Gav to 1988. Plus, Marybeth (Karina Logue) is dead, and after revealing that the sinkholes were her own fault, Aldridge (Ming-Zhu Hii) took Scott (Rohan Mirchandaney) on a little trip to see the giant modern skyscraper she built in 10,000 BC. So as you can see, a lot of things are happening, and there are a lot of reasons season two had better get here sooner rather than later. 

TV Guide talked to Appelbaum about the biggest bombshells in the finale, and he offered a few things to keep us all pondering for the next few months. 

I definitely gasped the loudest when Josh and Riley were pulled into the light with Lily. Are they going to 1988? 
David Appelbaum: One of the important aspects of the show is about seeing if this family can be reunited, and wanting to make that a difficult journey, a challenging journey. So, you know, at the end of Season 1, Gavin and Izzy jump into a sinkhole and land in 10,000 BC and they're going to start this mission to find Eve (Natalie Zea) and everyone in the clearing, but we didn't want the family to come back together immediately. So that was one of the reasons for sending Josh and Riley through the light to where they're going. I don't want to give away exactly what happens, but they are going to be in a different timeline and a completely different world than we've seen so far in the show.

As the show itself pointed out, Seattle is a very long way from LA. Even Topanga was a far walk from La Brea and Wilshire, and Seattle is a whole lot farther. How are Gavin, Izzy, and Ella going to get there? Could someone have a plane down there? 
Appelbaum: I think people are going to be really surprised by what that journey looks like. It's not going to be anything that I think anyone is really expecting to see. I don't want to give away the method by which they get there, or they try to get there, but there's going to be some interesting twists and turns. I think it's going to be a very satisfying journey. 

I feel like they could find a boat, maybe? 
Appelbaum: Yeah, they could find a boat. 

We learned in the finale that Aldridge had built a skyscraper in 10,000 BC, but we don't know any more beyond that. Obviously, we've been desperate to know what she's up to for a while, so how did you decide what to reveal and what to hold onto with her? 
Appelbaum: Throughout the season we've teased a mystery with Aldridge that she has a bigger role in all the things that have been happening, from the first time we meet her when she mysteriously has a plane. I think one important aspect of the show is that we know the audience is craving answers, so we want to give those to the audience, but also open up new mysteries as well. We find out in the finale that she was involved in the creation of this building. We don't say what the use of the building is, or why it's here, or who is inside, but that's the next step of the journey. In the beginning of Season 2, we're going to start to unpeel the layers of that onion very quickly. I think the audience can rest assured that there are going to be answers, and they're going to be surprising and fun ones. We're not going to make them wait forever. 

Can you talk about what Season 2 might look like? Obviously, there will be more sets than just the wreckage of the Petersen Auto Museum. 
Appelbaum: There are a lot of stories set up by the end of the finale. There's going to be Josh and Riley's journey in this strange new world they find themselves in, in this new timeline. There's going to be a new story with Eve and Sam (Jon Seda) trying to figure out what happened to their children and how to get them back. There's Gavin and Izzy's journey in 10,000 BC, trying to figure out how they'll reunite with their family. There'll be Lucas (Josh McKenzie) dealing with the death of his mother. We're going to be introducing new characters as well, so we've really set up a number of stories in the finale that we're going to be picking up with right away in Season 2.

La Brea will return next season on NBC.