Warning: More MAJOR spoilers ahead for the Outer Banks season 4 finale.
The Pogues have officially entered their revenge era.
Outer Banks season 4 part 2 is finally in the world, and with it comes a shocking, fatal finale. The feature-length episode seemed to reach its climax when JJ, played by Rudy Pankow, climbed a Moroccan statue in the midst of a sandstorm and successfully discovered this season’s treasure, the Blue Crown.
But a few shots later, JJ is forced to exchange the crown to spare Kiara’s life. “I already have everything I’ve ever wanted,” JJ tells his deranged biological father Chandler Groff, who holds Kiara at knifepoint. “Things that you’ll never have.”
Immediately after the hand-off, JJ is betrayed and killed by Groff — and his death is anything but swift. JJ is brutally and intentionally stabbed by his father, and dies in Kiara’s arms.
Season 4 (which appeared largely inspired by classic adventure films like The Mummy) put the show’s main characters through a never-ending list of absurdly dangerous scenarios of varying stakes. After a landslide of impulsive decisions made by JJ at the beginning of the season, the Pogues struggled to face their repercussions, facing torment and persecution around nearly every corner.
In the final scene of the season 4 finale, the crew and Rafe are still in Morocco, gathered around a fire in the dead of night. With only five Pogues left, that final scene served almost as a manifestation of the five stages of grief. Based on their expressions and body language, Cleo seems to represent acceptance while Sarah is denial, Kiara is anger, Pope is depression, and John B is bargaining.
When Rafe asks what their next step is, the Pogues grapple with one question: The beloved Pogue who was always the one to step up and take action is dead… what would JJ do? John B is quick to name it. “He’d get even.” When Kiara stands, her face is engulfed by the fire as she declares, “Revenge.”
Netflix exclusively shared with TV a new memorial video for JJ featuring the cast and crew, in which co-creator and showrunner Josh Pate affirms that JJ’s death “was a necessary arc of the series.”
“When I first found out that JJ was going to risk it all and not make it, I understood it,” actor Rudy Pankow says in the video. “‘Cause when I read the character breakdown for the audition, it said ‘loyal to a fault.’ And I think as the stakes got higher and higher, his whole thing is he takes the risk and puts his friends before himself.”
“The beauty of John B and JJ, it shows the true definition of what friendship is. I am forever grateful for the experience I have had with Rudy,” says lead actor Chase Stokes. “Being a Pogue is about making your own definitions of happiness, joy, and community,” adds co-star Madison Bailey. “His character embodies the spirit of never giving up and rebelling against what’s expected of you to save what really matters.”
“He has to judge every moment of his life, if it’s worth it — and [the answer] is constantly, ‘Yeah, it is,'” reflects Pankow. “Life is really precious and fragile and his death really does set up the future of OBX with the question, What is worth it? And when someone that close to you is gone, how do you navigate that? I’m gonna miss it… P4L.”
Below, TV hopped on the phone with Outer Banks co-creators and showrunners Shannon Burke and Josh and Jonas Pate to dissect the season 4 finale and discuss their long-standing plans to kill off JJ, Rudy Pankow coming up with JJ’s last words, Pope taking a life, and how JJ’s death and Finch, the looming Big Bad, will impact season 5.
Q: There was a red herring established throughout most of the season, in which it would’ve been quite plausible that John B were the one to die instead. We saw his internal struggle with violence and following in his dad’s murkiest footsteps — many fans thought it, especially as the stakes got higher. Talk to me about that tension and ultimately, why you chose JJ as the one to die and not John B.
Shannon Burke: We had thought that it was going to be JJ basically from the beginning. For a long time we had known that someone was going to die. [In season 4] JJ is being reckless, but also giving up everything. [Those are] the two extremes of JJ: He’ll give up anything for the group, but he’s also completely reckless and sometimes flies the plane at the mountain. That’s a dichotomy. We thought it was going to be JJ all along.
Now, we were aware at some point that there [were], like, hints that maybe John B was also doing something reckless, and we just leaned into that and used it for a red herring or a parallel to JJ. But we pretty much always knew it was going to be JJ.
