The Most Outer Banks Things to Happen in Season 4

Crack open your PBR, kids — Outer Banks is back. And with the return of Netflix’s YA treasure-hunting drama comes its special, sudsy brand of chaos. In case you forgot what that brand of chaos is, last season, John B., Sarah, Pope, Kiara, JJ, and Cleo, also lovingly known as the Pogues (P4L, baby!), a group of teens with seemingly very few skills and a general disregard for their own safety, discovered the real El Dorado and its gold. Also, two of their dads were killed in the process. It’s mostly fine; they were both kind of terrible.

Eighteen months later, part one of season four finds the Pogues dealing with property-tax and zoning issues as they attempt to re-create their Poguelandia oasis from season three with their El Dorado golden nuggets. But that only lasts, like, one episode. Soon enough, the crew is swept up on another adventure. This time, they’re looking for Blackbeard’s lost treasure, but, as usual, nothing is easy for the Pogues. On top of treasure hunting, the crew is dealing with daddy issues (not just dead ones), another group of murderous treasure hunters, and, yes, that primal rivalry with the rich bitches in town, the Kooks. May their rift never heal!

Believe it or not, we’ve only broached the first half of what is turning out to be yet another wild, ridiculous (complimentary) chapter in the Outer Banks story — part two of season four arrives November 7 — but it’s already such a ride, we figured it’s best not to go it alone. So let’s band together and review the highlights as Outer Banks unfurls its latest treasure-hunting mystery as only Outer Banks can.

Admittedly, I’ve never been to a land auction, but I do have some strongly held beliefs about land auctions, and those include that, for the love of God, there should be an age limit. Twenty-five and older only, okay?! Get the youths out of here!!

I guess I can’t hold this turn of events squarely on the shoulders of poor land-auction bylaws, because the Pogues should’ve known better. When they cash in all of their El Dorado money and wind up with over $1 million, Pope comes up with a very reasonable plan to buy JJ’s dad’s land back from the bank and the friends can re-create Poguelandia, but this time with a surf-and-bait shop to have some working income. He even comes up with a plan to not overspend their money on the actual land. This is all very thoughtful — but why on earth would they let JJ also attend the auction? He immediately gets his back up over an adult Kook trying to buy the land and spends over $775,000 just for the shitty piece of property. JJ sucks (I love him), but the other Pogues should’ve known better.

Wow, everyone is very into this dinky bike race all of a sudden, including one rider named Meatball who I, personally, would like to know more about. Meatball spinoff, anyone? It’s obviously just another vehicle (dirt-bike pun, baby!) to get the Pogue-Kook feud going even though we — both our characters and the world at large — have much bigger issues to deal with than this never-ending turf war between youths with terrible group names. It’s honestly so much dorkier the longer it goes on; you’ll see later.

The Enduro is also a way to watch JJ make additional boneheaded decisions because that kid will never learn: Here, he takes the last nug — yes, for some reason, they have left some of their gold in rock form instead of cash form, no one knows why, and yes, JJ only refers to the gold as nugs, which I respect — and bets it all on himself to win the Enduro. Now, you know this boy is not going to win the Enduro. He makes a valiant effort, though. Many people note how terrible his bike is, and yet, the guy still lands a 50-foot jump to hop into the lead. But the Kooks are cheaters, so JJ loses the race and all the remaining Poguelandia 2.0 money.

(1) At least this is said by Pope, the only Pogue I can buy being able to put these words together in a sentence.

(2) It’s a very succinct way to clarify this season’s stakes, which is important because we need all the time we can get to focus on Outer Banks’s top priorities, which are treasure-hunting and surfing.

(3) It does help illustrate the range of a series in which the youths say things like the above and also the sentence, “Surf violence is violence, man.”

Ah, Wes Genrette, another creep adult to add to Outer Banks’s collection. The owner of Goat Island seemingly has a ton of money but also only wants to live in a dark, musty mansion. He does, however, conveniently have a portrait painted of every single person in his story about his cursed family; it’s nice to have visual aids! He’s a direct descendant of the English officer who beheaded Blackbeard and killed his wife Elizabeth, the Genrettes have been cursed for hundreds of years, and his own daughter Larissa saw Elizabeth’s ghost a week before she and her baby died at sea. Wes dies by the end of episode two under suspicious circumstances, so maybe he was onto something with all the curse stuff. His son-in-law, Chandler Groff, however, lives to creep another day.

Like, of course they get the bends. Honestly, how has someone not gotten the bends on this show yet? Anyway, yes, JJ and Kiara dive to look for that amulet (you can bet neither are scuba certified), but there just so happens to be someone else down there also looking for the amulet at the exact moment they are. This man, Lightner, tries to murder both teens, but they stab him with a speargun, get the amulet, and swim back to the surface as fast as possible — hence, the bends.

