La Brea Concludes With An Underwhelming Series Finale

La Brea's six-episode final season has never been the race to the finish that it should have been. Granted, the show did not have the time. In order to wrap up the entire show, it had to do it in half the time it usually had, which also meant lacking time in character development for new additions to the series as it tried to jam-pack all necessary information into five episodes before hitting the final hour.

Except, "The Road Home, Part 2," is a fairly anticlimactic event, and plenty of it has to do with spending more time on dinosaurs and less time wrapping up emotional arcs for the show's main characters. Understanding the full extent of Eve's reduced role also holds the show back, as does not addressing significant deaths in the final two episodes.

More than anything, what La Brea really needed was more time. Without that, the series finale basically falls apart in moments as it tries to write around things such as Eve being excluded and missing for most of the finale other than the first and final moments.

The big reunion with Eve never quite works as it needs to because of her lack of screen time throughout the season. There is no well-understood grasp of the stakes or dangers that may have surrounded her, nor a solid knowledge of what she was doing up until she reunited with Gavin, Izzy, and Josh in the final scene.

While there were moments that showed Eve had been captured, and Josh confirms he had been with her earlier in captivity, that does not explain much of what was really going on with Eve.

Eve's disappearance, as she was the show's initial main character, has been hurting La Brea all season, but her limited appearance in the series finale manages to harm it even more by not devoting as much time as it needs to her. The finale also avoids mentioning to Eve or Josh about Levi's death in the previous episode, which may as well be considered irrelevant with how little it apparently matters in the finale, which is a painful and insulting way to address the death of a main character.

The other significant death of "The Road Home, Part 2," falls on Maya, who is shot and killed. But, it is not necessary her death as a villain that makes it more important. La Brea lacks offering her daughter Petra a spotlight reaction to her mother's quick demise.

Such a decision ultimately undermines any sense of a relationship Maya and Petra would have had and manages to put into question how important their relationship would have been on a series that has spent most of its time championing the importance of family.

Riley and Sam also get their long-awaited reunion amongst themselves and with the rest of their family. Meanwhile, Lucas, Veronica, and Scott's strong friendship shows they will remain a unit as Lucas and Veronica get confirmation that their unborn baby is healthy.

La Brea does offer Scott and Lucas moments of reconciling with their pasts and recognizing their own personal growth and development and what that positivity can mean for their lives moving forward. Even Ty's happy ending remaining in 10,000 B.C. fits well into the show's narrative.

Izzy and Leyla's relationship hits an odd goodbye. It is not quite emotional enough for a romantic relationship or friendship between them and feels more like a silent understanding and parting of ways. Except, if Leyla had described an interest in leaving 10,000 B.C. behind, then why was it not a conversation for her to join Izzy in 2021? What was the point of Leyla's initial betrayal to leave 10,000 B.C. if when the time came for her to have the chance to leave, she ultimately stayed?

Leyla's character, sadly, does not get a real amount of screen time to address her future and thoughts and feelings, even about Izzy going back home.

Ultimately, La Brea skipped over questions such as how long after the sinkhole opened were they now appearing in 2021, or giving anyone a real sense of curiosity surrounding how any of them survived falling into the sinkhole, such as when Scott reunited with his ex-girlfriend, as the finale was running low on moments by the time the reunions in 2021 were taking place.

While La Brea did do what the series set out to do by reuniting the Harris family in its entirety after such a massive journey, the series finale as a whole never quite brought the excitement and thrill that the show had spent the previous seasons building up.