Outer Banksis a teendramathat follows two distinct groups in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Pogues and the Kooks. The Pogues are the working-class folks on the island, including John B Routledge (Chase Stokes), Pope (Jonathan Daviss), JJ (Rudy Pankow) and Kiara (Madison Bailey), while the Kooks are the upper class folks on the island, including Sarah Cameron (Madelyn Cline), her older brother Rafe (Drew Starkey), her father Ward (Charles Esten) and her boyfriend Topper (Austin North).The two groups do not typically get along, but when John B develops feelings for Sarah, the Kook princess, the two worlds start to collide in more ways than one.
When John B’s father goes missing in season 1, John B and his friends start searching for the treasure that his father was so obsessed with.The Pogues are not the only ones searching for the treasure though, and they soon start to realize the powers that they are up against, and how the cards are frequently stacked against them. With life-or-death stakes constantly at play, each episode is jam-packed with drama, both about the treasure hunt itself and about regular teenage problems, and viewers never know what is going to happen next.
Outer Banks
10The Pogues Don’t Get the Cross from the Train
Season 3, Episode 5
After convincingTopper to help them with their heist, Sarah, JJ, Pope, Cleo (Carlacia Grant), and Kiara head to Wilmington to steal back the Cross of Santo Domingo from the Camerons. With the help of Topper’s truck, the plan is to stop the train that the Cross is currently on, locate it, and transport it back to the Outer Banks. Miraculously, JJ is able to stop the train using jumper cables, and Pope and Cleo are able to find the Cross after talking themselves out of trouble with a railway worker. With the Cross loaded into the truck, Sarah, Topper, Pope and Cleo drive away, with Kiara and JJ close behind on JJ’s bike.
Unfortunately for the Pogues, the cops are called when the railway worker sees Cleo and Pope breaking into the train, and a police chase ensues.Despite all the fanfare and drama, when the Cross falls out of the back of the truck, they realize that they never had the Cross at all. The crate is full of trash.Rafe wins out once again, as him and Barry (Nicholas Cirillo) have the Cross and are melting it down. This plot twist was a tough one to stomach for fans, as it’s becoming more and more clear that while the Pogues want these treasures because they belong to them and would help them live a nicer life, the Camerons want these treasures just to have them, with no regard to the history or the meaning of them.
9Barry Turns Rafe in to the Police
Season 2, Episode 6
In the aftermath of a wild night where bothJohn B and Sarahwere almost killed, John B has been let out of prison after Rafe Cameron has been charged with the murder of Sheriff Peterkin (Adina Porter). Meanwhile, Sarah is with her ex-boyfriend Topper, who saved her from her brother’s attempted drowning the night before. Rose (Caroline Arapoglou) and Ward Cameron are debating what to do while the police search their home. Pope is uncovering a family secret from his great-grandmother. And Rafe Cameron is looking for a way out of the Outer Banks before the police can find him.
Rafe learned of the news that the police had a warrant for his arrest in a text from his father while he was at his friend, and partner in crime, Barry’s house. Barry has frequently helped Rafe in his fights with the Pogues, as Barry has his own reasons for seeking revenge on them, but after a while, Rafe’s behavior becomes a little erratic even for Barry.When Barry offers to help Rafe escape the island on his boat, he actually leads him into a police trap.This betrayal was surprising for fans, as Barry is pretty much willing to do whatever Rafe wants to do, but it seems like even Barry has his limits.
8Carla Limbrey Shoots Her Own Brother
Season 2, Episode 9
It seems that the Pogues may have finally found some luck as they have foundthe Cross of Santo Domingoin a small church. But before they can decide how to transport it, Pope suffers from an allergic reaction to some wasp stings he acquired while searching for the Cross. The Pogues all leave to get Pope some help, leaving the Cross behind for Rafe and Carla Limbrey’s (Elizabeth Mitchell) half-brother, Renfield (Jesse C. Boyd), who has been following them, to discover. Rafe takes the Cross back to Carla so that she can retrieve the Garment of the Savior that she has been desperately looking for, but much to her disappointment, it’s not there.
