**This article contains details from Outer Banks Season 4, there are spoilers for the new season throughout the entirety of the article.**
Returning for a 4th season, “Outer Banks” (OBX) proved to be an incredible new season that left fans wanting more. The main characters, John B. Routledge, JJ Maybank, Kiara Carrera, Pope Heyward, Sarah Cameron and Cleo Anderson (the Pogues) brought high-stakes energy to this new season. The Pogues are accompanied by Rafe Cameron, the aforementioned Sarah Cameron’s brother, later in the season.
In the first episode, “The Enduro,” the Pogues see an immediate turn in fortune after receiving their money from El Dorado, the treasure found in Season 2. The Pogues went to an auction to reclaim their home, JJ’s father Luke Maybanks’ house. Despite their original plan to stay as close to the minimum bid as possible, an impulsive JJ bids over $700,000, well over half of their reward money.
Although they are able to retain the property and open their business, this impulsivity becomes a common theme throughout the whole season, as JJ’s “nothing to lose” mindset screws the group over from time to time. Throughout the season it is both concerning and irritating from a viewer’s perspective because the Pogues have been fighting for years to be comfortable and feel belonging in their own town, JJ especially. For JJ, getting his house back meant finally having a genuine home, so it is understandable why he was so impulsive.
As Season 4 progresses, both JJ and Rafe get increasingly more impulsive in their actions, and it doesn’t end well for either of them. While Rafe has always been particularly quick to anger, it becomes clear why the writers portrayed JJ like this in a later episode.
In the second episode, “Blackbeard,” the Pogues are offered a cash prize of $50,000 if they are able to retrieve an amulet from Blackbeard’s last ship. Blackbeard was an ancestor to Wes Genrette and Chandler Groff, who is his son-in-law referred to in the show as Groff. Since the Pogues are essentially broke after JJ spent their earnings from El Dorado, their last gold-hunting adventure, the group takes the offer.
As mentioned before, Blackbeard’s bloodline is known around town as a haunted family, with each descendant mysteriously dying and claiming to be haunted by Blackbeard’s ghost. Wes Genrette’s daughter, Larissa Groff, who drowned over a decade ago, was said to have been one of the haunted descendents. Now, the curse has presumably taken over Wes, and the only solution he sees is to find the lost amulet.
The Pogues do seem very suspicious of Wes’ offer because it makes almost no sense. He said that the amulet was a gift for Blackbeard’s wife from Blackbeard himself and has been in the family since. The question is: If it was a gift of love to his wife Elizabeth, how would it fix Wes from being “haunted”?
After the Pogues leave a little more on edge than they were when they entered the Genrette residence, they make a plan to track down Blackbeard’s sunken ship. JJ and Kiara dive down to find the amulet in the dead of night. Once they find the ship’s ruins, they actually manage to find the amulet fairly quickly, but not without running into trouble. Throughout the entire season the directors foreshadowed the entrance of the main antagonist, named Lightner, who was also looking for the amulet.
This is an ironic scene to many viewers because of a moment in an earlier season when the Pogues dive for a different sunken boat and JJ jokes around when Pope says to be careful or he will get “the bends.”
This condition occurs when a person dives deep into a body of water and gets decompression sickness, causing bubbles to form in their blood, which is colloquially known as “the bends”. The irony is that this actually does happen to JJ in season 4, and he pays the price.
The Pogues finally make it back to Goat Island to give Wes back the amulet in hopes of breaking the curse and getting their money. They arrive to find out that Wes had been murdered, according to Groff. To make matters worse, now that there is an investigation for the homicide of Wes, the Pogues are the main suspects. A rattled Groff says he will honor the original deal if he gets the amulet, but the Pogues are suspicious of him and do not go through with it.
The Pogues tracked down a potential address for Lightner because they knew he hadn’t been released from the hospital yet, so they were hoping to catch him by surprise. Upon arriving it came to light that he had lied about his address on his hospital file, and it was a public pier. They manage to overhear a conversation that Lightner was having after realizing that he was actually at the pier, and it leads them to their next clue.
