Present in the credits of the first three seasons of “Good Doctor”, Nicholas Gonzalez has been discreet since the death of his character. But he is back on the small screen in “La Brea”, a new series which starts tonight on TF1.
In 2017, comedian Nicholas Gonzalez, revealed in the early 2000s thanks to Resurrection Blvd., landed one of the main roles in the medical series Good Doctor alongside Freddie Highmore, Hill Harper, and Antonia Thomas.
For three seasons, he lends his features to Doctor Neil Melendez, a cardiac surgeon who supervises surgical residents at St. Bonaventure Hospital and notably maintains a romantic relationship with his colleague Audrey Lim (Christina Chang).
The finale of season 3 of Good Doctor, broadcast across the Atlantic in March 2020, features a terrible earthquake and ends with the death of Melendez. A tragedy which thus marks the departure of Nicholas Gonzalez after fifty episodes.
In the months that followed, the actor who notably distinguished himself during his career in Newport Beach, Sleepy Hollow, Pretty Little Liars and the reboot of Melrose Place was rather discreet, appearing only in the romantic comedy Playing Cupid and the film Borrego starring Lucy Hale.
However, he is making his big comeback on the small screen at the start of the 2021 school year by joining the cast of the disaster series La Brea, which is now in its second season on the American channel NBC and which starts this evening in France on TF1.
From doctor to US Air Force pilot, there is only one step
A “high concept” series in the vein of Lost, Under The Dome or Manifest, La Brea begins when an inexplicable chasm mysteriously opens under the city of Los Angeles, dragging hundreds of people and buildings into its depths.
Those who have fallen into it find themselves in a primitive, mysterious and dangerous world, where they have no choice but to unite in order to survive. While, at the same time, the rest of the world desperately tries to understand what happened.
Sarah Enticknap/NBC
Nicholas Gonzalez makes his first appearance in episode 3, “The hunt is open”, broadcast tonight at 10:45 p.m. on TF1. He plays Levi Delgado, a United States Air Force pilot who happens to be an old friend of the Harris family, central to the series’ narrative.
Despite Gavin’s (Eoin Macken) disapproval, Levi is tasked with entering the chasm in a fighter jet to locate survivors and rescue them. Unfortunately, no sooner has he entered the abyss than he immediately disappears from radar.
We then discover him hanging from a tree in the prehistoric world, where he will soon find Eve (Natalie Zea), with whom he had an affair in the past which could well have caused the rupture between Eve and Gavin.
Is a backfire to be expected between them now that they’re both stuck in the primeval world below Los Angeles? Answer in the sequel to La Brea on TF1.