It happens about once a year. The wind shifts, the salt wafts off the sea and through the air, the sun settles at a point in the sky so that it’s always a perfect shade of yellow-orange outside. And that’s how you know that Outer Banks has returned.

With all due respect to Ripley, Squid Game, and every bonkers show Ryan Murphy has ever created, this is the greatest thing that has ever aired on Netflix. It is a fantasy, a farce, a teen drama, a PSA about the dangers of not showering. It is the only show that combines the soapiness of Days of Our Lives with the action stylings of Point Break; the adventure of the Indiana Jones movies with the teen turmoil of The O.C.

Season 3 of Outer Banks brought us to a place of resolution: Our hero, John B, and his common-law wife, Sarah Cameron, had both lost their fathers, and the Pogues had discovered the Lost City of El Dorado, and within it, enough gold to presumably put an end to all future treasure hunting. The kids could settle down, figure out what they really want to do with their lives, go back to high school (LOL, just kidding). But, of course, the hunt never ends—not on Outer Banks. Season 4 brings to us a trove even more daunting and mythical than El Dorado: Blackbeard’s treasure. (This time I’m not kidding.)

As always, the only way to tackle this marvel of modern television is to do what we’ve done for the past three seasons: document and rank every major (and minor) thing about it. Season 4 was a doozy, so let us not tarry any longer …

44. Ruthie

You might think that Chandler Groff is the main villain of Season 4 of Outer Banks. You might think it’s Topper; or Dalia, the deeply British mercenary, or her weird-vibes minion, Lightner; or the smarmy real estate mogul Dale Zeasy; or even Rafe. But I’m here to tell you that this season’s actual villain—the most truly evil character this show has ever introduced—is this girl Ruthie. Ruthie, who I don’t think we’d met until this season, is a rich kid who really takes the Nazi-ish subtext of the Kooks and just makes it text. I believe she’s Topper’s new girlfriend (what happened to Elena Reedy, you bastard?), though I’m speaking somewhat speculatively because their relationship mostly boils down to her telling Top to do unforgivable things, him being like, “I don’t really wanna?” and her then calling him a pussy.

She is TERRIBLE. Every other line out of her mouth is essentially, “Poor people should rot,” and beyond that, she seems to be dabbling in eugenics? She’s the Outer Banks version of Bellatrix Lestrange, running around calling people Mudbloods. But sometimes words are just words, right? It’s a person’s actions that truly speak to their character? OK, in that case: Ruthie assaults a pregnant woman on this show (she didn’t know she was pregnant, but still), and way worse, SHE MURDERS BABY TURTLES WITH HER JEEP WRANGLER.

All screenshots via Netflix, unless otherwise noted

What is wrong with you, lady? Seek help.

But here’s how I really know that Ruthie is Outer Banks’ archvillain. When we first meet her, this is the hat she’s wearing:

The creators of this show, Josh and Jonas Pate … are UNC fans.

43. JJ’s Real Dad, Chandler Groff

It seems like every season of Outer Banks we find out that one of the character’s familial roots is not what we thought. Pope’s ancestor is Denmark Tanny; John B’s dad isn’t dead; and now, the truth about JJ. You see, the deadbeat who raised him wasn’t actually his dad—he was just a landscaper who got paid by JJ’s real dad, Chandler Groff, who shipped JJ (née Jackson) off to live as a Pogue after his real mom, who came from a family that could trace their Carolina roots back 300 years, died (read: got murdered by Chandler Groff). There’s an amazing moment at the midway point of the season when Outer Banks pulls a reverse Empire Strikes Back and JJ’s fake dad (who, wow, is named Luke) tells him, “I am not your father.”

You’d think this would be a good thing—JJ’s fake dad is an abusive drunk—but holy hell is Chandler Groff a piece of shit. Aside from the whole killing-JJ’s-mom-and-abandoning-him-as-an-infant thing, this dude—who’s kind of giving Kevin Kline by way of Kirby Smart?—returns to OBX out of thin air with the sole purpose of using JJ and his friends to get to Blackbeard’s treasure. (Yeah, I know, you can’t just say “Blackbeard’s treasure” like it’s a normal thing. But slow down, we’ll get there.) He knocks Kiara unconscious and then locks her in an ice chest, which didn’t seem wholly necessary. He’s basically an unkillable cockroach, and he commits murder at an alarming rate, culminating in the moment when he KILLS HIS OWN ESTRANGED SON. (Again, we’ll get there.) He also has a really annoying, tiny little mustache, which I guess is a lesser sin than filicide, but it can’t not be mentioned.