Some time later, Cleo had been kidnapped by Lightner at the pier, and was held hostage in the Pogues house. She is interrogated by Lightner until she eventually is forced to confess that the Pogues have the amulet.
It is odd to see how all of these characters are connected, because Cleo had worked on a boat with Terrace in the Bahamas Before she met the Pogues so it was weird that he showed up again. Lightner likely threatened Terrance enough that he went along with Lightner’s plan.
When they get back to the house, a man who used to maintain the land for Wes is waiting for JJ with a letter. JJ takes the letter reluctantly and reads it outside while everyone else heads inside. The letter was from Wes, written supposedly before he died. In the letter, JJ is surprised to find that Wes mentions his father, who is on the run. Wanting answers, JJ lies to his friends and says he’s running an errand, and takes off to a family friend of his fathers.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Pogues head to Charleston for their next clue, the “Blue Crown”. They arrive at the Half Moon Battery in Charleston and are led to a nearby church. Sarah and Cleo manage to distract the priest and find a hidden door in the floor, while John B keeps watch.
To be honest, it seemed like they found the hidden area far too quickly, it appeared unrealistic. It also looked to be a very small area, so how did Pope and Sarah not detect Lightner easily, or the other way around? It was unrealistic in other ways too, how did Cleo and Sarah know where to look, and decide quickly that this was the spot? Before they are able to get out of the area John B has to break through the ground, almost solid stone, because he had no other way. It didn’t make sense to viewers because if there was a key to get out in the first place, there must be no other way to get out.
Things change gears into a much faster plot now, and one thing having led to another, JJ finds himself on the run with his biological father. They end up on Lightner’s boat, held hostage. Lightner is actually out for Groff in the first place, so things weren’t looking too good for JJ. The Pouges manage to track him down, and rescue JJ.
The Pogues now know Groff has his own deceptive plan to get the Blue Crown, and they leave him stranded. JJ had stolen a scroll from the ship, which are the directions to the Blue Crown. The Blue Crown is in Morocco, meanwhile in an interesting turn of events, Groff manages to steal the scroll from the Pogues house.
In the tenth and final episode, “The Blue Crown” the Pogues finally make it to Morocco not without a severe storm that nearly wiped out their boat. Since Morocco is incredibly far from the Outer Banks, Rafe offers his boat in a moment of rare kindness, in exchange for a ride to Morocco as well. They already found themselves in trouble, and in the chaos Rafe gets left behind in the Moroccan town.
Rafe being with the rest of the Pogues is an odd pairing because you’d expect him to actually act like a part of the group considering how much they’ve all been through. However, it is obvious he thinks that he is better than the Pogues, more put together or wiser. But let’s put it this way, Rafe didn’t find El Dorado and get over a million dollars in gold.
In the disarray of things, a sand storm quite literally takes them by storm. In an unexpected turn of events, a very angry Groff is managing to climb out of a well he had fallen in when JJ finds the crown atop a statue ruin. In the midst of him finding the crown, he decides he’s better than the gold hunting, and gives it to Groff. Apparently, Groff did not appreciate his offer. The season concludes with a very abrupt cliff hanger.
Season 5 was confirmed before Part 2 of OBX had been released, which brought up a few questions from fans. When a show gets renewed for another season it is interesting to see how fast directors are able to produce and edit another season. OBX has a decent track record, their longest time between seasons being Season 2 and Season 3, was roughly a year and a half. Something that was mentioned in the Season 5 confirmation was that this was going to be the final season, which is news to fans. The directors prefaced that this was always their plan, a five season adventure. With this being the final season it is no secret that it usually makes or breaks a show, it will be intriguing to see how the directors Josh Pate, Jonas Pate, and Shannon Burke pull this off.
There are still so many loose strings to be tied with the ending of season 4. After the zoning meeting someone likely tore down the Pogues business, but they had left for Morocco just before we got to see that. Groff ran away with the Blue Crown after killing off JJ, the final heir to Goat Island, leaving it all to himself. Season 5 awaits, hopefully with more answers for fans.
