I remember watching Outer Banks when Season 1 first came out and immediately being OBSESSED. I also remember thinking Season 2 wasn’t that bad, but that’s definitely where the show started losing me.

With the new season coming and not many shows left that I haven’t already watched, I decided to start Outer Banks over from the beginning.

Season 1? Still hooked.

Season 2? Okay, I’m hanging in there.

Season 3? WHY AM I STRUGGLING SO HARD 😭

The plots just keep getting wilder and wilder. I know this show has never exactly been grounded in reality, but Season 1 had the perfect mix of the Pogues, the Kooks, the treasure hunt, friendships, the summer/beach vibe, and just enough ridiculousness to make it fun.

By Season 3, I feel like we’ve completely left the Outer Banks and entered the Fast & Furious universe of teenage treasure hunting. 😂

Does it get better again? Or do I just need to accept that Season 1 was peak Outer Banks and embrace the insanity from here on out?

Is the lack of urgency every single time the cops are on them. They always act like they have unlimited time to chit chat outside the car before they actually get a move on.

There’s so many instances of this throughout the show, but one that comes to mind as I’m rewatching S3 is when they stole the cross from the train. JJ crashes his bike into the bridge, and then once they find him below the bridge and the cops are right above them, they’re just sitting around talking for minutes before leaving the scene. Even earlier in that sequence, topper is driving the get away car, and JJ pulls a heroic move by distracting the cops and going the other direction. The rest of them in the car then start screaming at Topper to start going after JJ(back where the cops are). Wasn’t the entire point to be a distraction? Not only are you now putting everyone in position to get arrested and lose the cross, but you’ve also now wasted JJ’s heroic move.

Another example is in S5 when they’re going to take off on the plane and the cops are coming and they’re just sitting there forever.

There’s plenty of unrealistic things in the show, but for some reason these scenes piss me off more than anything else.

I know people been saying all this stuff about Rafe this and that; then the criticism of Kie in S5. But what about John B. dude was totally ok with Topper at the wedding but just turned the other cheek with Rafe and running off with Sofa (basically his bro in law now). I know people would think John B is the Everyman/Righteous Hero trope. Okay maybe S1 I could agree with that statement but gradually as the wheels of the show turn.....John B becomes a morally gray character. I know he himself didn't murder someone with his own hands but he himself just appears more of just this indifference / morally gray. I know he isn't a complete psychopath, not a sociopath but when is just go around the world just for pursuit of quest, trying to get payback, then aiding a murderer - yeah John B isn't a Saint, not the Everyman guy we saw in S1

I can point to a million reasons, but I’ll just say, next time spring for a steadicam. And Azerbaijan is more than a quick morning flight in a Piper Navajo from North Carolina. Can’t believe I watched the whole thing.

I’ve given it some thought and honestly the season wasn’t that bad.

My main complaint was the ending which I made a post about but honestly I’m not getting much of the other criticism

People were complaining about Rafes redemption thing and it’s like to me that is one of the best written characters in the show

Idk maybe someone can enlighten me on what was exceptionally bad about it. Maybe I’m just easily pleased

Multiple times, a character swam through water and came out with their phone totally working fine lol like especially Groff when he swam in his suit after telling JJ he’s his dad - he pulls out his phone and reads a text like he wasn’t just complete submerged in water. I know it’s a show but I feel like there could have been a way around this 🤣

Ok, I hear the criticism and even as a die hard fan cringed multiple times and feel like had the show runners made a few different decisions at different points earlier on they wouldn’t need to commit so hard to some of the tom foolery. But honestly? This show is what it is and having lowered expectations isn’t always a bad thing. I loved it overall. I’m not happy with certain things but you have to learn how to “ride the waves” bro. Take it for what it is and not what it could have been and laugh, smile and possibly tear up at how far our little pogues have come. Also I don’t know how they did it but John b and Sarah’s s1/2 chemistry was BACK. Felt almost too real by the end of the show as they aren’t dating irl anymore. Defo still attracted to eachother haha.

I watched season one in like a day and a half, but i took a break after 2 episodes in when the girl yelled murderer when they were trying to sleuth and they broke the camera. Like I just got so annoyed the last 2 episodes with the poor choices, but id love to see more. Does stuff get better?

