Well, this is it. The season finale of Outer Banks. John B and the gang are stowaways on a ship carrying Sarah and her family and a giant golden cross to their private island. Ward’s alive, having been resurrected shortly after his apparent demise. My question is just how long can I suspend disbelief that the kids aren’t going to be immediately bludgeoned by a swarm of burly deckhands.
Seriously, how is this going to play out? I can’t wait to see.
Proving true the old adage that “just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you,” Rafe suspects that John B and the gang are hiding out on board. He relays this information to the crew and the giant rabbit that only he can see.
Meanwhile, Ward explains to Sarah how he faked his own death, scubaing away from his exploding boat. He also lies to Sarah, claiming that John B showed up before she regained consciousness and he traded the giant gold cross for Sarah. This is such a half-assed lie that it almost circles back around enough to be somewhat convincing.
I don’t know if Ward is trying to perform a Jedi mind trick, but he’d be better off just trying to gaslight Sarah into thinking that John B never existed. “Oh yeah, you TOTALLY sailed to the Bahamas and attempted a gold heist with your pretty pretend husband. That sounds like something that happened. Now help me with this cross.”
Anyway, Sarah’s family is reunited. In what is my favorite Outer Banks moment, Sarah’s stepmom tells her to just “chill” about the whole drugging and forced abduction thing. Awesome.
Sarah flees the cabin and immediately sees the giant gold cross. It’s just sitting out in the open below deck. Ward’s deception has been revealed. Apparently, Ward can go to all the trouble to fake his own death, but can’t be arsed to properly hide his giant, priceless religious artifacts.
Meanwhile, John B and Pope escape the shipping container while Kiara and JJ stay behind and wait until the plot needs them. Everybody can’t be doing something all the time.
John B and Pope meander around the ship without any real idea of what to do. They narrowly evade capture until Pope gets kicked in the balls by a crew member. But surprise, it’s the young woman from the Bahamas who helped John B and Sarah with their failed heist and successful escape. Her name is Cleo, if I didn’t mention it before.
So here’s something: When last we saw Cleo, she was swimming away from Bahamian police. Following that, she managed to travel to Outer Banks and get a job as a ship mechanic on a vessel with a cargo list that includes a giant cross, gold doubloons, and unbelievable plot conveniences. Seriously though, who wouldn’t want to be the lone young, attractive female on a ship populated by large, male smugglers? That doesn’t sound problematic at all.
Of course, Pope namedrops John B, and Cleo agrees to join their mission to overthrow the ship’s crew. They meet back up with John B, and everyone regroups at the shipping container.
Intent on recycling the failed infiltration techniques of Han Solo and Chewbacca, Cleo pretends to have taken Pope prisoner and leads him to… shit, I don’t know all the boat words. They go to where the captain steers the ship. This is annoyingly not the section of the ship called “steerage.” I apologize for my ignorance regarding nautical terminology. It’s just not in my wheelhouse.
Pope and Cleo beat everybody up, and force the captain to order the entire crew to gather in the hull. Meanwhile, Ward leads Sarah to the bowels of the ship to lock her away. They have a bit of a fight, but Sarah manages to trap Ward in a room full of pipes. The Pipe Room, we’ll call it.
In similar fashion, JJ and Kiara manage to lock the entire crew in the hull. Granted superhuman insight by way of madness, Rafe senses something is amiss and avoids being trapped alongside the crew.
Able to move around the deck freely, Pope and the gang celebrate locating the cross. They’re stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean with no way to get the cross back home, but at least they can look at it and high-five.
John B searches for Sarah, but instead encounters an enraged Rafe. Rafe has armed himself with an inelegant weapon for a less civilized age: a long stick with a hook on the end. He’s like the Sandman from Showtime at the Apollo.
Luckily, Rafe is blasted in the face by an overworked boiler. Unluckily, the ship captain manages to escape his restraints and free Ward and the crew. Everyone quickly arms themselves and prepares to murder some teenagers.
Of course, Pope and the gang were able to enact their well-devised plan to quickly and efficiently unload the cross from the ship and escape. Arriving back at Outer Banks, they stand up the cross in John B’s backyard and just kind of look at it before realizing they haven’t really talked about what to do with the cross once they get it. Pope decides to cosplay as Nicholas Wolfwood from Trigun.
They all get drunk on cheap beer and the season ends with a live performance from Florida Georgia Line. A happy ending.
Not really. Pope fumbles with a crane and fails to load the cross into a lifeboat. Everyone is confronted by the crew. Pope says screw this and just dumps the cross overboard, but Rafe and some crew members manage to catch it by a rope and pull the cross back onboard.
Meanwhile, Sarah is confronted by Ward. He has had a complete mental breakdown. He does some more face touching (He loves it!) before finally deciding to murder Sarah. John B arrives to save the day, and Ward cracks his skull on a steel lip of the deck.
John B stands over the wounded Ward and confronts him about murdering his father. Saltlife Hamlet may finally have his revenge.
John B stops just short of killing Ward in front of Sarah, which is probably a good relationship move. He and Sarah join their friends in a lifeboat and speed away having accomplished nothing.
Back on the ship, Rafe checks on his father, who is in stable condition. Rafe vows to return Sarah to the family and they smile at each other. This is odd, since these are the two people who are always trying to murder her. Like, it’s a family tradition at this point.
John B and the gang make it to a deserted island. They reflect on their multiple failures. But wait, John B attempts to comfort them. “This is the Pogue life,” he says.
They talk about surfing. Make a campfire. And laugh.
What?!
That’s the conclusion to this season. They are stranded on an island with nothing? The third season isn’t even going to be about treasure hunting. Now they just need to not starve to death. This is lame.
But wait. There is one last stinger for season two.
In Barbados, Limbrey arrives to visit a mystery man. His office is filled with nautical maps. The man tells Limbrey he can find the magical Garment of the Savior to cure her ailment. “But in exchange,” he says as he faces the camera, “you must help my son.”
It’s John B’s dad. He’s alive. Ward didn’t kill him, I guess. So that kind of undermines the original inciting incident for the show that gave John B a reason to really care about anything. Also, this really erodes my trust in the show. John B and Sarah are dead for a bit. Ward is dead for a bit. Now this. Limbrey doesn’t even need the Garment of the Savior. She can just wait for the show’s writers to resurrect her.
That’s it, y’all. I tap out. Season two is in the books. Outer Banks for the memories.
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