Adventures have only just begun for kids in ‘Outer Banks’ season 2
The dirtbag teens of “Outer Banks” keep getting into trouble.
Back for a second season now streaming, the Netflix young adult drama picks up almost exactly where the first ended: John B and Sarah have escaped in the middle of a hurricane and are presumed dead, while Pope, JJ and Kiara are left to pick up the pieces.
They’re not dead, of course, and the misfits quickly make their way back to their friends on the island, but the adventures, which still include John B’s murder charge, have only just begun.
“In the first season, there was this feeling of four friends trying to find this gold, being together on this island; it was kind of a fun summer break,” said Jonathan Daviss, who plays the cerebral Pope.
“This season, we get to, ‘OK, what if this matters more than just finding the gold? What if it’s deeper?’ It was kind of deep in the first season, but now it’s really, really personal.”
When a second, related treasure hunt joins the ongoing search for John B’s father’s missing loot, the Pogues — the silly name given to the blue-collar workers of “Outer Banks,” as opposed to the rich Kooks — find themselves in yet more trouble, hunted by yet more bad guys and flooding yet more boats.
“You have these moments when it feels like you’re in sixth gear going 180 mph on a back road and then other times it feels like you’re on a bicycle strolling down your neighborhood. We turn it on when it needs to turn on, and we slow it down and pace it up when we need to,” said Chase Stokes, who plays John B.
“Part of me loves the adventure of it all and the intensity, but the other part of me loves the isolated character moments when you’re seeing these kids be kids.”
In the second season, more than the first, kids being kids involves even more family drama, particularly with Sarah’s father, the ever-evil Ward Cameron, and Kiara’s parents, who simply want her to stay home and do her homework every now and again. Madison Bailey, who plays Kiara, called it being an “angsty teenager,” but for Sarah, who has watched almost everyone in her family disappoint her, she’s finding that some family isn’t always better than no family.
Pope’s treasure hunt, too, involved his family, although not in the same way. As each mystery unfurls itself throughout the Outer Banks and beyond, the trails always, somehow, come back to the five teens.
But “Outer Banks” is still about the pure unbridled joy of being a teenager with no curfew.
“I think the lesson here is that it’s fun to break the rules until the rules are there to keep you alive, until you realize the rules are there for a reason,” said Rudy Pankow, who plays JJ.
Bailey said the treasure hunts are more about the journey than the gold at the end of the figurative rainbow, a lesson the Pogues certainly learn quicker than the Kooks do.
“As long as it continues to be grounded in reality with a hint of insanity, I think that’s the sweet spot,” Stokes said. “Everybody loves a little bit of whimsical nonsense.”