NBC’s La Brea season three episode three opens in 2021 with Sam (Jon Seda) and Ty (Chike Okonkwo) having just laid out their strange and twisty tale of sinkholes, dinosaurs, and 10,000 BC. Gavin (Eoin Macken) isn’t really shocked about Ty’s bizarre time-traveling story, but he is surprised they think he can contribute to helping stop what’s going to go down in just a few weeks.

Ty believes that Gavin’s prior work with quantum physics at Ladera Air Base is connected to the sinkholes. Unfortunately, Gavin can’t get them into the base and knows zilch about a secret project because of huge gaps in his memory. Ty pleads with him to help anyway. Lives are at stake!

Gavin doesn’t want to play along and takes off from the restaurant without saying goodbye (or helping pay the check).

10,000 BC Gavin is much more helpful. He draws a map to the base and points out a peak that pilots use to navigate. Gavin’s certain they’ll find Maya there and get answers about all their missing friends/family members.

Scott’s anxious to rescue Levi and Petra, but Gavin and Sam shut him down. This is simply a recon mission at this point, which means only Sam and Gavin are going.

They head out and Gavin’s certain he’s forgetting a key detail about the base. His gut instincts tell him to turn around and Sam agrees they should pause until they figure out what’s got him on edge. Of course, as soon as they stop walking a woolly rhinoceros appears behind them. They’re making a run for the trees when the rhino blows up behind them. Literally blows up – with pieces flying through the air and everything.

They hit the ground, and Sam notices a mine just inches from his face. Maybe what Gavin forgot is that the base is surrounded by a minefield. As they’re contemplating their next move, a helicopter buzzing overhead forces their hand.

They follow piles of rocks that couldn’t be more obvious if they had “Step Here to Live” signs on them out of the minefield to safety. But their celebration is short-lived as a soldier holds them at gunpoint. He ties them to a tree to be picked up, and suddenly out of nowhere, Maya Schmidt appears, knocks out the soldier, and rescues them.

They take cover at the beach, and Maya’s shocked to learn they’ve met her daughter Petra. Gavin doesn’t remember anything about his time with Maya, and Maya spills the beans, confirming the government was conducting time-travel experiments at Ladera. Gavin was a test pilot for the program, which was to be weaponized to send soldiers back in time to get the jump on their enemies.

Maya confesses she’s the one who took away Gavin’s memory using a biological cocktail. She also reveals that before she could become a whistleblower, she was caught and brought to 10,000 BC with Petra.

Oh, and Maya now believes she might be able to recover Gavin’s memories.

She collects poisonous mushrooms that should open his mind without, hopefully, killing him. Since she’s a psyops officer whose job is to manipulate behavior, she knows a little bit about making people trip out.

Maya whips up the concoction in 10 seconds (or less) and Gavin swallows it, willing to do anything to get Eve back.

Meanwhile, Izzy (Zyra Gorecki) and Leyla walk, talk, and flirt. A wild boar attacks, and Leyla falls right into a tar pit. Izzy refuses to leave her to get help and instead has her grab a branch, even though Leyla doesn’t think Izzy’s strong enough to pull her out.

Leyla is quickly proven correct.

Still, Izzy won’t leave and instead sits down to make a fire. Why? To give them more time to talk and flirt, I guess, because otherwise there’s no logical reason. The pit starts bubbling, and Leyla sinks to her armpits.

Izzy declares, “We don’t have time for fire!” Really? You think?

She breaks the world record for making a thick rope out of tree bark. What?! When?! How?! We’re just shown the very tail end of her working on it, but the camera does pan down to let us see stripped branches on the ground.

An angry boar grunts from the forest as Izzy tosses the rope, which is long enough to be tied around a nearby tree, to Leyla. With Leyla busy pulling herself out of the pit, it’s up to Izzy to shoot the boar with her bow and arrows. Izzy hits it, but it doesn’t go down.

Leyla emerges from the pit just in time to launch the fatal shot.

Back at the fort, Lucas (Josh McKenzie) whines about wanting a seat on the council, and Veronica (Lily Santiago) takes it upon herself to promote Lucas’ good traits to Ruth. However, Veronica’s promotional campaign backfires and Ruth offers Veronica the seat.

When Veronica delivers the news to Lucas, he does a horrible job of hiding his disappointment.

Back to Gavin and the poisonous mushroom we go, and Gavin’s high as a kite. Maya guides him through his memories, and suddenly, he starts convulsing and loses consciousness.

Maya and Sam bring him back to the fort to recover. Izzy visits him and then takes a seat by Leyla for a fireside chat. They hold hands and are about to kiss when fort people walk by.

Gavin comes to after a few hours and says he saw a safe that he opened. Inside was a microchip, and he thinks he was stealing it. Nothing about Eve or anyone else…just the chip. Sam puts two and two together and, surprisingly, comes up with four. In other words, he figures out the message they received on the laptop was a ruse. Whoever sent it just wanted inside Gavin’s head to find the microchip.

Once more to 2021 we go and, given that Gavin’s an alcoholic, Ty and Sam split up to check nearby bars. However, Ty makes a pit stop to see his ex-wife Sophie and apologize for how he pushed her away. She feels like a failure, and Ty insists she’s a good writer and that her book is good. Everything is good…but she needs to not do what she’s about to do tonight.

Ty and Sam eventually find Gavin drowning his sorrows in a bar, and Ty tries to make a connection by explaining his ex-wife also turned to alcohol and pills when things got bad. Tonight, she’ll be disappointed at an AA meeting, drink and drive, and get into an accident with a young family. The dad was still in a coma when Ty fell into the sinkhole.

Ty blames himself for ruining his wife’s life.

Ty calls Gavin a coward who’ll never get back to his own family if he doesn’t face his fears.

Later that evening, Gavin shows up at Sophie’s AA meeting and delivers a speech that changes Sophie’s future. Ty and Sam are also in attendance to witness Gavin’s emotional speech. Sophie has tears in her eyes when Gavin says, “Everyone in this room needs someone who gives a damn because none of us can do it on their own.”

When the meeting wraps up, Ty asks if they can talk and Sophie agrees. Ty apologizes again and assures her he’s the man he is because of her. She deserves love and happiness, and Ty makes her promise she’ll keep writing. Sophie’s grateful for the kind words. They hug before she drives away.

Gavin’s ready to step up and help out. He’ll figure out a way to get them onto the base. They don’t seem to notice that as they drive out of the parking lot, they’re being followed by a woman with a gun.

• La Brea Season 3 Episode 1 “Sierra” Recap
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• La Brea Season 3 Episode 4 “Fire Storm” Recap
• La Brea Season 3 Episode 5 “The Road Home, Part 1” Recap
• La Brea Season 3 Episode 6 “The Road Home, Part 2” Series Finale Recap