Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Outer Banks’ Season 4 on Netflix: Just When The Pogues Thought Their Treasure Hunting Days Were Over, Hey, Here’s A Map To Blackbeard’s Ship

Netflix’s Outer Banks has successfully established a vivid universe where the working class Pogues and the rich Kooks struggle to coexist as they all search for hidden treasure. Now in its fourth season, the class divide is as strong as ever, but now the Pogues’ reputation as treasure seekers precedes them, and they’re hired to go out and hunt for Blackbeard’s missing treasure in order to break an actual curse that haunts a local family.

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Opening Shot: John B (Chase Stokes) stands on a roof looking over the marsh and into the sea.

The Gist: 18 months after returning home , having discovered the lost city of El Dorado and finding gold in thar hills (hills, cave, same diff), John B. and his fellow Pogues, JJ (Rudy Pankow), Pope (Jonathan Daviss), Kiara (Madison Bailey), Cleo (Carlacia Grant), and Sarah (Madelyn Cline)have returned home to the Outer Banks. They’ve appraised their gold and they all decide to pool their money together – a little over $1 million – to buy back JJ’s foreclosed home and turn the house and land into a business. The encounter a hiccup during the bank’s foreclosure auction when a wealthy Kook from across the island tries to outbid them, ratcheting up the price to nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, i.e. most of the money they have, but JJ goes rogue-Pogue and continues bidding despite the fact that his friends beg him to stop. That forces the Pogues to get crafty and creative, bargain hunting and building up their new homestead themselves. The first half of the season premiere has the jaunty optimism of an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition episode as the group works together to renovate the home. In bits and pieces, their hard work adds up to a thriving fishing charter/tackle shop/surf and skate shop and a commune where everyone lives and works together. It’s a blueprint for a utopian little society, Poguelandia 2.0.

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If the series ended here, secure in the comfort of Pogues having made something great for themselves, it would feel satisfying, but as John B. explains, “Nothing ever stand still.” Pretty soon, new problems and new treasures come to light to throw their idyllic lives into chaos again.

After a storm wipes out their bait shop’s electricity and spoils all their fish, money troubles set it, so JJ does what JJ does and he takes their last nugget of gold and bets it on himself at the Kildare Enduro bike race held on the beach, erosion concerns be damned. JJ convinces John B. to race alongside him as a wingman to try and edge out some of the competition. Some of the Pogues old foes, including Sarah’s brother Rafe, who holds John B. responsible for his father’s death, and Sarah’s ex, Topper, are racing too, are racing too, and they’re all trying their hardest to defeat the Pogues.

The Kooks race dirty and win, which means that the Pogues are left broke and desperate, but as fate would have it, a man named Wes Genrette has heard about them from a news story about their finding the lost city of gold and has a proposition. Genrette possesses the travel logs of a sailor that he wants them to follow, that sailor being Blackbeard himself. Seems that these kids might have wanted the simple life, but the treasure-hunter life keeps pulling them back in.

Our Take: After four seasons of treasure hunting and finding themselves at odds with the Kooks, the drama and mystery is still alive in the Outer Banks. It’s been over a year since the last installment, and the show uses that time jump to establish a new vibe for the group. They are all in this together, and so the show gives them the opportunity to expand on that, cohabiting and working in a new home where they truly have become each other’s chosen family. (Which means they love hard, but they can also fight hard, too.)

Because of that bond, and because early on they are sticking together as a group rather than splintering off, the show establishes a feeling of safety and security which will eventually be turned on its head. It doesn’t get much bigger than hunting for Blackbeard’s treasure, so tension is already brewing between the Pogues. Add to that a ghost story about why they’re searching for a mysterious, missing amulet on his pirate ship and the show takes a supernatural tone. Season five of the show has not yet been announced, so if this one is the last season, it feels like Netflix is building it up to be special, at the very least because it’s getting the split-in-two treatment, which lends a vibe of importance and high stakes. While only the first half of the season is out now, the final five episodes will premiere in November.

Sex and Skin: The Pogues, now living in their own house, are basically all shacking up. While there’s nothing graphic onscreen, if there’s a conch shell on the doorknob, don’t come a knockin’.

Parting Shot: The Pogues head to Mr. Genrette’s secluded house on Goat Island and immediately they start getting bad vibes. While Sarah wishes they would abandon the whole Blackbeard thing, eventually they all walk reluctantly into the home where Mr. Genrette’s son-in-law closes the door behind them.

Performance Worth Watching: While Chase Stokes’ cheekbones are obviously my favorite character on the show, Rudy Pankow as JJ is volatile and lovable in equal measure, and he successfully plays the character as someone who thinks he’s in the right when he’s clearly very wrong and even a little dangerous.

Memorable Dialogue: “You must be The Pogues. The Great Seekers,” the mysterious son-in-law of Wes Genrette tells the Pogues, whose treasure-hunting reputation precedes them.

Our Call: STREAM IT! With so many of last season’s characters and plots wrapped up (R.I.P. to all the dead dads), Outer Banks season four is charging ahead with a solid new adventure while leaning into the cast of characters these actors have honed and developed over the past four years. The chemistry between all of these personalities feels real, and there’s a creaky, spooky vibe surrounding their new mission that adds to the fun.

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