I suspect this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Chandler Groff. After he stabbed JJ in the gut and absconded with the Blue Crown, the Pogues no longer care about buried treasure. The only thing they care about is, well:

Sure, yeah, OK. Stay tuned for Season 5, when Kiara chops off Chandler Groff’s wiener or something.

42. JJ’s Fake Dad, Luke Maybank

Don’t think you’re off the hook, LUKE. Seriously, the flashback that explains JJ’s parentage is wild, in that it also depicts Luke Maybank as an honorable, caring, nice person. “Maybe [Chandler] thought he’d get some kind of inheritance if they thought you were dead too,” Luke tells JJ over a flashback scene of him being a good dad. “I just know that after a while, I didn’t want him to come back.”

That’s confusing, because through three seasons, Outer Banks has shown him to be literally the worst. In nearly every scene he was in before this, he was either: (a) drilling a Milwaukee’s Best, (b) in jail, or (c) beating the crap out of JJ. How did you go from that to that? All things considered, the guy really dropped the ball on the whole being-a-dad thing.

Although, none of this is as confounding as the de-aging CGI Outer Banks uses on Luke for the flashbacks:

I love that mid-aughts Abercrombie & Fitch necklace, just in case the CGI didn’t convince you that this is a young man.

41. Main-Character Deaths

OK, deep breath. They killed JJ this season.

So, there are some real-life reasons that may have contributed to this decision—google “rudison” if you have a week to kill and aren’t afraid of being swallowed up by a 112-part thread on Twitter. But as someone who watches this television show about teens who never shower and never grow up and are fucking excellent at discovering the most sought-after treasures in the world so that I can escape real life, I don’t really wanna hear about any of that. The point is that Outer Banks should not be the kind of show where main characters die. Their invincibility is part of the deal, man. The Fast & Furious franchise is the model for Outer Banks, and in that series, Paul Walker actually died and they still didn’t kill off his character. That’s how it’s done. I should not have to face the horrors of mortality while watching Outer Banks, plain and simple.

Now, if Outer Banks is still trying to truly adhere to the Fast & Furious model, they may be setting up another one of that franchise’s go-to moves: the resurrection. Letty came back in Fast & Furious 6 after dying in the fourth movie; Han came back after getting killed in Tokyo Drift. Maybe JJ isn’t dead; maybe he’ll pop up in the nick of time in Season 5. That’d be classic JJ.

Then again, there is a scene in Season 4 where the Pogues literally bury JJ’s body in Morocco, and the Netflix social team is making all of the actors dress in white and eulogize JJ while dramatic music swells in the background, so … I should probably just accept reality. (Which I never thought Outer Banks would make me do!)

40. Dalia

It’s not nice to make fun of people’s accents, so maybe we just move on here. (Although I will note that the actress who plays this leader of the mercenary group that goes toe-to-toe with the Pogues, Pollyanna McIntosh, married Bobcat Goldthwait this year. And yes, I will also note that I am probably the only person who both watches Outer Banks and knows who Bobcat Goldthwait is.)

39. The Ongoing Miseducation of the Outer Banks Youth

JJ can’t read cursive, you guys. Please. I am begging you. OPEN THE SCHOOLS.

38. Gold, as a Currency

Oh, is it, sir? Because I thought that gold wasn’t money.

37. The Aftermath of Discovering the Literal Treasure of El Dorado

But moreover, I remain deeply confused about the fallout from the end of Season 3, when the Pogues discovered the lost city of El Dorado and all of its treasures within. First of all, it was clearly an entire city of treasures, yet when the Pogues exchange their gold at the beginning of Season 4 they come away with only $1.1 million. So what the hell? Were they just not able to carry that much gold? Was most of the treasure donated to, like, museums? Did the Venezuelan government step in like, “Uh, hola, teens from North Carolina. Yeah, just because you discovered this city of gold does not mean you own it.” Whatever the answer, when you discover EL DORADO, you gotta think you’re going home with more than a mil, which, to Succession’s point, is kind of the worst amount of money.

Secondly, I think we need to more seriously consider the kind of publicity that would come with DISCOVERING A HIDDEN CITY OF GOLD. You’re telling me that the only press the Pogues get from this excursion is a write-up in the local Outer Banks Sentinel? These are six of the sexiest young adults you’ll ever see, and they also happen to be the most successful treasure hunters in history—they would be so famous. GQ would feature them in the “Man of the Year” issue; The New Yorker would write a fascinatingly detailed profile of them that thoughtfully considers the anthropological implications of treasure; John B would do Calvin Klein ads; JJ would go on Hot Ones; Sarah’s TikToks, in which she plants heirloom tomatoes while wearing a hilariously unnecessary bikini, would go Hawk Tuah viral. The money they would earn as Hot Treasure Hunting Influencers would make $1.1 million seem like pocket change.