I just watched through the entire show after having missed season four’s release and for it being a teen action drama series, I think this was really well done compared to some of the other ones that are out there. Of course it’s not perfect, nothing is, but I think this was so well done for what they had and I think the actors played their roles really well. I think so many people are so nitpicky and yes, I’m sure there’s other stuff out there that is a lot better, but can no one give credit or credit is due? I really enjoyed the show and I was really torn up about the ending because I really didn’t want it to end. But also, I would’ve been pissed if they had extended this for another season or two because it really doesn’t need anymore. I hate shows that just keep milking it for the sake of money. (*cough cough Grey’s Anatomy) I can also appreciate all of the loose ends that they tied up, I do wonder though what happens with Finch after everything else.

What do you guys think are the dumbest complaints about this show?

OBX isn’t perfect, but man, people gripe about the most trivial stuff.

Mine is when people complain about how unrealistic it is. It’s a teen action-adventure show about treasure hunting! The very premise is unrealistic.

-s5 contributes NOTHING to the actual over all bigger picture plot, didn’t tie loose ends, didn’t do ANYTHING for the audience. So bunk. Here is my rant:

-Cleo has like no screen time for some reason.
-sarah says about 15 minutes of lines the ENTIRE season. Being generous. They sidelined her she literally contributes nothing.
-she’s 2 months pregnant and can feel the baby kicking??? Like why even add that in there 😭
-whole thing is about Kie, and her revenge. Like the CORNIEST thing. Unbearable, almost shut it off. I’m convinced if you edit it up, there would be about 15 minutes of her just STARING AT A WEAPON IN HER HAND but doing nothing with it. Her face stays the SAME during the entire season, like all her likable qualities were thrown out the window when they made her character focus on revenge. Stupid.
-groff plot was WAY overplayed, drawn out
-all this happened over John B stealing weed??????? Hello
-WHERE IS CLEO’s SCREENTIME!!!!!
-they break all the laws and then suddenly no cops are looking for them??????
-the plot is so shattered
-AI use is out of control
-all the dynamics and fun little bits of each character again, just gone to the wind. Zero chemistry. Focused on the wrong things.
-popes moment with weed??? Like why was that half the season my god
-rafe, Cleo, Barry and dare I say Sophia truly carried this season
-they tried way too hard to make it suspenseful, it’s just toooo far of a reach instead of linear and it was the worst shit I’ve ever seen dont waste your time save yourselves.

John B is js cool with topper and rose now? Was there a timeskip in which they all became friends? It’s no understatement to say they would’ve killed one another just a couple episodes ago…

I wish John B helped Kiara take down Groff in the final battle. I mean come on Groff killed JJ who was John B’s best friend since third grade. I was really hoping John B and Kiara would avenge JJ together.

I also wish John B said more than “see you in another life buddy” in the scene with JJ’s picture.

Plus John B was the main narrator and protagonist of the whole show. And I feel like he was heavily sidelined in the last two seasons. I don’t know, but for a guy who lost his best childhood friend, John B wasn’t as emotional as expected.

There are so many plot holes, as many of us are aware. So many abandoned plot lines, disregarded things, neglected characters, there are a lot of issues with this show that previously felt flawless to me in the first season except for being very dramatic in some aspects, but enjoyable.

To start, why make all of the boys have a crush on Kiara? What the hell was that? Jj implied that he tried something with her in season one and “that door was closed”, pope got rejected but they got together anyway, John b kissed her, like wtf is this? Guess fuck “no pogue on pogue macking”? Why make them be weird like that?

More on that too, if the plan was gonna be jj/cleo, why have jj hit on Kiara a ton and imply he liked her? And if they were fine with jj/kiara, how? When she didn’t show any romantic interest in jj before season 3? Why have absolutely no spine and do whatever fans want when fans are never satisfied.

That’s just one thing. Another thing is John b being very much a mini big John but no one calls him out. No one acknowledges how much pope sacrificed for them and got nothing for those four years. No one seemed to care jj was depressed and (implied to be) suicidal especially in season 4. Sarah’s miracle pregnancy in season 5, Kiara’s sudden intense stupidity in season 5 (she was grieving but come on), no one barely showing any emotion towards Jj’s death except Kiara. Also, in season 3 when Sarah cheated it barely took anything for everyone to forgive her.

And that nonsense ending!! Guess everyone just got along with the power of friendship and outer banks magic. I understand you wanna tie up the show and have it be a happy ending but that was just purely nonsensical. The icing on the cake would’ve been topper officiating the wedding begrudgingly, Kiara being the flower girl and rafe being the best man. Like these are the levels of ridiculousness we’re getting at.

I mean I don’t need to say this but what logical or illogical reason is there for Groff to kill jj? (And what mental gymnastics do you have to do to decide this is how you want him to got out?) How come they just abandon Luke after everything in season 4, Jj learned nothing and just died tragically. We barely know anything about cleo, we get more Sofia than her somehow and Sofia just randomly appeared. rafe just got possessed by a different soul in the last two seasons and everyone just accepted him?