Q: The foreshadowing of JJ’s death is probably most prevalent in the finale episode, but I never could have expected that Groff would be the one to kill him. Tell me more about that decision and how this impacts one of my favorite throughlines of the series, which is the flawed father figure.
Josh Pate: Well, it really was tied up with [his] father’s identity, and it just seemed like the most dramatic, powerful thing we could do. And when we came up with the idea about the adopted father with Groff, we patterned him [as] — we were really thinking of him as a truly sociopathic character. So when we designed the character of Groff, we were designing something that we knew was going to be super malevolent and it just kind of flowed naturally from there.
Q: JJ’s dying words are, “Take care of the others. I love you Kie.” Shannon and Josh, how long did it take to settle on what JJ’s last words would be? What was it like building up that moment, and how did you want it to land?
Burke: Well, the way it landed, I think it landed perfectly — I’m only speaking for myself, but everybody, in every aspect of it, just brought their A-game. And it is as good, if not better, than any of us could have expected. Coming down to his last words, that was something that we also ran through Rudy [Pankow], where he had thoughts about it. And so we had easter-egged that part about the wish [from the Blue Crown]. We knew we were going to use that, but at the very end, we wanted to come back to the Pogues. And that was, “Take care of the others.” I think that was Rudy’s line, I think that was his idea. It was a great idea, worked really well, and then we wanted his last line to be about Kiara.
Q: I was definitely boo-hooing during that line delivery. Jonas, what direction did you give on the day of shooting JJ’s death?
Jonas Pate: It’s such a hard scene to shoot because it requires such an emotional commitment to each take. And especially for [Madison] Bailey, who had to really emote and show her stress. We did lots of takes, lots of angles, and you really can’t wait for the close up — you really have to deliver as much as you can. And I think that was the hardest part, but they were so game. I think they had a lot of their personal feelings also caught up in the moment, because it was the last [day] of Rudy being on set. So it was already fraught with a lot of emotion underneath it, that was real. So it wasn’t that hard to get them to a place where they really delivered emotionally.
Q: We’ve never seen all of the Pogues grieving at once, and grief is something that changes you forever. How do you feel this changing their worldview and how they approach this new hunt? Because the way I see it, they’re no longer hunting treasure, they’re hunting a person.
Jonas Pate: That’s right.
Burke: A hundred percent. It’s going to change. It’s the main spine of the rest of the series, basically. It’s going to change them. They began as kids who just wanted to have a good time all the time, and now they’ve gone the full spectrum now, where one of them has died in a terrible way. We’re just hoping to play that out and take them on this long journey and end it in the right way.
Q: The gang, excluding Rafe of course, has been largely nonviolent throughout most of the series. But throughout this season I’ve noticed a huge transition of aggression from each of them. There’s Sarah defending Rafe from the mercenaries, there’s JJ leaving Groff in the well, and there’s the bombshell that Pope is the one to kill Lightner. While it does make narrative sense that Pope is the one to defend Cleo after Terrance’s death, Pope being the one to finally take that violent step and kill someone is so shocking. Why Pope, and what does it mean that the Pogues are now stepping up to protect each other in this way?
Josh Pate: Well, I think as far as the Pope thing goes, it would be because, just like you said, it’s the most surprising. We like to get our characters as far up the tree as we can. I also think it’s pretty clear it’s in self-defense — he is down to one bullet. But it is a huge step for him to take a life, and the ramifications of that are going to be part of Pope’s story going forward, for sure. Overall, the stakes have to keep rising in some way to keep the story building, and we’re excited to keep it going for one more round.
Q: Congratulations on that.
Burke: Thank you!
Josh Pate: Thank you. It’s really a dream come true to be able to do that, because we originally thought it would be five seasons, and we’re just getting to tell the story we kind of set out to tell, so we feel really fortunate.
Q: When did Rudy find out that his character was going to be killed off? And when did the rest of the cast know?
Burke: I think it was with the script. Right?
Jonas Pate: Yeah, we didn’t tell him too much. We wanted to keep it secret, so it wasn’t really until they read it, probably.
