issue five

outer banks + a prelude to a thesis: another review!

Every once in a while I come across a piece of media that so neatly fits into my broad ideals of the perfect story. This, of course, recalls the classics and preferences I’ve acquired over the years, melding them to form my white whale, my sweetest dream, somebody else's magnum opus if not mine. The criteria for this category is not very particular, and at the end of the day I usually end up with hashed together fragments of pieces of work I find compelling. I also narrow down contenders for this high honor by asking myself - and the piece - a series of questions. 

What is the collective American teen psyche? 

What is the ineffable summer break?

What is the cupbearer and the chorus?

What is intertextual romance?

What is the next great American novel?

What is the next great American anything?

The questions follow the line of questioning that my eventual thesis will, fulfilling years of questions and answers about the coming of age genre and its intersection with blackness. What it lacks, what it has accomplished, its lasting impact on the minds and culture of teenagers today, etc. Someday I’ll share that with you all but today I’m not there yet, and won’t be for a long time. Luckily, to distract me from the massiveness of compiling ideas my entire life has prepared me to articulate, we have Netflix Originals!

Just kidding. But not really. But really really, anyone who has observed the evolution of teen media over the last decade or so has probably begun to observe a rather depressing progression. The death of teen media as we once knew it has been hailed by a novel homicidal triad consisting of: (1) gilded statues portraying the everyteen of today (2) increased amounts of product placement and sellouts as the Big Green Monster digs its claws into every industry possible (3) lack of a collective cultural conscience and generational divides. Dead-eyed models deliver the cringiest of lines in a new teen drama, only to be made fun of for 48 hours on Twitter and subsequently forgotten. My roommates and I took a collective count of blatant advertisements in “He’s All That” a couple of weeks ago and ran out of fingers. Trend cycles phase out so quickly that no definitive fashion, art or slang can encapsulate the hurtling speed at which Gen Z is launching into the future. Not to sound crotchety and older than 20 (I am in fact the former, and obviously not yet the latter), but they just don’t make them like they used to. Everyone can agree that teen media has lost its heart. Today I stand before you, affirming this fact, and also proposing that said media now rests its haunches on beer and patricide. What fun!

If you tuned into the third issue of this newsletter a couple of weeks ago (which you should have), you’re familiar with Outer Banks. If you follow me on any social platform, or have spoken to me face to face, or live above a rock on my side of the globe under the age of 19, you’re familiar with Outer Banks. The first interesting thing I’ll tell you about this TV series today is its resilience and strong debut during one of the weakest time periods for television ever; without the bubbling water-cooler appeal of millions of high school locker talk sessions, glitzy premieres and a global pandemic to distract from your new 40-minute Hollister ad, one would think it impossibly hard for this teenage dramedy to survive. And yet, with cockroachlike aptitude comparable to its characters, OBX does. 

By no means is this show the elusive flawless story I mentioned at the beginning of our chat today. Outer Banks is simply a diamond in the rough, and the rough ain’t even that rough! Drawing its title and setting from the real life postcard in the “great state of North Carolina” (I can confirm), the 10 episode, 2 seasons to date we’ve received thus far have been a perfect summer snack. Light, funny, with enough mystery and intrigue to keep you binging, I will admit that Netflix is seriously onto something here. Let’s jump in! In the true spirit of gossipy camaraderie I want to cultivate here, imagine we’re painting our toenails and eating popsicles in July while I talk your ear off. Clouds and syllabi are no more here. You’re safe. 

As our protagonist will tell you within the first 5 minutes of the pilot, the story of this island and this show revolves around the Pogues. Aptly named after throwaway fish at the bottom of the food chain, we meet four teenagers wreaking havoc on both sides of the island they call home. More on how this series struggles to meet its ensemble genre label in a bit, but let’s start with our leading man. 

John Booker Routledge (luckily nicknamed and exclusively referred to as John B as opposed to Little John) is a 16 (?) year old teenage boy freshly orphaned and barely making ends meet. His father - Big John, presumably dead- has been left lost at sea in pursuit of British gold 20,000 leagues under. His mother and extended family are out of the picture, leaving him at the mercy of his friends, his boat and DCS. 

JJ (surprisingly, not also named John) Maybank is John B’s longtime boy best friend, and the blonde to his brunette. He mostly smokes, steals, drinks, [insert verb I can’t include because my mama reads this newsletter] and gets beat up by his dad Luke. He is simmering with anger and doesn’t have a critical cell in his brain, and we love him for it!

Pope Heyward is OBX’s resident darkskin and nerd, and also the most underdog of all time. For the first season we don’t know much about him other than the fact that he is smart and reasonable, but luckily this season he gets more of a starring role. He shoulders paternal burdens, renews his friends’ sense of determination in their search for the truth, and gets to fire a gun directly into some fuel tanks for a dramatic diversion. When could your fave ever? 

Last, but not least, Kiara Carrera is just one of the guys. Expect they all love her, and she’s rich. But Leah, you may plead, doesn’t a rich pogue sound like the most painfully inaccurate oxymoron you’ve ever heard that singlehandedly unravels the core philosophy that this show is based on? Yes. I’ll get there in a minute, but for now you need to know that Kie is mostly ethnically ambiguous, environmentally savvy and headstrong. 