On the other hand, it rarely seems like any of the kids own a single cell phone, so maybe all the media requests are just piling up in an inbox no one checks.

36. Wheezie Cameron (in Absentia)

The little sister of Sarah and Rafe, Wheezie has zero scenes in Season 4. She has been forgotten—not by me, but by her own siblings:

I’ll just say: If we go the entirety of Outer Banks without Wheezie undergoing a “I hit puberty and now I’m a villain” transformation à la Kaitlin Cooper in Season 3 of The O.C., it’ll be a huge missed opportunity.

35. Dressing for the Job You Want

Let’s check out what Sarah Cameron wears to the real estate auction of the Maybank property:

And what about the outfit Kiara wears to a town council meeting about the Maybank property?

Look, guys, call me crazy, but I think the high-ranking officials of the Outer Banks might take you a bit more seriously if you didn’t exclusively dress like Hollister bikini models?

34. Lightner

I have only two points to make about this guy, the mercenary henchman who keeps crossing paths with the Pogues on the road to Blackbeard’s treasure:

  • He has only one outfit that he wears across the entire season. (Do not know if it’s a Doug Funnie situation.)
  • The way he spills into a hospital covered in blood is one of the funniest moments of the entire season:


33. Kelce

The disappointment in Kelce—a name that, I feel compelled to remind everyone, is pronounced “Kels,” and not like the guy who’s dating Taylor Swift—will apparently never end. Since Season 1, I have been begging this dude, the only Black Kook on the island, to wake up and to realize that he’s on the wrong team, but we’re now through four seasons and it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to happen. In fact, it’s actually getting worse: In Season 4, he’s basically Ruthie’s minion. Just following orders, right, my guy?

32. Dale Zeasy

When the Ruthies of the world grow up, they become Dale Zeasy. Mr. Zeasy (by the way, the Outer Banks team was really on one when it came to naming new characters this season) is a real estate mogul on the island with some scorching takes on immigration. (At one point, he more or less tells Cleo to go back to her country.) He also seems pretty gung-ho about disenfranchising a large portion of the Outer Banks population, having the properties of less well-off citizens rezoned so that he can then foreclose on them and turn their land into country clubs. (It’s legal, Sarah says, “if you’ve got the money to do it,” a statement that might need some fact-checking.) “The Cut’s gonna be Figure 8 in a few years,” he says about his plan to devour low-income housing on the island. This man wishes he was Robert Moses, and JJ was right to put a bunch of forks in his microwave.

31. Man 8

Bro, please listen to me when I say this: Grow up.

30. Real Estate Prices on the Very Exclusive Island of the Outer Banks

When the Pogues go to the real estate auction to buy back JJ’s (fake) dad’s house, which includes inlet waterfront access and at least a handful of acres of land, the bidding starts at $80,000. That’s it! They eventually pay $775,010 after JJ goes rogue in a bidding war with Zeasy, which Pope tells John B is 33 percent over market value—so, if I’m doing the math right, that means the property’s true value was $516,673.

That is … still a very good deal! I know that JJ’s house was condemned; PBR cans were practically spilling out of the front door. It was definitely a fixer-upper. But you know what they say: location, location, location, and this house has an undeniably sick location! I feel like the land alone has to be worth over a million dollars.

But let’s see what Zillow has to say. Now, it is somewhat difficult to make a one-to-one comparison between Outer Banks and the Outer Banks because, as we all know, the Outer Banks on Outer Banks does not resemble the actual Outer Banks of North Carolina. But just go with it.

Screenshot via Zillow

You’ll obviously notice that there aren’t a ton of properties under seven figures here—and those listings that are in the $300,000-$400,000 range are, unlike JJ’s house, on minuscule spits of land with zero privacy and zero direct access to water. The closest analog I could find to JJ’s is this beauty, a 1,300-square-foot three-bedroom on 14-plus acres of land. (Actually, the more I look at this listing and see stuff like a run-down RV that’s been turned into a hangout spot, the more I think that JJ’s property was based on this one.) The asking price for this thing is $1.7 million—nearly a full mil more than the Pogues dropped when they “overpaid” for JJ’s property. (Granted, the asking price was cut by $200K in October. If you’re looking for a folksy, bay-side Outer Banks bungalow, STAY IN LINE.)

What I’m getting at is that the fantastical properties of Outer Banks’ Outer Banks extend to the real estate market. Apparently, in this Outer Banks, millennials would be able to afford to buy homes.

29. The Lifeguards of the Outer Banks

Can you imagine the thought process here?! These motherfuckers found a dead body buried up to its hand in a sand dune, and before the cops could come they completely dug it up. That shit would take time! Like hours! They probably used shovels! And at no point were either of these lifeguards like, “Hey, should we maybe not disturb the body of what is very clearly a homicide victim?” The idiocy is stunning.