Q: Wow. And what was that reaction like?
Jonas Pate: The same kind of surprise that we think the audience will have. Rudy might’ve had some inkling that we were headed that way, but the rest of the cast, I don’t think did. So I think they were surprised. But Chip Esten, who played Ward Cameron, gave Rudy a great piece of advice. He said: “You want to end your character well when you’re on a series. Sooner or later it’s going to come to an end, and you want your character’s end to be satisfying.” I think Rudy knew that this was an opportunity to do that, so I think he was excited by the dramatic possibility.
Burke: We had talked to Rudy about his character dying in Kiara’s arms in season 2 or 3, and we just said ‘way in the future.’ We didn’t really know when we were going to play that card. It was a much more abstract thing at the time, but he seemed interested in that and thought that it would be a good way to go out. And then when it came to that moment, when he read it, obviously, he was surprised. But pretty quickly, he got to where he was following Chip’s advice. He began thinking of ways, like, “Oh, I know what JJ would say in that moment.” He began to have a lot of ideas about how to make it satisfying, and to make it an ending fitting for the character. So he pivoted quickly to just thinking of how he could make it as good as possible and honor the character.
Q: In those last few minutes, we see Groff alone with the crown, he throws down the knife he killed JJ with, and seems to start tearing up. Is that a flash of regret that we see from him? What emotion is that? You mentioned that you wrote him to be sociopathic, so I’d love to hear more about that.
Burke: You know what? He’s regretful. It’s all those. Yeah, it’s all those. He’s regretful, he’s murderous, he’s all the things at once. He’s probably in denial, even that he did it. He’s a really complicated, insane character, who we’ll probably get to know a little better as we go along, to understand his reasons. But we definitely, from the very beginning, thought of him as a sociopath who has many hidden and dangerous layers to him. And we’re just seeing some of those right there.
Q: There’s been some frustration among fans with the Pogues always being forced to take the high road, even when they have nothing to lose. There are some really angering scenes with the Kooks — and Ruthie in particular — in this season, who seem to be getting more and more hostile. And the same can be said now, of course, for Groff. What can you say about comeuppance for these characters? Does karma not exist in Kildare!?
Burke, Tates: [All laughing, speaking at once]
Josh Tate: It ain’t over yet! We feel a lot of that, too. We have affection for the Pogues, obviously. They’re like our heroes. So we want them to win, but we want to tell a great story in the meantime. Yeah, but we hear that, for sure.
Burke: Josh, I like the way you put it: “It ain’t over yet.”
Q: There is also a buildup that happens, throughout mostly Part 2, of this mysterious character Finch. Would you say that he is the Big Bad of the series, and why did you choose to only show breadcrumbs of him and his menace?
Jonas Pate: His character is going to be developed going forward, and we knew that he would really land in the next season. So it’s just kind of like the expanding of that character. But yeah, we expect him to be a formidable presence, for sure, going forward.
Burke: We had a few scenes written where he came in, and we decided that it was more powerful not to see him.
Q: I can agree with that. Can you tell me more about the decision to not fully show the scene where the Pogues bury JJ in Morocco?
Josh Pate: We just thought that the audience didn’t want to dwell on the visceral reality of it, and that it would be better in a wide shot, where you could imagine it. We just thought — we knew that the audience would grieve JJ, and we needed to allow them to cleanse their palate, so they could get angry and go through the [five] stages of grief. And we needed that shot to get you to the scene around the campfire where Kiara encourages them to get revenge.
Burke: Just on a practical level, there was definitely — in the initial draft, that scene wasn’t in there, and people said, “What happened to the body?” And it started to nag at people, like what happened? What happened to JJ? What happened to the body? So on just a practical level, I don’t know, it seemed like something you have to show.
Jonas Pate: So we just showed [it in] a wide shot. You see it, but it’s in the really, really, really wide shot.
Josh Pate: I also think the montage carries the emotional weight of, say, a burial. This long montage where it flashes back to all these seminal JJ moments. And it took a long time working on that voiceover, as a kind of eulogy. And so we wanted to discuss that kind of big emotional hit with the montage, rather than the funeral.