Carla has been searching for the Garment because it can heal all ailments, and she is in need of a medical cure. When she doesn’t find the Garment in the Cross where it should be, Renfield begins to mock her.Now that he has the Cross, he doesn’t have to worry about getting access to the family estate from her, so he no longer wants to obey her. Unfortunately for him, this decision results in Carla shooting him out of anger.Carla, though she is an antagonist, leaves a lot of the gritty details to those she employs or offers deals to. When she finally decided to take matters into her own hands, it was a shock for fans.
7Ward Sacrifices Himself to Save Sarah
Season 3, Episode 10
When the Pogues arrive in South America to complete the last part ofthe quest to find El Dorado, the city of gold, Ward shows up and claims that he wants to help. Understandably, the Pogues, including Sarah, aren’t sure they can really trust him, but they continue on their quest with Big John (Charles Halford) only to run into Ward again, this time with Carlos Singh (Andy McQueen), the man who has been terrorizing the Pogues in his own effort to find El Dorado. Despite all the conflict between Ward, Big John, the Pogues, Singh and his men, John B and Sarah, are able to find El Dorado, while Singh dies in a dynamite explosion.
When John B and Sarah reunite with Pope, Cleo, Kiara and JJ, they celebrate their successful treasure hunt, but end up cornered by Ward, who wants the gold. Sarah is able to talk him down until the last of Singh’s men shows up demanding the gold, ready to kill for it.Ward takes this moment to protect his daughter one last time, and he throws the man off a cliff, getting killed in the process.Throughout the show, it seemed like Ward Cameron would do anything to protect himself and the gold, but not much to protect his daughter, especially after she couldn’t stomach what her brother was doing anymore. This moment was a shocker to viewers because, in Ward’s last action on the show, he finally put someone else before him, and proved to Sarah that he really did love her.
6Pope is Related to Denmark Tanny
When Carla Limbrey has her brother attack Heyward (E. Roger Mitchell), Pope’s father, to get information about a key to the Cross of Santo Domingo, he doesn’t let any information slip, but he does tell Pope that this mess could be the result of a necklace that Pope’s great-grandmother has. When Pope goes to talk to his great-grandmother, she tells him that Denmark and Cecilia Tanny are his great-grandparents going way back.Denmark Tanny was an enslaved man and the sole survivor of the Royal Merchant shipwreck,the focus of the treasure huntin season 1, meaning that the gold the Pogues have been searching for, belongs to Pope’s family.
This shocking revelation makes the entirety of the gold hunt personal for Pope and his friends. They are no longer searching for gold just to secure their futures and to be rich. Now they’re searching for what belongs to Pope and his family, and when the Camerons steal it from them, or the Limbreys lay claim to it, they’re stealing from his family. Denmark Tanny used the gold from the ship to buy his and others' freedom as well as Tannyhill plantation. He hid the rest of the gold, and left his son clues to find it. It is now Pope’s destiny to use the clues to find the treasure that belongs to him.
5Ward Killed Big John
Season 1, Episode 8
After John B narrowly escapes Ward’s boat with his life, he travels back to the Outer Banks on a jet ski. When he reaches land, he goes immediately to Lana Grubbs (CC Castillo) to learn the truth about what happened to his father. Lana’s husband, Scooter (David Ury), told Lana the truth about Big John’s disappearance before he died: that Big John found the treasure, but had a dispute with Ward about the split of the fortune. Big John felt like he had done the bulk of the work, while Ward felt like John wouldn’t have been able to do what he did without his resources.Their dispute turned physical when Ward pushed Big John, who hit his head as he fell. Instead of calling for help, Ward pushed him overboard and left him for dead.
When viewers first meet John B, he is waiting for his father to return home. He knows his father hasbeen searching for treasure, but hasn’t heard from him in a long time. He decides to take up searching for the Royal Merchant with his friends to find the very thing his father devoted his life to discovering. Big John’s disappearance was the main reason for the gold hunt in the first place, so the shocking revelation that it’s Ward Cameron who killed Big John, in their dispute about the same treasure, ups the stakes immensely for John B, the Pogues and the fans.
