Minor spoilers ahead.
Netflix had a premonition: In the year 2020, with beaches closed and spring breaks canceled, the people would need a steamy island mystery to make quarantine a little less suffocating. And so the hot teen drama Outer Banks was born, dropping on the streaming platform on April 15 in all its North Carolina sun-kissed glory. The series chronicles tension between the working-class Pogues and the wealthy Kooks, as the Pogues hunt for $400 million of sunken treasure.
Our heroes find the treasure, of course, but Netflix would never allow them to walk away easy. At the end of the series, the money is stolen; protagonist John B. is framed for murder; and both John B. and his girlfriend, Sarah, are presumed dead after their boat capsizes in a storm. But, lo and behold, they’re actually on another boat—this one headed to the Bahamas, where they hope to reclaim their spoils.
It’s a delicious dramatic adventure, but there’s a lot we don’t know about what will happen next. Here’s everything we’ve uncovered about Season 2 while we wait for it to drop.
Season 2 arrives July 30, 2021.
Outer Banks returns on Friday, July 30, with 10 hour-long episodes. Get a taste of what's to come with the official trailer above.
Netflix confirmed renewing the teen show back in July 2020. Creator and showrunner Jonas Pate told Entertainment Weekly that Netflix had already green-lit the team to write Season 2 scripts before Season 1 even debuted.
"We've been working on that for a few months now," he said at the time. And it would seem the writers have big plans.
"There will definitely be some new mysteries and some new ideas. It all comes off the same spine of the same story but it branches out in ways that hopefully the audience won't see coming,” Pate said.
The cast is returning.
Netflix also confirmed that familiar faces from the OBX are back for Season 2. See the full roster below.
- Chase Stokes as John B.
- Madelyn Cline as Sarah Cameron
- Madison Bailey as Kiara
- Jonathan Daviss as Pope
- Rudy Pankow as J.J.
- Austin North as Topper
- Drew Starkey as Rafe Cameron
- Charles Esten as Ward Cameron
- Elizabeth Mitchell as Limbrey
- Caroline Arapoglou as Rose
- Carlacia Grant as Cleo
- Julia Antonelli as Wheezie Cameron
- Deion Smith as Kelce
- Cullen Moss as Deputy Shoupe
- Nicholas Cirillo as Barry
At least part of Season 2 will take place in the Bahamas.
“We'll definitely have at least a part of Season 2 that'll take place in the Bahamas,” Pate told EW. But don’t expect John B. and Sarah to linger on their Nassau vacation too long. Pate said that the show works best when the Pogues are together, so a trip back to the Outer Banks is imminent.
There could be as many as four more seasons.
Netflix isn’t making any promises, sure, but Pate is ambitious about the scope of his story. “Ever since we started, we always viewed it as something that was probably like a four-season, maybe five-season show, but definitely four seasons,” he told EW. “We've sort of long-arced it out pretty far. I'm just hoping that we get a chance to actually tell those stories.”
The future of the Pogues is unclear.
Madelyn Cline, who plays Sarah, told Cosmopolitan, “I am for sure down to do a second season. The answer to that will always be yes. We as a cast have talked about it, and we’ve kinda talked about where we’d like to go with our characters and explore—but we don’t really know.”
Jonathan Daviss, who plays one of the Pogues, Pope, shares the sentiment: No one, not even the cast, knows what’s next. “I’m interested to see if we do move forward with the second season, where the Pogues relationship is going to be without John B.,” he told Seventeen. “Are they going to stick together as a family? Are they going to separate because of it? Is that relationship going to stick or are they going to be afraid?”
In the meantime, we have plenty of Outer Banks plot holes to decode.
The treasure hunt gets more intense and realistic in Season 2.
Light spoilers ahead.
Season 2 starts with John B and Sarah on a boat headed for Nassau, where Sarah's father Ward plans to hide the stolen Royal Merchant gold. Chase Stokes, who plays John B, told Entertainment Weekly that John B will have to make a decision on whether to continue his quest for treasure and vengance, or move on with Sarah with a clean slate.
"He's in the middle of the ocean on this boat with the love of his life and he's trying to figure out what his next move is going to be, but nonetheless he still has this looming vengeance for justice for his father's death. Inevitably that's something that is going to move any human being to try to find a resolution to all the crazy circumstances that he's faced in season 1," Stokes said.
The Pogues are also going to end up involved in a new treasure hunt, with higher stakes that will test their abilities. Cline told EW, "The Pogues didn't realize how deep they were getting into all of this. They're confronted with that reality this season. It's just a group of teenagers going after this treasure that people have been searching for, for forever. They get confronted with the reality that they're not the only ones who were in on this."
Season 2 will also go big on the romance.
While John B and Sarah will be juggling their blossoming relationship along with all the drama in the Bahamas, the rest of the Pogues will be getting into their own romances in the Outer Banks. Season 2 will address the big romantic cliffhanger of the show, whether Kiara will date Pope or JJ.
Bailey, who plays Kiara, told The Hollywood Reporter, "I think all of the shippers are going to be happy. There's some old and some new, some defining their relationship and figuring out what things are. I think every one in the relationships are figuring out the legitimacy of what they're feeling."