28. The Kildare Sheriff’s Department

Speaking of idiocy! This is a sheriff’s department that has bungled so many investigations at this point that I have to assume the North Carolina state government is going to have to get involved. Since the death of their sheriff in Season 1 (RIP, Peterkin, people haven’t forgotten!), the Kildare Sheriff’s Department has: overseen misguided manhunts; filed erroneous murder charges; botched the investigation into the death of Ward Cameron; had members of their force take illegal payments to enable prison assassinations; pointed multiple firearms at multiple unarmed teenagers; and have allowed a raucous town hall meeting to devolve into an all-out riot. All of this while not closing a single case on their docket.

Which brings me to their leader (though, probably not for long), Deputy Shoupe. Like so many characters on this show, Shoupe seems long overdue for an about-face where they realize that, actually, the Pogues are the good guys. Like, for real, how many times does it need to turn out that, no, John B or JJ did not commit the murder you’re looking into? How many times do the Pogues need to discover long-lost treasure before you realize, wow, these kids must know what they’re talking about? Shoupe seems like a cool bro; he seems like the kind of guy who doesn’t like to take orders from spoiled rich jerks. So why can’t he just be that guy?

27. Pope’s Uncle Roger

Nothing against the Marines. I salute all who have served this country. I absolutely respect one’s right to dress like it’s graduation day at the Naval Academy even though you’re now just in the Coast Guard. But I need to say something to Pope’s Uncle Roger …

With all due respect, sir, you’re talking to one of the people who DISCOVERED THE LOST CITY OF EL DORADO. And oh yeah, he also tracked down the Cross of Santo Domingo, in the process legitimizing the once-disregarded claims of his great-grandmother—your grandmother!—and restoring the legacy of the entire Heyward family. This TEENAGER has accomplished more in his life than you ever will, SIR. He and his “hoodlum friends,” as you put it, aren’t throwing rocks at trains—they’re discovering the most sacred antiquities known to man. Maybe you (sir) are the disappointing one.

26. Find My Friends

OK, so they do own cellphones. There is a 10-minute stretch in Episode 8 of this season when the location-sharing app Find My Friends becomes an extremely important plot point. It is never mentioned before this stretch and never mentioned after. Kinda strange, right?

25. The Outer Banks Economy

One morning, John B awakes in the disgusting Pogue commune they’ve built out of JJ’s old house. He sniffs the air, feels the wind. And then he explains:

It happened a few times this summer. A storm out over the Atlantic, hundreds of miles away … sending ripples … right over the pond. If you grew up on the Outer Banks, you could just tell. No matter where you were, you could hear it. It didn’t matter what you were planning on doing that day. You hit the brake. No matter what.

Amid this stirring monologue, we see countless businesses shutting down for the day: cafes, boutiques, law offices. And, at the risk of sounding particularly Kook-ish, can I just say that maybe all these Pogues would be doing better financially if they weren’t leaving work every time the waves were good? Like, take John B and Co. for example: These children opened a literal surf shop. Surely good surfing days would be when the store is at its busiest—instead they’re putting a “We’re Closed” sign on the door and flushing a day’s worth of profit because the promise of ripping a few tight rollers was too alluring. I’m trying to be a bro here, but this is pretty basic running-a-business stuff.

24. Captain Terrance

Remember Terrance? No? Did you block out all memories of him from Season 2, when he was the captain who rescued John B and Sarah from capsizing before trying to kill them to steal their gold? I forgive you—Season 2 came out during the pandemic. But anyway, yeah, Terrance is back—he somehow got mixed up with the treasure-hunting mercenaries (they really don’t explain it at all) and, after they kidnap Cleo, he suddenly becomes a good guy, which then gets him killed by said mercenaries. This results in Cleo talking like John Wick for the rest of the season, even though by all accounts Terrance was not that great of a guy!

I mean no disrespect to Terrance when I say that he really did not need to make a comeback on this show.

23. Topper

Holy shit, Top. It’s been like nine treasure hunts since you and Sarah dated. The girl has watched her dad die multiple times since the last time she called you her boyfriend. GIVE IT UPPPPP.

In previous seasons, it seemed like Topper was on a trajectory toward decency, only for peer pressure and his own vanity to cause it to elude him. And then at the end of Season 3 he went and tried to burn all of the Pogues alive—so I think it’s pretty safe to say that our boy is a bit too far gone. He’s now dating Gen Z Goebbels, riding shotgun in the Baby Turtle Death Machine, and running scams with his crooked judge grandfather (definitely appointed during Trump’s first term) to steal land from hardworking people. Even Rafe has beaten him to a redemption arc. Rafe! The guy who once maniacally said, “Killing is nature.”