I mean, they are in there for 12 hours, so why not? Actually, there are lots of reasons why not, but Pogues are gonna Pogue. Alas, their decompressed smushfest gets interrupted when Lightner arrives at the hospital to take care of that speargun stab wound and he spots them. JJ and Kiara proceed to break themselves out of that hyperbaric chamber and make a run for it. This feels in no way plausible, but also, on Outer Banks, literally everything is plausible.

The Pogues eventually discover the real treasure everyone is after is not the amulet (that’s just a clue) but the fabled Blue Crown. John B. recognizes the name and informs his friends of the crown’s importance throughout history. His explanation includes things like, “Alexander the Great, beat the shit out of everybody, he’s wearing it,” and that it was also worn by “Julius Caesar, also a badass, murdered a bunch of people.” Apparently, the Blue Crown, which is a priceless artifact (a much bigger get than $50,000 for the amulet), went missing in the 1700s and is believed to be — wait for it — among Blackbeard’s missing treasure.

It’s Swell Day, baby. Who cares if your land and everything you own is going to be repossessed and you have no money and also scary treasure-hunting adults are trying to murder you and you have a property-tax bill due in mere days?! None of these things matter when the waves are good, bro. It’s the law in Poguelandia, which is made up. Thankfully, Pope is taking this all seriously, so while the rest of the team go surfing, he continues the treasure hunt. (This guy should get a much bigger cut of the treasure than the rest of these fools. Know your worth, Pope!) Topper, Rafe, and the rest of the Kooks, of course, park right up next to the Pogues on the very empty and wide beach, which obviously stirs up some drama.

In a fun twist, the most psychotic Kook isn’t Rafe (who, against all odds, seems to be getting a redemption arc) or even Topper, but Topper’s girlfriend Ruthie. She decides it would be fun to pretend to run down the Pogues with her Jeep, and she almost kills Kiara, who is trying to protect a turtle hatch making their way into the ocean. (Remember, Kiara is an environmentalist first, a treasure-hunter second.) And then JJ threatens all the Kooks’ lives on video, which seems like a bad choice, even if warranted. Regardless: Ruthie, girl, GET A JOB.

Oh, so during this whole Swell Day debacle, no one even realized Cleo had been kidnapped by Lightner the night before. Wild, but true. He’s using her to get the amulet, and in a little twist, we learn that Cleo’s father figure Terrance was hired by Lightner’s crew not long ago. When Cleo can’t locate the amulet in the Poguelandia house, and Pope, who has the amulet, returns a minute past the deadline Lightner gave him to get back to the house, things go bad. Terrance tries to save Cleo from Lightner but winds up getting shot and killed. Lightner takes off with the amulet, and the Pogues are left to figure out what to do with Terrance.

JUST THEN, everyone’s favorite Kildare County law-enforcement officer Shoupe appears. They decide it’s better to hide the body than tell Shoupe what happened, and so they shove Terrance behind their couch and clean up his blood as fast as possible. Shoupe’s there to question JJ about the whole “threatening to kill all the Kooks” thing and warn him that Chandler Groff has implied the Pogues have something to do with Wes Genrette’s death. He does not notice any weird smells in that house, of which there have to be so, so many, and goes about his day (but does have someone keep eyes on the Pogues, just in case).

Even Sarah is like, I’m 19, slow your roll. Ah, John B. He is a dummy, but he’s our dummy, you know? Remember when he wrestled an alligator??

After (reverently) dumping Terrance’s body, John B., Sarah, Pope, and Cleo head to Charleston because thanks to all of Pope’s research, they believe Blackbeard hid something of importance there — possibly the Blue Crown itself. Spoiler alert: It’s not the Blue Crown. And while the hunt takes Pope and Sarah underground, Lightner and his boss lady are hot on their trails. They wind up finding the Blackbeard item in the catacomb: a 300-year-old scroll. Pope and Sarah try to follow them out but wind up trapped inside just as things are about to get very, very wet.

He still hates it, but this is a big moment of growth from season one.

The cursive JJ had to read? It’s a letter Wes Genrette wanted delivered to JJ in case of his own untimely death. In it, he tells JJ to ask his own father about something called the Albatross. JJ’s dad Luke is a fugitive at this point, but he’s also a fugitive who is conveniently hiding out right in town. When JJ confronts his dad to get an explanation, Shoupe, who has been trailing JJ, blows up their spot. JJ helps Luke escape … to the top of a lighthouse, which is a terrible hiding place; there’s only one exit!! Luke has a wild reveal for poor JJ: He isn’t his biological father! And his mother wasn’t his biological mother! JJ is actually Larissa Genrette’s son! The Albatross is the boat she died on! And JJ is the baby believed to have died with her at sea! And that means Chandler Groff is JJ’s real father. But worst of all: It means JJ was actually born a Kook. If you thought JJ was off the rails now, wait until he puts that little fun fact together. I bet he rues the day he ever decided to learn how to read cursive — it only leads to heartbreak.