*SPOILER WARNING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED S4 OF OUTER BANKS*
Outer Banks was first released on April 15, 2020 on Netflix. It grew popular very quickly, gathering support for new seasons up until the recent release of season four.
Season four starts off in the Outer Banks in South Carolina, however shifts location to Morocco towards the middle of the season. The Pogues have been on various adventures since the very first season including hunting for gold, finding the cross of Santo Domingo, and looking for El Dorado (the lost city of gold). Season 3 had ended with a cliffhanger where the audience was introduced to new characters and the Pogues were brought together for another mission, this time to find the Blue Crown, another priceless treasure.
Season four consists of ten episodes, each more tense than the previous. I personally enjoyed this season as I have all the others but was saddened to see the ending, as I am sure many other fans were as well.
In episode one the Pogues are trying to rebuild a life for themselves but are put into a difficult position when they are going to lose everything they’ve built, and JJ gambles away the last of their savings.
This was a disappointment to see all their hard work gone within the first couple minutes of the season, but expected. In episode two the audience learns more about Wes Genrette, the Pogues’ new mission, and ends off by learning Wes is now dead. The story quickly progresses but with new plotlines. JJ Maybank learns quickly that his father, Luke Maybank, is not who he thought he was. Instead, Chandler Groff is introduced as his real dad.
Pope Heyward, the usually calm and smart-headed Pogue, gets arrested defending JJ, preventing him from almost being shot at. Sarah Cameron has now found her home with the Pogues, where she finds out she is pregnant. Terrance, Cleo Anderson’s father figure, first introduced in the earlier seasons, has now died due to an unfortunate series of events urging Cleo to get revenge. Because of this, later events in the story cause Pope to get Cleo her revenge by killing the person who killed Terrence. Each of these events progressed the story with its quick pace and was incorporated in a way that didn’t feel out of place.
Another major part of season four is the character development. I personally love that we got to see more of this, since we have had our set views of characters since season one. Shoupe, who had previously been under Ward Cameron’s control, decided to make his own decisions this season, making a deal with the Pogues. I thought this was really interesting because this is the first time we really get to see him reason with the kids rather than accuse or attempt to arrest them.
Another character who I think had the most character development was Rafe Cameron. He not only defended the Pogues when talking to Shoupe but also got them to Morocco, and made amends with his sister Sarah. This was the first season where we got to see him actually try to better himself. Rafe has been a ‘villain’ the whole story so far, so I really liked seeing another side of him that was not always rude or scary.
The biggest plot twist was season four’s ending which left all fans, (including myself), in complete shock with the death of JJ Maybank. Though this was hinted at throughout the season, when Kiara had told JJ that his luck would run out if he kept making stupid decisions, or when JJ was almost killed several times, no one actually expected his character to be killed off.
This to me was a little questionable, as other fans would probably agree, (previous events where both Sarah and John B had survived being thrown into a heavy storm and surviving, the Pogues being shot at and choked multiple times throughout the seasons, Sarah being shot at dying and coming back to life, Sarah falling into another storm while pregnant and surviving, JJ climbing roughly 30 feet to reach the Blue Crown while being shot at by around six people, and the crew surviving a sandstorm), for JJ to be killed by his own father with the stab of a knife.
Currently season five has no trailer or release date, leaving all fans wondering when we will find out what happens next. There are definitely several questions that are still unanswered and I have a bunch myself, (i.e. What happened to Wheezie and Rose? Do the Pogues get Poguelandia back? Do the police find out that Pope has committed murder? Where did the Pogues hide Terrence’s body?), with a list that could go on forever. My current theory is that the Blue Crown may resurrect JJ as it was said to have granted a wish, and while I do hope this to be true, we really don’t have much information. Season four of Outer Banks definitely took us for a ride, and makes me curious to see what season five will be like.