Topper’s also just saying a lot of dumb-shit stuff like this:

Yeah, I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that one, big dog.

22. Barracuda Mike

I’m glad Outer Banks didn’t forget Barracuda Mike, because if you’ll remember, last season he was the friendliest drug dealer you’ve ever seen: Even after John B and JJ lost his UHaul-worth of marijuana, Barracuda did them a solid and flew them to Venezuela. Most drug dealers would, I don’t know, kill you instead? So thankfully the show goes out of its way to note that the Pogues paid Barracuda for his services and supreme congeniality.

Otherwise he’s not in this season very much. Although he does have a scene in which he staunchly defends the honor of his dog.

And now I’m realizing that Barracuda Mike is man’s best friend.

21. Hollis Robinson

First of all, Hollis Robinson is not the name of a female North Carolina coastal real estate mogul. That is the name of a swing guard on the Minnesota Timberwolves or something.

Anywho, Hollis is described by Rafe as “the biggest realtor/cougar on the island” (quite the distinction), and she appears out of thin air in Season 4 to rope Rafe into an ultimately fraudulent deal to acquire Goat Island, the tract of land that Chandler Groff claims to have inherited when in reality it’s been donated to the state of North Carolina. She exclusively takes meetings on her boat, and she is a woman of mixed metaphors: “I am looking for a partner who’s not afraid of deep waters,” she tells Rafe, “who’s gonna leave it all on the field.” (Are you also looking for a partner who, say, puts the pedal to the metal, Hollis?) She also deeply wants to bang Rafe, though, shockingly, he’s not really into it.

There was a brief moment in the middle of this season when I thought it was going to be revealed that Hollis—who has blond hair just like JJ, and just like JJ’s real mother Larissa—was actually Larissa; that she hadn’t actually drowned, and that she had come back to reunite with her son and retake Goat Island. But then Chandler Groff very unceremoniously murders her, so … guess I was way off on that one.

20. The Intractable Truth of Growing Up

All apologies, we’re about to get a little serious here. Season 4 of Outer Banks is easily the heaviest one of the series, but not only because it tackles weighty topics like wealth inequality and features a main character getting stabbed to death by his own father. On top of all of that, a cloud of resignation hangs over the proceedings—because you just know that it’s all gonna end soon. We’ve rounded third base and are heading home. (It’s no surprise that soon after Part 2 of this season was released, Netflix announced that Outer Banks was being renewed for a fifth and final season.) Madelyn Cline booked a part in the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot; Chase Stokes is about to be 40 years old (you said no fact-checking); and in less than a week, Drew Starkey will star in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer and officially ascend to another level of Hollywood fame. Everyone is growing up—everyone’s lives are moving in different directions, away from the ever-amber-soaked scenes of Outer Banks.

On the one hand, that’s probably a good thing. There’s really only so much buried treasure a group of kids can find before the whole thing collapses in on itself, and other teen dramas like The O.C., Gossip Girl, and Riverdale are proof of how unwieldy things can get if you let it drag on. But on the other hand, it is sad when things end! Outer Banks has been a ridiculous roller-coaster ride, such a pure escape that somehow elicits both the joy of laughing at bad TV and the emotional attachment that comes with good TV. I’m not sure there’ll ever be anything like it again. But, the fact of life is that Poguelandia can’t last forever.

19. The Pogues’ Moroccan Spring Collection

No notes!

18. Extratextual Drama

OK, time for another deep breath. The extremely cursed word “rudison” (a portmanteau for Rudy Pankow and Madison Bailey) has already been uttered once in this document, and it must be uttered yet again. I’m still not gonna get into whatever [gestures widely] all of that is, but we should discuss how that off-screen drama has clearly, or at least probably, affected the on-screen drama of Outer Banks. JJ bled out and was buried in the sands of Morocco—it’s kind of an unavoidable subject.

Whatever happened between the actors who play JJ and Kiara, it evidently got to an untenable point for the show: Those two are supposed to be madly in love, and in Season 4 they barely even look at each other. Before JJ goes off on a dangerous excursion, he shakes Kiara’s hand. After JJ and Sarah wash up on the African coast, having survived almost certain death, only John B runs to the shore to greet them. (Cut to Kiara being like, “Eh, yeah, I mean, the quote-unquote love of my life who I thought was gone forever will be over here soon.”) There are zero scenes between the two of them that give the impression of any genuine intimacy, which is kind of an issue when the show has built them up into the fan base’s favorite couple.