If you drive a few miles out of “The Cut” where our gang lives, you’ll encounter the big fish on the island: the Kooks. Note that the Kooks are primarily ruled by one family, the Camerons, who generate most of the revenue, employment and tension in the OBX. I’ll rapidfire introduce them, but they will each have their moment of importance in our plot analysis.

The Patriarch: Ward.

The Princess: Sarah. (Also see: Topper, her boyfriend.)

The Prodigal Son: Rafe. (Also see: Barry, his drug dealer.)

The Predictably Evil Stepmother: Rose.

The Poor Forgotten Baby Sister: Wheezie. (Short for Louise, we think.)

The plot of the show starts off slow, but soon enough speeds up to your typical lost treasure hunt. Teens-meet-legend-of-old, various chase scenes, a big kahuna antagonist slowly revealed (spoiler alert: it’s Ward.), you name it. By the end of the first season, the elusive Imperial gold is out of the Pogue’s rightful hands, two questionable deaths have occurred and John B and Sarah are presumed dead. Lost at sea and in love, of course.

Season Two begins with a bang in the Bahamas, and various side arcs ensue. Nothing the Pogues try to pin to Ward sticks, the two lovebirds are constantly on the run from cops and also- school is starting. By the time the gang's back together again, they have more problems than they began with. Attempts to reobtain the gold go south quickly as a Heyward family legacy is revealed and new players enter the game. Home starts to feel less like home, and close bonds begin to break. This next level intensity improves upon the best themes of the first season, and completely discards some others. Without revealing too much, a shocking reveal and heart-stopping confrontations close out our story as we know it, yet of course leaving it open to the soon-awaited third season renewal. 

The thesis of the series hinges on this fact: the rich will be rich. Money and class are front and center, not shied away from like a simplified turf war. The disadvantages of the Pogues and their lament are made well known to the audience, and we sympathize with them. We cheer when they do, cry when they do, curse the Kooks when they do. It’s only when lines start to blur that the most necessary questions are asked of the characters: How much is too much? How far would you go to see your friends prosper? Who are you in the absence of poverty?

It’s getting to the point where I am carried away, so I’ll take some time now to unravel the two thousand words I left in my notes app while live-watching. These points are primarily comments and critiques on what I loved, hated, and everything in between on my first watch. These (quite spoilery) sentiments were a journey to unpack, but I do it all for you. 

• This series sometimes fails to decide whether it will dedicate itself to a full exploration of the Kook-Pogue battle with class as a lens, or give it up in exchange for a fun rowdy summer mystery with a slightly local-relevant focus.

• With this and the basic plot in mind, the characters are by far the strongest part of the whole. I love them dearly, but here are some edits I would make to their design personally. 

  • JJ thinks of killing his dad. Like every day. There is an extremely compelling scene/episode that centralizes JJ’s attempts to distance himself from the legacy of his deadbeat father, whether those will come to a bloody end or chilly resolution. Seeing Rudy Pankow spit “I’m not afraid of you anymore,” over the unconscious body of Luke Maybank was formative for me personally and eternally. I think this pattern of wretched fathers begetting wretched sons should follow through all the way to patricide. On multiple occasions, but more on that in a bit. 

  • I need Kie to basically become a whole new character. No more girl next door, no more one-of-the-guys. I think I hate her because I resent the concept of Kook Kiara so much. Her parents have supposedly clawed their way up the food chain to provide a life and money for their daughter, which she squanders and eventually runs away from home because of. I never understood why this had to be important to her narrative (or a part of it at all) and Season Two didn’t offer much else to her development in regards to anything other than conflict between her and her parents. If this show has closed in on one point ever, it’s that you cannot play both sides. Pogues protect Pogues, and vice versa for the Kooks. Kiara’s family is barely holding onto Kook status, and yet she enjoys much of their privileges they do have; she attends private school for much of her life, lives in a huge house and attends various elite functions for the rich on the island. She does this while simultaneously decrying and shaming other Kooks and the “system” that works for them, painting a perfect picture of repugnant hypocrisy. All of a sudden when the Pogues need it most, she abandons the wealth and privilege she has to… be with them (?) and we don’t delve enough into her relationship with her parents or their ambitions and history to make this rebellion compelling. If the show really wanted to make Kiara compelling, it would never make her a Kook at all and give her parents and their history an original Pogue backstory. Or for my own indulgent brain’s sake, switching the Camerons with her family and establishing a bit of a twisted history with Tannyhill (the plantation the Camerons live on), would be compelling. Sarah is now a Pogue for life and Kie is the primary female lead. Excellence ensues. The show comes close sometimes, but given the fact that parent-child relationships for every other character are that much more interesting, the ball is dropped. Ward, Heyward, Big John and even Luke Maybank all have major presences and weight for their children, whereas the Carreras only exist to pick fights and be vague authorities in the shadows. Unfortunately, I think none of this is possible because Madison Bailey’s talent is being effectively squandered by Netflix in their decision to make Kie the most boring and poorly written female character they’ve aired since Hannah Baker.