4Ward Steals the Gold
The Pogues have found the goldhidden in a well tunnel underneath a house on the Outer Banks and are working on a plan to extract it. Thinking that no one else is as close as they are, they move a little too slowly in devising their extraction plans, and Ward, who listens in on a conversation between John B and Sarah, catches on to their gold discovery and attempts to get in on the deal. John B pretends he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when Ward confronts him, but when John B returns to the tunnel where he found the gold, it’s empty.
After being unable to convince John B to let him help him extract the gold for a cut of the fortune, Ward finds another way to win. When Rose, who is a real estate agent, tells him that the Crain Estate is up for sale after a few kids broke in, he puts two and two together: that the house was broken into because it contains the gold. Ward moves quickly, takes the gold, and arranges a plane to take it to the Bahamas for safekeeping away from the Pogues.The moment that John B travels back to the tunnel is gut-wrenching for fans, as he realizes that his improbable discovery has been thwarted by a man with more resources than him.
3Ward Fakes His Own Death
The Camerons are finally facing the consequences of their crimes when law enforcement shows up at their house with a search warrant andsecond degree murder charges for Rafe. John B, who was previously arrested and charged with the murder of Sheriff Peterkin, has now been released from prison in light of the evidence that implicates Rafe, and Sarah is with Topper after he saved her from Rafe’s attempted murder via drowning the night before. Sarah is struggling because, although she knows her father is a criminal and deserves to be apprehended, he is still her dad.
After Rafe is turned in by Barry to the police, Ward finally decides that what he needs to do is protect his family. He does this by allowing the police and SBI to surround him on his boat. In front of this audience, he confesses to his crimes and Rafe’s, but when Sarah shows up, he starts to look regretful and tells her she shouldn’t be there. It’s at this moment that his boat is blown up, and Ward has killed himself to evade persecution.Sarah is understandably distraught, but at the end of the season, she learns her father faked his own death to get the heat off his family and escape the Outer Banks with the treasure.
2Big John is Alive
Season 2, Episode 10
The Pogues are stowed away in a shipping container on a ship that the Camerons are using to evade persecution and to transport the Cross of Santo Domingo to where no one else can find it. The Pogues are determined to not only get the Cross back, but to save Sarah, who has been taken on to the ship after she was incapacitated by Rose. Despite their best efforts, they are unable to retrieve the Cross from the Camerons, but they are able tosave Sarah from her father.The Pogues end season two stranded on a desert island after escaping the ship on a lifeboat, while Carla Limbrey pays a visit to a man in Barbados. This man turns out to be none other than John B’s father.
The treasure hunt of the first season is entirely due to the disappearance of Big John. His son misses him and is looking for answers, and through his search for his father, he decides to take up the search for the Royal Merchant, something that meant a lot to his father. So, when Big John is revealed to actually be alive and hiding out in Barbados, it was not only a major plot twist for fans, but also a confusing one. If Big John was alive this whole time, what was the point of the Pogues' first treasure hunt in the first place, and why wouldn’t he try to reach out to his son, who was surely missing him? This cliffhanger left a lot of questions unanswered, while also solving the major mystery of the first season: where is Big John?
1Rafe Shoots Sheriff Peterkin
The third plot twist from “The Runway,” revolves around Rafe Cameron, who was desperate to show his father that he has his back more than Sarah ever did. Throughout the season, Sheriff Petekin has been slowly building a case against Ward Cameron, and when she meets with Lana Grubbs, she finally gets the final piece of the puzzle necessary to get Ward for the murder of Big John. She shows up to arrest Ward when he is trying to escape with Sarah and the gold to the Bahamas, until John B gets in the way. Ward is so sure that he is untouchable that when she shows up, he thinks she is going to arrest John B. Unfortunately for Sheriff Peterkin, when she pulls her gun after Ward gets a little combative, she is shot.
At first, viewers think that the Sheriff shot Ward, but it becomes clear that she has been shot, but by whom? It’s at this moment that Rafe comes out from behind the plane and proudly proclaims that he saved his dad.So desperate to prove his worthiness to his father, Rafe resorts to murdering the one person who was actually trying to do the right thing.The moment that Rafe pops out from behind the plane, fans were shocked at what he had done. Fromthe beginning ofOuter Banks, it was always clear that something was a little off about Rafe, and that he was a bully, but the step from bully to murderer was one that no one saw coming.
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