And I say this with the utmost respect and sensitivity: Aren’t you people actors? What happened to the game I love?! Television history is littered with people who put their real-life drama aside for the sake of their characters. Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley hated each other while playing a couple on The Vampire Diaries; Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray stayed married on One Tree Hill even though they had broken up in real life; Shannen Doherty and Alyssa Milano made it through multiple seasons of Charmed despite being mortal enemies. Even on this show there is a perfect example: Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline broke up long ago, but you don’t see them being incapable of faking love for the greater good. Sure, for every Chase and Madelyn you have an Archie Panjabi being edited into The Good Wife because she couldn’t be in the same room as Julianna Margulies, but on the whole, uh, this is what the money’s for. Instead JJ is dead because we all just couldn’t chill out.

17. JJ

Knowing that JJ was going to end the season with a knife in his gut, the creators of Outer Banks seemed to have gone to great lengths to turn him into the show’s worst character. In Season 4 his recklessness goes from charming to annoying as he tanks the Pogues’ plans at nearly every turn. There are points in the season when he is deeply unlikable! This is JJ we’re talking about, one of Outer Banks’ best characters, if not the best. It’s a truly sad turn of events, but hey, we’ll always have the sad hot tub filled with empty cans of PBR. I’m gonna choose to soak in there rather than remember how things ended.

16. Kiara

Because these two actors are apparently incapable of sharing screen time, there are also zero scenes in which Kiara, witnessing her boyfriend being the world’s biggest asshole, ever gets mad at JJ. And that only contributes to the season’s weird vibes.

But on a lighter note, I did want to call attention to the part when JJ and Kiara have to spend 12 hours in a hyperbaric chamber because they got the bends scuba diving.

Kiara’s all like, “We’re in here for 12 hours. What should we do?” And JJ’s like, “I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” and then they make eyes at each other and he puts a pillow against the chamber window.

So you’re telling me they fucked in a hyperbaric chamber?! Surely that is inadvisable. Surely this is not recommended if you have the bends. Surely their vitals are being tracked by the hospital and multiple nurses and doctors can see that they are in the process of hyperbaric boning. Surely the moment after—when five minutes have gone by and they still have 11 hours and 55 minutes to go—is the starkest instance of post-nut clarity one could ever have. But that’s why I love this show—because it leads to my Google search looking like this:

Screenshot via Google

Screenshot via Google

OK, hold on. Is Google Gemini suggesting that a penis is a “personal item”?

15. Sofia

Sofia popped up at the end of Season 3 as the one human on earth who wasn’t deeply disturbed by Rafe’s presence, and I can’t say that I expected to be seeing that much more of her. So let me tell you, the shriek I let out when I realized that Outer Banks was going to attempt to give her some interiority was shrill. Sofia gets wrapped up in Hollis Robinson’s scheme to dupe Rafe—at first she wasn’t going to scam him, but then he did that classic rich-guy thing of telling his other rich friends that he didn’t actually care about the poor girl he was shtupping. Then, just when things are getting super happily-ever-after between Rafe and Sofia, Chandler Groff is all, “Yo, your girl played you.” And Rafe, being the highly paranoid individual that he is, immediately makes a long-distance call from Morocco to dump Sofia. The Blue Crown can wait—I have to tell my girlfriend to get TF out of my house.

But don’t worry, Sofia-philes (there are tens of you, I’m sure), she’ll be back. Watch this space.

14. Cleo

Speaking of interiority, it feels like we’re due for a Cleo renaissance. I’m still not buying the romance with Pope; I’m definitely not buying the vengeance she harbors toward Lightner for killing Terrance, who, I repeat, seemed like a pretty bad guy! And other than that, Outer Banks can’t think of much for her to do besides repair dirt bikes and randomly steal cars off-screen. (The Season 4 premiere also posits that she’s an expert in dock building, which, WHAT?) Maybe with JJ gone she’ll have a little more room to operate. Maybe she can, like, kick Kelce’s ass or something.

13. The Enduro

I have a lot of questions about the Enduro, the dirt bike race that takes place at the end of the Season 4 premiere.

  • So is this like the Outer Banks version of Le Mans?
  • This is 100 percent illegal, right?
  • Like, you can’t host an unsanctioned dirt bike race on a large strip of publicly owned coastline. Where are the cops?!
  • Does the Enduro have an insurance policy?
  • What is this random radio station that seems to be broadcasting live from the Enduro? Is it even a radio station, or is it just two dudes with microphones?
  • Why would one of those guys say this?

  • What is the purse situation here? Is there an entry fee and the winner gets the entire pot? Or is the only way to make money off this by placing illegal bets on yourself and then winning the race?
  • How is John B allowed to enter the race mere seconds before it starts?
  • How were the Enduro analysts so off on Meatball Howell’s chances to win?

  • And finally, is it a coincidence that half the racers in this Enduro are characters from the television series Outer Banks?