  • Sarah also needs to be a full raging queen bee. I want to see claws. Bribery. Screaming, preferably. Suffocation in the protective bubble wrap of privilege, even. Families on this island are industries, particularly the Camerons; I’m not being sold the product they’re shilling, and Sarah is a huge keg in the machine of their power. 

  • The same case with Rafe applies! I’d like him to exist as a minion of his fathers that orbits him in pitiful aspiration, or a completely lost prodigal son- not just teetering dolly between the two after Ward disowns him. 

• Nothing is ever lost at sea, and what departs will return. That’s a promise. 

• The old church on the island is a safehouse for many people. John B, Lana, Sarah and Pope all seek various forms of solace and safety when they are adversely affected by the spokes on the wheel of Ward’s greed. The way he tears apart communities, families and eventually (though loosely) this monument is demonstrative of how far vicious men will go for money.

• Speaking of the Big Bad, I want to see Ward unraveling in a more subversive way. More chilling rather than saddeningly desperate. He’s no Patrick Bateman (to my best understanding) but his devolving patterns are a bit obvious. A proper blindside reveal would lend itself to the mystery thriller aspects of this series a bit more. 

• So sorry to that little girl, but Wheezie doesn’t need to exist. The Cameron dynasty power game needs to be evenly split between Rafe and Sarah as they vy for their father’s attention, and she only appears to be convenient for the plot or as a scapegoat. 

• In my opinion, John B also needs to be a bit more slippery. Or charming. Or literally anything other than the cardboard Chase Stokes is giving us right now. For him to be the most boring character out of the primary 4 and also our supposed “lead”, it’s getting embarrassing. (Edit: this was written before Stokes released shots from an exemplary portrait shoot he did with Damon Baker, in which he is the very picture of vulnerability and smolder. More of this on set next season, sir!)

  

  

• Returning to paternal burdens- in my head, JJ pops an Ambien when he finds his dad’s stash in the Phantom keys scene. The implications that he will follow in his father’s footsteps and fight to turn himself around against a landslide of genetics and guilt- so much more powerful than his inherent “goodness”. Where’s the flavor!

• Also, the accents are awful. You can’t hire this many 20-somethings from LA and expect them to pull off “junior who spends their weekends in the Triangle and summers on the Crystal Coast” without a hitch. And yet, here I am, complaining. Put me in (to revolutionize and recast the role of Kiara), coach. 

• Unfortunately, I’m often reminded of the fact that this is a Netflix Original with sloppy mistakes. The editing is too loose to be considered intentional or heavy handed. A throwaway title card overlay, shaky camerawork outside of action and chase scenes and distractingly poor audio editing detract from the experience of watching the show. Like, on multiple occasions you can see how the audio doesn’t line up with shots like bad lip syncing; join me in refraining for the umpteenth time in your life: Netflix, do better!

• Y’all know me. I’m a sucker for parallels, motifs and intentional foreshadowing. Here are some niche moments I thought could have been leaned into more (for those who watched closely): 

  • Rafe setting the church fire/Kie setting the movie screen fire.

  • Sarah’s stargazing motif as a form of self comfort and childlike aspiration.

  • Rafe and JJ foils with their abusive dads! Look at the material! 

  • Shots of Sarah dancing above the crowd at the S2 bonfire/Dancing with Topper and standing above the crowd at the Boneyard in S1.

  • Ward surviving his own faked suicide with the very scuba equipment John B used to begin his journey of finding the gold.

• Season Two begins a dangerous cycle of amnesia; our characters seem to forget themselves for the sake of creating plot conflict. When faced with a highly illegal problem, all of a sudden the impoverished and notoriously scrappy Pogues trust the cops and call the new chief of police to stop Ward! With no evidence and the biggest tycoon this side of Kinston against them! It’s miraculous how many face-palm moments take away from the heart of the show, a pattern I hope discontinues sooner rather than later. 

• Also. I think we as a society should delve into Pope’s religious imagery moments way more. I mean. His name is Pope. His likeness to a saint, a savior, a vessel of an angel to those around him creates his value and importance. He is the key (literally) to Carla Limbrey’s delusions of salvation and carries both the sins and pride of his father. You can’t make this stuff up, y’all.

• Said paternal legacies are also particularly relevant for the Camerons. They refine and redefine “family” through dastardly acts of betrayal and self preservation, leading us to believe that patricide is the only end. My biggest prediction for S3 is that Rafe will finally kill Ward. God willing. 

• Last, I find it incredibly significant that Ward’s prejudice and greed that alienated him from Pogues was his downfall. When lying to Sarah about John B’s absence in the S2 finale, he sneers out, “He’s a pogue,” as a final diagnosis. This lack of knowledge of the Pogue moral code, and ultimately of his enemy, is his tell. This is the wrench in his plans to win Sarah back, and leads to the loss of a battle. 

Deep breaths. With all of that said, I learned something. I thought a lot of things, and I discovered a lot more. Also, I made a playlist.

From overanalyzing, to cheesy tropes and all the way back, I love you! See you next week.