‘La Brea’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: “The Great Escape”

By
Rebecca Murray
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La Brea Season 2 Episode 3
Natalie Zea as Eve and Eoin Macken as Gavin in ‘La Brea’ season 2 episode 3 (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)

NBC’s La Brea season two episode three opens in the Exiles’ cave with Eve (Natalie Zea) and Levi (Nicholas Gonzalez) snuggling and kissing. It’s absolutely not the right time for a little romance, and they’re quickly reminded they’re prisoners when they’re forced back to work digging up black rocks.

Levi and Eve are still planning to escape, and Virgil confirms he’s rounded up about a dozen prisoners to help. Their plan is to break out that afternoon during the guards’ shift change.

A short while later, Eve’s dumping rocks when she hears her name. She’s stunned to see Gavin (Eoin Macken) and rushes to him. He kisses her forehead – not exactly the most romantic move but whatever. After Silas tricked Gavin into getting captured by the Exiles, the recent addition to the 10,0000 BC’ers is now just another prisoner. Albeit one who has a map of the tunnels tucked in his pocket.

They quickly catch up and then Levi joins their reunion. His hug with Gavin is a lot more emotional than Gavin’s with Eve. Gavin provides a short synopsis of his journey and has to break the news he still can’t help anyone return home. But he does have a handy map to get out of this camp.

They check out the map…in the open where anyone can see what they’re doing. Eve and Levi insist that since the map’s from Silas, they can’t trust it. Gavin realizes his grandpa’s not a good guy, but he does trust the map.

And about those black rocks… Gavin knows they’re used for fuel, but doesn’t know what the Exiles plan to do with them. The rocks are being transported somewhere but where or why, who knows?

The map requires them to head to the back tunnels and Levi knows that’s nearly impossible. He wants to stick with their shift-change plan which involves someone faking a heart attack and all the prisoners overwhelming the guards before making a run for the front gate. Gavin, who thus far hasn’t impressed anyone with his planning skills, wants to try the map.

Eve’s the deciding vote and since she doesn’t trust Silas, she votes for Levi’s plan.

Levi gets the prisoners ready to act as Gavin assures Eve it’ll be okay. He’s not that convincing.

Shift change is called, Virgil fakes a heart attack, and the other prisoners go after the guards with shovels and whatever else they can pick up.

The gate’s coming down as everyone rushes through it. Levi and Gavin work on stopping the gate mechanism, but their fix won’t hold. Gavin insists Levi leave while he stays behind to hold up the gate. After Levi’s through, Gavin makes a run for it, sliding through the gap at the last second.

The prisoners grab weapons and head for the hills but are quickly taken back into custody by more Exiles. Outnumbered, they’re forced onto their knees and ordered to be taken to their cells. Gavin jumps up and claims it was all his idea; he’s the one who should be punished.

The Exiles’ leader sends everyone but Gavin back to work. Gavin’s roughly tossed into a cell and discovers his captor, Taamet, speaks the same language as the village he grew up in. Gavin points out the Tongva are peaceful. So, what’s a guy like him doing in a place like this?

Gavin begs to be allowed to return to his family, but Taamet’s unimpressed. He warns Gavin he’ll die a prisoner and then sends in two guards to rough him up.

After being beaten up, Gavin’s returned to the main prisoner-holding area and reunites with Eve and Levi. Levi goes to get water while Eve and Gavin have a private chat about their past and Isaiah. Eve realizes she’s known Gavin his whole life, and she’s reminded that when they met Gavin told her it felt like he’d known her forever.

“I guess I was right,” says Gavin, adding, “No wonder I fell in love with you on the spot.”

Gavin confesses he knows all about her and Levi, and he doesn’t blame her. He’s going to do his best to earn her trust back after letting everyone down. He hopes they can start over as a family after this is all over.

Eve doesn’t reply.

Levi returns and wants to leave right away. All the guards are in tunnel four, so now’s their only chance to use Silas’ map. Gavin’s in bad shape but determined to go with them.

Gavin can barely stand by the time they get close to the exit, and Levi urges him to go on by reminding him they faced tougher situations during combat. They hear voices as they make it to the door, but only Taamet is there blocking their passage. He won’t move so they attack him, and Gavin knocks him out rather than killing him. (You just know that’s going to come back to haunt them.)