12. Surfing Etiquette

This is the best-delivered line of Season 4.

11. Pope

My guy has really grown up. Last season, he was clumsily trying to assassinate Rafe while sitting on a cooler:

This season, he successfully shoots Lightner in the face.

He also assaults a police officer, gets sentenced to house arrest, and then cuts off his ankle monitor and flees to Morocco. So … if they ever return to the Outer Banks he’ll probably be arrested on the spot.

10. These Well-Meaning Charleston Dudes

I love these guys who speak up when they see Lightner attempting to strangle Cleo in a Charleston cemetery:

Slamming late-night subs and brown-bagging it, they aren’t too busy to be ALLIES. This is incredible PR for bachelor parties in Charleston.

9. The Blue Crown

Here’s a free history lesson about Blackbeard’s treasure (as read by John B from the book helpfully titled The Fabled Blue Crown, which was helpfully sitting on John B’s bookshelf):

Apparently it is the most sought-out artifact in the ancient world. … The Blue Crown was created for Darius the Great of Persia over 3,000 years ago. It was said to possess the blessing of the gods themselves, granting the wearer immense favor and rare invincibility. … It says Xerxes, the son of Darius the Great—he was a badass—he’s wearing it. Alexander the Great beat the shit out of everybody—he’s wearing it. Julius Caesar, also a badass, murdered a bunch of people. I don’t remember any of this. I just know that it granted wishes. … The crown was lost sometime in the 1700s, but it was rumored to be hunted down by … Blackbeard.

Two things: Pretty weird that these treasure experts have never heard of this massively famous artifact that GRANTS WISHES! But also, please tell me that in Season 5 of Outer Banks, the gang is gonna get ahold of the Blue Crown and then make a wish that brings JJ back from the dead. I don’t care about off-screen drama—this needs to happen.

8. John Booker Routledge

John B is still ranked this high because I like looking at his face, and because he continues to have the best vibes of any Pogue. He’s like the show’s golden retriever (and thus the show’s Josh Allen, go Bills). The moment when he accidentally whips a Molotov cocktail onto his own boat …


… is rivaled only by his commentary after he successfully launches a second Molotov cocktail:

But it must be said that John B is losing his love for the game, and his place as the leader of the Pogues. I think a lot of the bad things that happen to the group in Season 4 could’ve been prevented if John B had just continued to act like the main character of Outer Banks.

7. Class Warfare

Outer Banks has always been a show about the haves and have-nots—you can’t have a love story about a rich girl and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks without … a set of tracks separating the wealthy and poor. But hoo boy does the show go hard on the class warfare in Season 4. It’s like it was made by the ghosts of the Great Recession. The Kooks have always been bad, but their villainy was mostly passive: the one-percenters sipping cocktails while the rest of the island sweats. Now these people are all actively evil, coalescing into one hivemind dead set on unhousing an entire class of blue-collar workers. You saw Man 8 above—that guy was rooting for the corrupt seizure of legally purchased land, like Mr. Monopoly in flip-flops.

It all comes to a head in the sixth episode of the season, “Town Council,” which is possibly the most upsetting installment of the series. After the town rules in favor of the Kooks’ plan to rezone the Pogues’ land, all hell breaks loose: People start fighting each other and throwing things in a scene that’s shot just like the church massacre in Kingsman: The Secret Service. And after throwing a chair through a window, JJ heads into town with a baseball bat and knocks out the windows of nearly every storefront, sparking a riot that rips through the town. Tonally, it’s dark and angry in a way this show never gets. Scoring the scene with Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” is definitely a Netflixian flex, but it’s not exactly a sequence you’re gonna wanna revisit.

My recommendation to the mayor of Kildare, who presides over this town council meeting gone wrong? Yeah, buddy, you might wanna start taking the island’s inequality seriously. We’re approaching Russian Revolution levels over here.

6. Sarah Cameron

SMASH CUT TO:

All I’ll say: John B and Sarah being totally allergic to any and all forms of birth control is the most on-brand shit ever. Almost immediately after having a “we’re too young to start a family” conversation, they go off and have raw sex, presumably in some dingy bathroom somewhere. And now there’s a little John B on the way. I just love that for them.

5. The Magical Properties of Traveling by Sea

At one point, the gang takes a skiff from the main island to Goat Island. It is daytime when they leave and nighttime when they arrive. An episode later, this happens:

To be clear, Groff is saying that he swam from Goat Island—where he and the Pogues evaded the mercenaries—to JJ’s house back on the main island. Excuse me? Who do you think you are, Diana Nyad?