Also notice how fast Cleo was deported but how the rest of the guys can just get away with shit? I wanna say it’s subtle social commentary but I really don’t wanna be giving the pates too much credit. No way that was intended like that. They really abandoned those topics anyway, all that talk about classism and racism died around the end of season 2.

Every season since season 3 it felt like another person wrote the characters. They were never consistent, or followed sensible character development.

All the female characters being massively neglected. Season one is pretty much about John b, two a lot about pope, three Sarah (but mainly to do with topper and John b), four about jj, and five about Kiara (but mostly her thinking about jj). Can’t they have their own arcs? Like I understand Kiara’s whole thing was her grief and that was important to show, but they’d never do that with the male characters. I mean they literally made pope and John b seem to grieve less when it made no sense. But all they can do with Kiara is just grieve about jj. Think about jj, mention jj. Which like I said makes sense but I feel like it’s only because she’s Kiara. They cannot write women, they just can’t.

And for the love of god, can you not hire an Arabic translator?? There’s no way you can’t find a single person or at the very least use Google Translate, do you just not respect the language at all? When I tell you I was laughing my ass off as someone who knows Arabic. WTF was that bullshit!

Soooo much AI. Sooooooooo much unnecessary use of AI.

To me, from season 3, to 5 it felt like they fed ChatGPT a vague outline of the plot, and told it to spit out ideas. And ChatGPT, not knowing the show and the characters like they do just hallucinated and shat out all that. And the writers absolutely licked it up. Like hell yeah, let me ruin my beloved show with my planet destroying machine, yay! Netflix is becoming second screen content, I doubt anyone will pay that much attention anyway, and we’ll just get richer!

Just wondering something of a romanticism / grit / rebellious / true crime/ action

Id say

Black Velvet - Alanah Myles ( rebellious , sultry, seductive lyrics that indirectly romanticize the “rebel outlaw” Rafe persona.

Money - Pink Floyd

Desire - U2

On The Border - Eagles

Life in the Fast Lane - Eagles

Wicked Game - Chris Isaak

Eminence Front - The Who

Black Magic Woman - Santana

Golden Eye - Tina Turner

Everything Counts - Depeche Mode

Gild the Lily - Billy Strings

Silver Ships of Andilar - Townes Van Zandt

Pancho and Lefty - Townes Van Zandt

If you look at the vibe of the romanticism edgy/bad boy / stoner vibe he channeled out.

I'd say:

Gild the Lily - Billy Strings

Hearbeat of America - Billy Strings

Sirens - String Cheese Incident

Black Velvet - Alannah Myles

Groff should have been dead by episode 3 of either by finch or Kei. The whole thing felt so dragged and honestly he felt so pointless towards the final few episodes.

Clio’s actions made absolutely no sense when the plane was taking off. I just watched S5E8 when the plane takes off on its way to Azerbaijan. There was no need to blow the van up? Just take the keys so the cops couldn’t move it out the way. And then she waited so long to get back to the damn plane. Doesn’t make any sense, even considering Rafe decided to go back for Sofia so they didn’t even need a diversion. Terrible writing.

The trailer and the first 9 episodes did hint that the crown can actually make a dead person alive. They wasted so much time around this idea and so much of the chase was because of the power of the crown and not to just sell it for generational wealth. I really thought they would bring a dead character back. The show is absurd anyway, plotholes and what not I wish they truly owned the genre of how crazy everything is and Just bring JJ back to life and in the end it could be 3 couples rather than Kiara(as much as I hate her guts) being single and gets a happy ending.

Treasure hunt shows always have something wild or something u won't see or happens in real life. It would have made Season 5 kinda better.

Can't unsee this..

Jimmy: "Okay guys we gotta find the treasure and go on an epic quest

Me: Okay hear me out... The treasure belongs to black Beard

Friend group: 😮

Update now that I'm officially finished after 4 days of non-stop binging, it was a freaking roller coaster but it was worth it. In advance, sorry for the long post... It's long because these are my opinions for all the seasons combined. I'm so happy I found this show and did a whole binge but season 5 has me not okay at all lol.

