Just imagine yourself again in quarantine, stuck in your home without anything to do. You feel like you have lost your mind and you are hopeless. You wake up to another day that seems to be the same. 

   You repeat the same actions: wake up 5 minutes before class, log into zoom, turn off both your camera and mic, go on your phone or sleep while you should be paying attention, and repeat until ‘school’ ends. After it ends, you do whatever appetzies you, that could be sleeping, eating, daydreaming, facetiming your friends for a sense of normalcy, or logging into Netflix. Now if you do the last, you’d expect that you’re rewatching the same show again even if it’s boring now. But that’s not the case today. 

    Outer Banks, directed by Jonas Pate, premiered on April 15th, 2020 and currently has two seasons available on Netflix. The show revolves around a teen group of friends who go on an adventure to find unknown treasure from a shipwreck and answers about one of the friends’ dad who is missing and presumed dead. The first season is set during mid-June on the island, drumroll please… Outer Banks. 

   The show is a mix of drama, action, and romance while at the same time giving you a longing for summer to come quicker. Although it may not be a totally wholesome show, it does have its moments of laughter and heart warming feelings. As a watcher, you want to feel as if you’re inside of the show and you don’t want the show to be too predictable. This is exactly what Outer Banks provides for you. 

   Now for the characters that shape the show, we are given the “Pogues” who are John B (Chase Stokes), JJ (Rudy Pankow), Pope (Johnathan Daviss), and Kiara/ Kie (Madison Bailey). The pogues as a whole are individuals who live in the slums of Outer Banks; they can also be referred to as the middle and lower class of the island. But the pogues as a group are 4 teens trying to have the time of their life. 

    John B is in a way the leader of the group while simultaneously incredibly reckless and ambitious. He is also the boy whose father is missing which causes him to go on wild goose chase to find him. As the show progresses we start to see him accept the fact that his father may be dead but he still chases wealth just as his father did. 

   Now for JJ, he can be known as the fun, adventurous friend with loads of energy. He also has faults which are his anger and fiestyness. His humor and fun nature are a mask from his true conflict that is internal and external. He sadly suffers from abuse by his own fathers hands. As a result of this happening since he was young, he doesn’t truly know how to express himself in the healthiest matter and keeps everything locked inside until his breaking point. 

   Two words to describe Pope are intelligent and careful. People may think he is weak because of those characteristics and they may take advantage of his kindness but this only makes him stronger as an individual. He talks a lot about his scholarship which will help him in his future and make his dad proud of him even more than he already is. This however is forgotten as the show continues because he is pulled into the mess of the chase.

    Kiara aka Kie is a kook and a pogue. She has her foot in both worlds but she cares very little about the kook lifestyle that mostly consists of wealth and ignorance. She has interests in surfing, adventures, and the environment. These contributed to her not fitting in the kook academy which she only went to for a year because she felt as if she was suffocating from not belonging there. She feels most at home with the pogues who she often puts her life on the line for.

   That mostly raps it up for the pogues so let’s switch our attention to the kooks. The kooks are often depicted as uptight, ignorant, and thinking they’re better than the pogues because of their wealth. Our main kooks are Ward (Charles Esten), Rose (Caroline Arapoglou), Rafe (Drew Starkey), Sarah (Madelyn Cline), Wheezie (Julia Antonelli), and Topper (Austin North). 

   Ward is one crazy character to describe and he is one of the antagonists on the show. He is the father of Rafe, Sarah, and Wheezie. He is also the husband of Rose. He was once a pogue but he upped his ranking in class by skyrocketing his company. He portrays himself as a kind individual and a good father to those around him, but deep down he is a murderer who is selfish, manipulative, and cold hearted. He is also on the search for the treasure which causes problems for the teens. 

   Rose is the wife of Ward and step mother to his children. Something that is regonziable to people watching the show is that the children don’t call her mom and they aren’t the biggest fans of her. She is fully aware of Ward’s true nature but isn’t involved in the schemes. She is also a successful realtor.

   Rafe is one handful of a character and gives mixed emotions to the viewers. He is hard headed, aggressive, and a coke addict. At the beginning of the show, we see his violent nature directed to the pogues who he feels are disgusting and sees as a threat in his mind. He uses coke as a coping mechanism of not being good enough for his father and to “clear and de-stress” his mind. He wants nothing more than for his father to care for him more than Sarah and to notice his actions. Viewers notice that Rafe will do anything for his fathers attention, even killing.

   Sarah is referred to as the kook princess because of her family’s wealth and her popularity. She presents herself as sassy and cold but this is only because of her fear of people leaving her. She wants someone to love and care for her but her insecurity of abandonment comes in the way and makes her push people away. She does this by either cheating on them or dissociating herself with them. 

  As for Wheezie, she is only a 13 year old girl who happens to be pushed around as a toy in this whole chaos. She is used by her sister, Sarah, to get away with her plans. She is often forgotten by everyone even though Sarah cares for her. 

   Lastly is Topper, who is Sarah’s ex. Sarah cheated on him but he still makes sure he is there for her and sometimes it may be depicted as stalkerish. He feels as if he is in love with Sarah and even though she hurt him, he wants her to love him back.  

  Each individual character will invade your mind and make you ponder about if their actions are justified by their intentions.

   Now looking at the names of these actors you may think “Who are they?” since they haven’t often been heard of on the big screen before. I think that’s what gives this show more entertainment. As we are discovering more aspects about the show, we are doing the same with these actors. Another thing is that the job was done beautifully by the actors themselves. They made the characters come to life fully and expressed their emotions the best they could. 

   So do I recommend this show to others? My honest opinion is yes, I do. You never know when you could find yourself imagining to be one of the pogues, going on reckless missions to find wealth and an adventure of a lifetime.