I know I said some really good things about last week’s La Brea. But The Fog is honestly the best episode this season. Not only does it feature some really touching moments between characters, but there’s incredibly tense action and some truly game-changing secrets revealed.
It begins with Eve and her daughter bonding after so long apart. Izzy is happy that the prehistoric mess helped repair her parent’s relationship, and they’re both determined to get Josh back from 1988. It occurs to me that since watching La Brea, I’ve started to think of periods of time as physical destinations, not unlike taking a plane to visit LA. It’s just that here, you travel via sinkhole or rift in time.
Lucas and Veronica are bonding, mostly with Lucas being a jerk and thinking he’s funny. Both of them have one thing in common – they don’t trust Scott. And for good reason. He’s hardly a secret agent man, and he’s definitely hiding things. Meanwhile, at the Clearing, Sam and Ty are preparing for reprisal by Paara’s people for the theft of their food. They build lookout posts, which would be smart under normal circumstances. But as Gavin points out, a dangerous fog is rolling in. And it’s not just going to kill visibility, it’s bringing chaos in its wake.
Scott tries poorly to convince Gavin to secretly go and speak with Aldridge, though he cautions him that he can’t tell anybody else about it. Supposedly he will go to the Tower and there find a portal to retrieve Josh from 1988. Then Eve hears him and pushes Scott for more answers. Scott does his best to avoid her and lucks out when Gavin says he’ll go with the nerd to meet Aldridge, assuring his wife she can trust him.
Speaking of 1988, Josh and Riley are working with Franklin Marsh to get Josh’s modern phone working again. Marsh is smarter than he appears and gets the battery fixed. Then they look at tons of pictures taken from when they were in 10,000 BC. Marsh is sure this will convince the head of his Geology Department to believe he’s not just pushing a crackpot theory, even though Dr. Clark has been less than supportive in the recent past.
While Gavin and Scott go out to meet Aldridge, Lucas and Scott go out to find the supposed field of weed that Scott used to deflect their questions earlier. Instead, they come upon Paara’s people plotting vengeance in the woods. Then they rush back to warn Sam and Ty. As for Aldridge, she reveals that the Tower is actually called The Lazarus (which explains the keycard). She thinks they can steal a shipment from the Exiles to the Tower, and use the keycard to access the room they need to save Josh. She also reveals she knows Gavin’s parents, and that she worked with them and Silas to build the facility. Better yet, they’re both still alive!
Ty still believes the people in the Clearing and Paara’s villagers can make peace, but Sam tells him to pick a side. Then when Ty is out doing basic chores, he has a sudden bout of dizziness. Right after that happens, he discovers one of his old patients in 10,000 BC. His name is Anthony and he says he needs Ty’s help to find his group. So Ty agrees and wanders off into the forest, right before things get wild.
Gavin, Scott, and Aldridge find Paara herself in the woods, but luckily she’s there to stop her people from starting a war. She realizes Gavin is grown-up Isaiah, and it’s clear she has a lot of love for the grown-up cave boy. Back in the Clearing, Eve suggests they make a distraction to slow down the group led by Joseph before they all bunker down to defend themselves since the thick fog prevents them from going anywhere with any visibility. Oh and Izzy reveals that she blames herself for her parents’ divorce, and thinks her leg had a role in them splitting apart.
Joseph’s group suddenly attacks decoys made of what appear to be straw and clothes around a fire. They’re perplexed and find themselves quickly surrounded by a group from the Clearing armed with sharpened sticks. Paara pops in and tells Joseph to stop this pointless violence. It looks like things will calm down, but then the pack of prehistoric wolves arrives.
We haven’t seen these brutal hounds since season 1, and they’re no less terrifying here. There are about six of them, and they rush out to enjoy the buffet of human flesh. Everyone races to hide, either in cars or overturned buses. Aldridge protects Gavin and gets badly bitten by a huge wolf. Eve does the right thing and helps out a wounded Joseph before Levi has to save them both. Everyone gets to relative safety, but Eve and Izzy are separated, and both want to save the other.
Though you’d think a metal bus would be safe, the wolves do their level best to get inside. Veronica starts freaking out and hyperventilating, and Ella helps her calm down. Then she reveals to Ella that the reason she’s been avoiding her is that she feels guilty. Apparently, she had a hand in picking her out for this mysterious Aaron to snatch off the street as a child.
The wolves manage to rip a hole in the underbelly of the upside-down bus, and only get shooed away by Sam’s quick thinking. He finds a fire extinguisher and sprays them in the face. But then they try and smash through the side windows, and it’s clear the bus is moments away from being taken by the hairy horde.
The only reason the bus dwellers survive is that Eve goes full Rambo. She takes some of the ore from the Exiles camp, attaches it to an arrow, and fires it at the fire. It explodes in a torrent of flame, and the doggies go running. Paara thanks Eve for saving her people, and tells Gavin to come and visit his childhood village. For now, fences have been mended and threats averted.
Back in 1988, Riley does her level best to convince Dr. Clark to listen to Franklin and to believe his theories about the sinkholes. The woman looks through her photos and says they’re just Hollywood magic, clearly faked. Then as Riley is about to walk off in despair, Clark’s assistant tells her to come with her.
Ty goes on a long and talkative journey with Anthony and reveals some of his own failings as a husband. He’s trying hard to help Anthony cope with the stress of their situation. There’s just one little problem – Anthony isn’t actually there. This whole episode Ty has been hallucinating him, meaning his fatal brain condition is worsening. So he makes a big decision, and tells Paara he wants to spend what remains of his life with her.
The Fog ends with some really big moments. Eve tells Izzy that the reason she and Gavin broke up was that she started a relationship with Levi. Not to mention, she still loves both men. As for Aldridge, she’s apparently dying, despite her miraculous healing earlier in the season. She apologizes to Gavin for involving him, and says it was out of her hands. She also reveals that Gavin’s mother is in 1988.
Riley and Josh meet up with Dr. Clark later on, and it turns out that she’s actually Gavin’s mother and Josh’s grandmother. And she’s trying to fix the timeline, somehow. Like I said earlier, some really big secrets and a really great episode overall. Stay tuned for any huge secrets that pop up later this season in La Brea!