But this isn’t even close to the most extreme example of the incredible efficiency of traveling by sea. At the end of the season, Rafe commandeers a rickety fishing boat and helps the Pogues sail after the mercenaries all the way to Morocco. This, and I’m sure I’m not breaking news here, is not a short voyage:

Screenshot via Google Maps

That’s, like, the whole ocean, broseph.

According to ports.com (the only maritime-based website you’ll ever catch me using), a ship traveling at 10 knots—an extremely favorable estimate of how fast the bucket of bolts the Pogues are on could go—would take over 15 days to reach the shores of Morocco. By all indications, the Pogues are on their boat for, like, three days max. (I’m basing this estimation on the fact that they tie Rafe up in the brig and are never once shown taking him to the bathroom. Once again, thank you, Outer Banks, now “how long can you go without pooping” is also in my Google history.) And even after sailing bow-first into a massive squall, the gang makes landfall a mere hike away from where they were trying to go.

The takeaway is clear: If you want to basically apparate somewhere and have everything work out perfectly, you’re gonna have to get in the water.

4. The Poguelandia Bait and Tackle Shop

The Pogues’ bait and tackle shop disrupted the bait and tackle game with one simple trick: selling really good bait. No other bait and tackle shop has tried this before. The sharks from Shark Tank would be blown away.

Will that structure above—which was made by a bunch of teenagers with zero construction experience out of wood from a different dilapidated building—survive one single hurricane season? Is it a good idea to have a business that is accessible only by water? You’re asking the wrong questions, jabroni—you must not have heard me earlier when I said that this place has really good bait.

3. Barry the Drug Dealer

Just when you thought Outer Banks was gonna go a full season without a pop-in from the island’s David Foster Wallace–reading, Tyler Hansbrough–stanning drug dealer, Barry shows up in the penultimate episode looking absolutely fuckin’ resplendent:

Why is homeboy suddenly working on a fishing boat like some OBX Bubba Gump? When did he transition from drug dealing and gold stealing to tuna hunting? I DON’T KNOW AND I DON’T CARE. All I know is that this show is a million times better when he is in it, because he’s the only character who can deliver a line like this:

I love you so much, Barry. I hope I never have to go this long without seeing you again.

2. Rafe Cameron

What a wonder. The combination of Drew Starkey’s manic acting and the hyper yo-yoing of his character’s motivations will feed hungry OBX fans for millennia. When we first see Rafe in Season 4, he’s dumping his father’s ashes into the ocean. (How did he get these ashes? Did he retrieve Ward’s body from the Venezuelan jungle? Did the same government officials who took all the gold from the Pogues also send Rafe an urn?) Rafe has always been defined by his relationship with his dad, which across three seasons ricocheted from devoted to loathing, from wanting to be him to wanting to kill him. And just when they were getting to a point of father-son harmony, Ward went off and sacrificed himself for Sarah, which Rafe obviously blames the Pogues for. That, initially, turns him back into a Kook after a couple of seasons of being more on the margins. He’s building and selling condos, playing beer pong with Topper, defending Topper’s right to a gnarly wave out on the break. Eventually, though, he sees the light:

Atta boy, Rafe. Recognizing the Kook-Pogue binary for the prison that it is is what we call growth. From there, Rafe starts working with the Pogues to take down Groff—and he mostly just takes it when the Pogues thank him by locking him in a brig and never letting him poop. Finally, in the Season 4 finale, he and Sarah have a heart-to-heart where they let bygones be bygones and hug it out (and forget about their younger sister Wheezie).

The thrilling thing, though, is that Rafe still isn’t all the way healed. He’s always gonna be a paranoid mess with maybe a strong predilection toward murder. You can tell that from the long-distance breakup call to Sofia, and, to be fair, he helps the Pogues mostly out of self-interest—Chandler Groff did screw him out of $400,000 after all. But it’s that inner conflict that makes him the show’s best character.

Plus, what he says to Groff after pushing him down a Moroccan well is hilarious:

1. John B and Sarah’s Unborn Baby

Here are just a few things John B and Sarah’s unborn baby has survived in the womb thus far:

  • Sarah getting pushed to the ground by a neo-Nazi
  • Sarah constantly hanging out in a haze of weed smoke
  • Sarah diving into open water after her boat catches fire
  • Sarah not eating for two days
  • Sarah eating beans from the pantry of a fishing boat
  • Sarah running away from and/or fighting and/or braining mercenaries
  • Sarah falling into the Atlantic Ocean and getting swallowed up by The Perfect Storm–style waves before washing to shore an undetermined amount of time later

All that considered, I actually don’t think it’s that ridiculous that the season finale features a scene that likens Sarah to the mother Mary and her unborn baby to Jesus Christ:

Call me a believer: This child is the savior who will deliver us from evil (read: the Kooks).




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