As they make their way back to camp, Levi reveals he heard the guards saying they were taking a shipment to the tower. They assume that’s the building Silas was talking about. The tower must use it as a fuel source.

Once they get to camp, they’ll figure out how to free Virgil and the other prisoners.

And now that they’re almost back to camp, Gavin finally reveals Izzy came with him! Eve runs on ahead, screaming out Izzy’s name. They run toward each other and hug, with Eve confessing she thought she’d never see her daughter again.

La Brea Season 2 Episode 3
Josh McKenzie as Lucas, Lily Santiago as Veronica, and Rohan Mirchandaney as Scott in ‘La Brea’ season 2 episode 3 (Photo by: Sarah Enticknap/NBC)

Meanwhile Back at Camp

Scott (Rohan Mirchandaney) returns to camp babbling about how he and Aldridge squared off with a herd of mastodons. (Not true.) He lost her in some caves. (Also not true.) Asked about a building, Scott claims he’s never heard anything about one. (Liar, liar, pants on fire.)

Scott does one nice thing…he assures Izzy (Zyra Gorecki) that her brother will be just fine. Josh survived everything 10,000 BC threw at him, which is probably less life-threatening than what the ‘80s are tossing his way.

Paara’s group arrives to retrieve Silas and not even Ty can buy more time for his group. Paara (Tonantzin Carmela) orders her people to take back the food they’ve given the Sky People. She also ends her personal relationship with Ty.

The group sits around pouting, while Ty (Chike Okonkwo) blames Sam (Jon Seda) for not just handing over Silas. Sam insists they can hunt and fish for themselves. Everything will be okay even without Paara’s help. He’s greeted with excuse after excuse, and Lucas (Josh McKenzie) finally suggests they steal their food back.

Nope, that’s a horrible idea. Thankfully, Sam and Ty point that out. Izzy adds that Paara’s group has weapons. A vote’s taken and Lucas’ idea is shot down…for now.

Scott meets with Lucas and Veronica (Lily Santiago) away from the group and suggests they should be rebels. They should steal the food, even though the majority ruled against Lucas’ plan. Lucas wonders why Scott’s acting weird, pointing out he’s been strange since he returned from his trip with Aldridge.

Even though he doesn’t trust Scott’s motivations, Lucas decides they’ll sneak into the fort. Veronica throws in with them since Lucas saved her life.

Night’s fallen as Lucas, Scott, and Veronica walk through the woods. Scott keeps repeating instructions under his breath and when caught he insists it’s just a nervous habit. He also claims what he’s doing now is just protecting everyone in the clearing.

They make it to the fort and head toward the secret entrance. Inside the fort, Scott fakes an ankle injury and sends Lucas and Veronica on to retrieve some food. Once they’re out of sight, he repeats his “12 steps left, 17 steps right, 13 steps straight” mantra again.

He comes to a tent and after a frantic search, he finds a metal key card with Lazarus written on it.

Lucas spots the man who killed his mother and gets sidetracked. Veronica insists he thinks about what he’s doing, certain killing the man won’t change anything. He’ll still feel guilt and grief. Reasoning with Lucas does no good.

Lucas sneaks up on the man’s tent and discovers he has a family. He can’t go through with his revenge.

Veronica and Lucas grab some food and take off.

The next day Scott, Lucas, and Veronica gather quite the crowd as they lay out the food they stole. Scott walks off and Veronica points out he’s not limping.

Ty and Sam are upset they went against the vote, with Sam certain there will be a price to pay.

Scott heads out alone into the woods and reunites with Aldridge. (Why isn’t anyone following him when he’s acting so sketchy?) Scott’s pissed he had to lie to his friends but hands over the key card anyway. He wants to tell his friends the truth now, but Aldridge insists he keeps everything a secret.

They couldn’t get into the building on their first try, but she knows another way. The key card will get them where they need to go. Aldridge admits she knows how to get Josh and Riley back, but Scott is on a need-to-know basis – and he doesn’t need to know that info right now.

She sends him back to the clearing to wait for Gavin.




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