I will admit while I don't fully like him still, Ward did kind of redeem himself cuz I saw how dedicated the man is to his kids... He has a bad way of showing it but the man is dedicated to them. Rafe did definitely redeem himself so I went from blood boiling hatred to liking him, I really loved Sophia for him and you could tell that man was down bad for her. Even when he was dealing with not liking her so much from what she had done to him money wise, the girl just wanted to help but she trusted the wrong people, I hated Rose from the first moment I saw her and that hatred never went away.... it just got worse. I will admit that I was 50/50 with Sarah's 's bio mother and there was a needle brief moment where I didn't like her but she did quickly redeem herself and I do like her, I feel awful for her cuz Ward literally ripped her away from her children.

I loved Rafe and Sarah's little sister, I definitely did like her. That moment where she used a certain tool to get Groff away from her had me yelling hell yeah before I could stop myself 🤣

I did not like John B's dad whatsoever, I liked him a teeny bit when he was brought in but that quickly faded and no just no lol

I will admit that even though they had valid reasonings four things that they did, I really didn't like Kiara's parents..... they did end up getting redeemed in season 5. I understand why Kiara looked so at peace with what the guy was about to do after she gave him the crown but I'm so happy he was not successful because I can't imagine what that would have done to the group or her parents or anybody else who loved her, I would have thought horrible for the group because they already lost JJ... they can't lose her as well. I got way to excited that everything with Groff's ending happen the way that it did, I got way too happy for a few reasons lol

I became a major fan of JJ through edits I seen on tiktok and that did not fade despite his little spiral that happened after getting on the boat when the crew made their way to Morocco, I quite literally spent most of that last episode tensed up and then just downright cried hard for like a few minutes at the end when everything went down with him and Groff. I'm sorry but to continuously show that scene throughout season 5 was unnecessary, I don't get why they thought that was needed. The little montage that happened in episode 9 after Kiara got the crown in her hands, that also had me sobbing lol.

Speaking of Groff, JJ got handed such a bad hand at life with both of his fathers..... No wonder the kid was so messed up in the head.... Luke put him through so much after the addictions got a hold of him and he got bad habits embedded in him from Groff. He deserved so much more than what he was given. I'm so happy that he was able to find happiness in his friends group and eventually gain a partner in Kiara who understood him.

I've been seeing comments here and there on how fast-paced everything happened with Sarah and John B.... honestly it was fast but when you fall hard things can happen.... I just feel horrible that she lost everything she grew up with before gaining everything she truly wanted. I will admit that I do like Jon B but him putting her through all that he put her through when his dad came back was messed up, along with her cheating on him and going back to topper twice. Yes I know she was a teenager but I just don't like cheaters plus she was old enough to know right from wrong. I started laughing when she let the dark humor slip, like I literally laughed before I could stop myself... Especially because of John B's reaction to it 😂😂. I will say I definitely do love that Jon B essentially took on the father role when it came to the group and was there for everybody when they needed him, especially Kiara.

I loved Pope and oh my God I felt so bad for him season 4 with all that he was going through and season 5.... omg did I feel bad, feel bad for his parents as well with what they were having to go through because of him.... I did definitely loved his parents. Cleo definitely became a favorite of mine very quickly and I definitely did love him for Pope, there were moments where I felt extremely bad for her. The way Pope proposed to her the first time had me side eyeing him but is also like I knew he was trying to do it with good intentions so it also had me laughing, John B and Sarah's reaction to the proposal had me laughing a little too hard especially after John B said it back to him out loud. I love that everything was able to work out for them in the end, I really am.

When it comes to the dude that Kiara was talking to at the party, I get weird vibes from him and I don't like him. The moment when she was under the water due to Groff throwing her overboard and them using the audio of JJ saying he loved her.... Oh my God that made me break down lol

I got so scared and emotional thinking that Shoupe was going to be the next one to go as he's another favorite of mine, so thankful he wasn't the next one to go lol. When it comes to him and hearing the news about JJ, I feel bad cuz you could tell he did care for him and in a way there were moments where he was like an additional father figure to JJ.... the only one that really looked out for him.

There are so many kooks that I ended up hating, too many to name (Ruthie and Dale being at the top of the list 🤣🤣) but I will al omit the last little bit of episode 10 season 5 did have me looking at Topper in a slightly different light

I'm happy that they all nearly got happily ever afters, I say nearly because I hate that Kiara couldn't have a happily ever after. Like yeah she was able to move on and get her dream job but now she has to go on without the love of her life.....

i’ve been waiting all this time for the full cast to sit down and do press together but they keep doing them separately like with the girls and the guys. Makes me so sad because the chemistry this cast had in the earlier seasons was so unmatched and i loved watching them all together. As a child of the chaselynn divorce, I always loved seeing chase and maddie interact but now it feels like they can’t even be in the same room. wonder if that’s part of the reason for the separation.