Plot holes, unnecessary tension, lack of character development and excessive romance are all elements that can plague a good TV show. Unfortunately, Outer Banks Season Four: Part One incorporated all of them.
Released Oct. 10 on Netflix, the show continued to follow the treasure-hunting pursuits of John B. Routledge (Chase Stokes), JJ Maybank (Rudy Pankow), Sarah Cameron (Madelyn Cline), Kiara Carrera (Madison Bailey), Pope Heyward (Jonathan Daviss) and Cleo Anderson (Carlacia Grant), known as the Pogues.
After finding the El Dorado gold in season three, an old man, Wes Genrette (David Jensen), approaches the group, wanting help unearthing Pirate Blackbeard’s amulet. This just felt like a grab at trying to keep the series going when the show could’ve ended.
Using the $1 million they received from the gold, which is not a lot of money considering it took three seasons to get it, the group decides to try and buy back JJ’s dad’s property which he was kicked out of. At the auction, they get into a bidding war but seemingly have it under control until JJ freaks out and offers $775,000. Mind you, the property was originally selling for $80,000.
I understand the point of JJ’s character and how reckless he is, but it would’ve been nice to see some character development and maturity.
The point of buying the land back was to restore the house and build a dock and shops for some income. But since they spent $775,000, there wasn’t much left to work with.
Meanwhile, why not go dirt bike racing? A classic Pogues versus Kooks showdown at the beach leads to JJ once again acting foolishly and carelessly. He uses the money leftover from the gold to bet on himself in the race only to end up losing at the last second. Pretty on-brand and an unnecessary conflict.
With a $13,000 property tax payment due in a week, the group seems to be out of answers — until Genrette offers to pay the Pogues $50,000 for securing Blackbeard’s amulet, as he believes the ghost of Blackbeard’s wife has cursed him.
Adding a supernatural feature to the series bothered me. It’s never been part of the plot before and now all of a sudden we believe in ghosts? Genrette also ends up dying mysteriously two days later.
JJ and Kiara have to scuba dive into an abandoned shipwreck to find the amulet. It seems easy enough. Until of course the antagonist of this season, Lightner (Rigo Sanchez), also happens to be diving for the amulet at the same time. Shocking, right?
Lightner attacks JJ and Kiara, but luckily JJ has a speargun and uses it to stab him in the arm, giving them enough time to swim up to the top. However, they contract the bends from ascending too quickly. Another meaningless plot that leads to JJ and Kiara hooking up in a hyperbaric chamber (I’m confused too).
If you were in danger of being evicted, have no money and were being stalked by a murderer, wouldn’t you want to spend a day surfing at the beach? The Pogues sure would. The group has the beach to themselves until the Kooks show up and of course, cause drama.
I think the whole Pogues and Kooks situation needs to be let go. It’s childish and old news, and it doesn’t do the show any good.
During the beach debacle, Cleo is busy being kidnapped by Lightner who demands she give him the amulet, which she can’t find in the house. She then calls Pope who is given the deadline of 4 p.m. to give Lightner the treasure or else he’ll kill Cleo.
I felt like I was being whiplashed between plots and drama throughout this episode. One moment they’re at the beach, and the next Cleo has a gun to her head.
This high-stakes situation causes Cleo’s father figure, Terrance, who was hired by Lightner’s crew, to be shot and killed. In my opinion, this was an avoidable death and could’ve been handled a lot better. The police show up to the Pogues house to question them about Genrette’s death and they end up hiding Terrance’s body instead of telling the police what happened.
But let’s forget about all that because treasure is more important. John B., Pope, Cleo and Sarah decide to head to Charleston because they believe Blackbeard hid something important there. This only led to Pope and Sarah being stuck in a catacomb that was filling up with water. Turns out, Lightner beat them to it and found a 300-year-old scroll from Blackbeard.
On top of all this, JJ receives a letter from Genrette from beyond the grave. In the letter, he tells JJ to ask his father, Luke (Gary Weeks), about the Albatross. This prompted Luke to tell JJ that he isn’t his father, his biological mother is Larissa Genrette (Wes Genrette’s daughter), and the Albatross was the boat she died on.
So about 50 “What?”s and one headache later, I concluded that for the sake of my sanity, I’ll be skipping out on Season Four: Part Two which comes out on Nov. 7.
And I have to live with the fact that I’ll never get the five hours I spent watching this back.
