Outer Banks on the surface appears to be a Goonies-style treasure hunt, but this Netflix original takes on more water than it can handle.
If you need something to watch that will make you long for the feeling of saltwater dried-hair and the tightness of your skin after a day in the sun, then fire up the Netflix app and throw on Outer Banks.
The ten-episode debut (and likely final) season of the series from the trio Jonas Pate (Friday Night Lights), his brother Josh Pate and Shannon Burke arrives just in time for the start of our, well, unconventional summer.
The series set off the coast of North Carolina on one of the most popular islands of the East Coast, begins with — what else — an early season hurricane. It’s hard to keep track of time in the series, but you learn by episode 5 that it is July, and the aptly named hurricane, “Agatha,” places us at the start of hurricane season, as evidenced by the naming convention of storms.
Due to the anti-transgender bathroom laws, the series was not shot on location in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Instead, Charleston, South Carolina served as the backdrop.
Right off the bat, I have to say that the opening title card of each episode — “Outer Banks” written in exactly the font I would expect to see on T shirts and sunglass stands across the island — sets the tone for the people we are going to meet and get to know intimately over the course of the series.
There are the Poughs, a group of four best friends who come from generally the same strain of circumstances around the island and live by the same code. There’s the de-facto ringleader John B (Chase Stokes), the love interest (who is so awesome outside of that, sigh) Kiara (Madison Bailey), the Merit Scholarship candidate Pope (Jonathan Daviss), and the overcompensating yet surprisingly damaged JJ (Rudy Pankow). Despite how great Madelyn Cline was when I felt the writers actually understood her character, Sarah appears to be a rushed addition who only comes into her own well out of order in the series.
The Poughs have a rival group of island inhabitants, the Kooks. They are rich kids who have their own speed boats, lavish homes, and more often than not, provide all of the lower-class families with their jobs. Luckily, the series does not rely too heavily on the teens being at war with one another in order to push the plot forward. In fact, one of the better concepts of the series loops in the parents and a generational rivalry in show’s final hours. This was a trail of breadcrumbs that felt like it paid off in a good way, but ultimately derailed the final two episodes to extremes.
‘Outer Banks’ Netflix review
From the get-go, Outer Banks had three major things working in its favor. First, it is set in the place where my family vacations annually, and I was looking forward to seeing the location from a local perspective. Second, Sarah Dessen has written some of my favorite books all set in towns that look and feel like the OBX (some of which we think should be adapted into Netflix series), and I couldn’t help but wonder if this series would deliver the same? And third, I like The Goonies and would also possibly enjoy another band of kids looking for a sunken treasure.
Outer Banks attempted to deliver on all three of those things, but also tried to service about 15 other plot lines at the same time. The series successfully pulled off the treasure hunt (one of its key pitches), but you had to muddle your way through rushed romances, character backstories, teen clique drama, and a few other ancillary character detours that would not have been missed in the final cut.
The pacing of the series was all over the place, leaving you to feel as though you could walk away at any time and still have the gist of what was going on when you came back. Even in its more dramatic moments, there was still too much time, too much going on, to capture any sense of true urgency that pulled on all the strings the series was trying to untangle.
Rival hunters looking for the treasure, hired assassins, an entire plot line about drug dealers and a troubled Kook son all tie together to build out the series’ primary enemy. Yet they only reveal so little about the capabilities of the man that they are hardly worth including.
Overall, the series does keep you invested enough to let the “Next Episode” icon load. But it also allows you the freedom to switch the laundry, wash some dishes, or prepare a meal and not feel as though you’ve missed something vital in between. Are we accepting series as a success for the latter these days? If so, then by that benchmark, I successfully wanted to watch this series through to the end to see what happened.
The Pough tribe
The treasure hunt itself was well-executed, and there were plenty of unexpected and genuinely terrifying moments in the pursuit of a sunken ship’s unclaimed gold. Over the first seven episodes, there were several times where I wanted to skim through the episodes and get back to the actual chase, leading me to believe that perhaps an eight-episode season order would have helped to cut back on some of the less developed storylines.
I think one of the more genius moves of the series was to kick things off with a hurricane. It added to the overall class war with visuals — clean ups, no power or cell service for the Poughs, generators and crews to service the wealthier families. It also helped to move the treasure hunt forward while keeping the resourcefulness of the Poughs in focus: sneaking into parties to deliver messages because they cannot text or charge their phones, breaking into country clubs to use the worst business lounge internet. You almost forgot that cell phones were an ever-present item in their lives.
The Poughs, our gateway into the treasure hunt and unglamorized side of the island, were a great group of characters, even if some of their personalities boiled down to almost nothing. There’s Pope, who has his brains and a bright future ahead of him, with a hard-working father, loving mother, and all the pressures that come with that at home. Kiera is more well-off than the others, with a dad who runs a successful business in town and a mother who praises high-society and all that comes with it. Naturally, she stands against everything and everyone her mother wants her to be.
I was genuinely so interested in Kiera’s character, possibly due to how captivating Bailey is to watch on screen. But for someone who is consistently going on and on about sea turtles and the environment, she does not seem to care about cleaning up the town or drinking out of plastic cups all the time. But these boys would be completely lost and probably dead without her, and I respect her decision to live by their code even if she is madly in love with John B.
Then there is John B. His father went missing three months ago, and though presumed dead, John B refuses to accept that. I cannot place my finger on exactly how old these kids are because they look older than the 16- or 17-year-old characters they are playing. In any event, John B is considered an unaccompanied minor living off his very minimal wages servicing rich people’s boats. A side plot of child services hoping to take him away runs, unsuccessfully, under all the deaths and other happenings of the season.
That said, there was one backstory that was pulled off brilliantly by Rudy Pankow. JJ, who is a loose cannon for most of the episodes, so much so that you are less charmed by his personality and more annoyed by it, pulls off one of the better arcs of the series.
Raised by an alcoholic and abusive father, the series delays playing into JJ’s home life until about halfway through the season. JJ talks his way through quite a few situations in the first few episodes, but when he pulls the abusive dad card to get out of one particularly bad predicament, it is almost too easy that the guard believes him. Turns out, his father’s reputation precedes him. It makes the reasoning behind JJ taking the blame for something that Pope did even more meaningful, and the final scene where he presumably walks away to be with his friends devastating. It’s unfortunate that John B gets the gold and the girl and gets away, while JJ is left to pick up what he can back at the place he cannot escape.
Pankow has the range, y’all.
For all that is a mess with the series, it does hit on those nostalgic and specific teenage moments that make the series worth a shot. I would be surprised if Outer Banks season 2 ever happens, which makes the first season almost more worthwhile. I like a complete story with a few questions left over, but also one that satisfies what it set out to do — tell an adventure story of one summer in these kids’ lives.
Was it too grand of an adventure? Absolutely. But it might be worth tagging along for.
Outer Banks is now streaming on Netflix.
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