Netflix Originals

Outer Banks Season 4 (2024)

Netflix Originals

SPOILERS AHEAD.

I’m an Outer Banks fan against my will. Seriously. I avoided this shit like the PLAGUE for 3 years. I just knew it was another teen show I was bound to get addicted to and now look what happened. At the age of 27, teen shows and books are still my bread and butter. What can I say – who actually wants to grow up?

I’d like to say I was surprised at how much I liked the first season, but I can’t say that. It’s like it was tailor-made for me. It had stereotypes, it had a good soundtrack, badly written dialogue and teens played by adults pushing 30… what more could I ask for? Although I think the first season was genuinely good TV, if not completely insane, as a whole I’d put the show in the “so bad it’s good” category which is absolutely not a criticism – but I’m not going to talk about the show as a whole here. I’m going to talk about the raging dumpster fire that is Season 4.

It’s safe to say, the fun is over. Sure, this season had its moments of cringe and silliness. I’m not going to sit here and say there weren’t parts that had me howling with laughter at how bad they were, but it’s not a joke anymore, it’s SERIOUS. Am I problematic for loving JJ? Am I even more problematic for him being only my favourite over my other favourite, Rafe? That’s for me to think about. I loved JJ, and from the looks of the OBX Subreddit, everyone else did too. I lost interest in John B after the first season (and after I read a blind item about Chase Stokes getting his fake tan everywhere at the Met Gala – you can judge me, I’m a toxic culture vulture), Sarah is for sure adorable, I like Cleo and Pope and sometimes even Kiara! But alas, none possess the undeniable rizz of Rudy Pankow’s JJ.

There’s lots of salacious gossip going on right now about his character’s horrendous death scene in the Season 4 finale – a scene that had me doubled over in tears and gasping for air (yes, I am crazy). People are speculating that this death scene was a result of Rudy Pankow asking to be written off the show due to unspecified “beef” with Madison Bailey (Kiara). This stuff is neither here nor there for me. If it’s true, it’s sad, but it doesn’t really matter. That they killed him off was unbelievable, even worse was how they did it. If Pankow really did ask to be written off, there’s not a lot the writers could do I suppose – it was always going to be a disaster for this show – but perhaps a more thoughtful, less brutal write-off would have upset the fans a little less. I’m no stranger to crying at TV shows, in fact I’m a seasoned crier, but this really was a gut-punch. As many others have said, despite his assholery, JJ was the heart of the show. He had that vulnerable bad-boy quality that all the girls LOVE – without being an actual murderer (looking at you, Rafe).

The show just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not escapism anymore.. it feels a bit too real. The group have no money to speak of, they’re about to become homeless, Pope is a criminal, oh! and Sarah is pregnant. It kind of puts some of my own issues under the microscope. I am also poor and irresponsible. Can’t I just go to a place where my own adult problems aren’t reflected back at me?!? I just want to fantasise for a moment that I’m carefree and hunting for treasure.

I think Outer Banks should have stayed in its lane – it just doesn’t stand up with all this emotional heft. It used to be good old-fashioned fun, teen romance, teen drinking, teens who have a problem with authority, escape scenes, etc. The writing is too bad for most of it to be taken seriously and I really don’t mean that in a bad way – the show was an absolute hoot to watch. Never have I laughed so much at virtually everything that happened in Season 3. It was fun!!!! JJ’s death wasn’t fun, and didn’t make sense narratively. It goes against the whole message of the show, or so I thought. This show is about sticking it to the MAN, and you’re telling me that the character who arguably had it the hardest was killed by said MAN?!? It has alienated a lot of people, including me, but as I said, teen shows are my bread and butter… and who really wants to grow up?

You can watch Outer Banks on Netflix. Watch at your own risk, though. 4 seasons of fun and chaos just died with JJ.

You (season 3, 2021)

Netflix Originals

Please don’t read this if you haven’t finished it – I really don’t want to be responsible for giving you spoilers. They have been kept to a minimum but just to be safe. Also, please enjoy this frankly creepy photo of Penn Badgley that I had to use because Netflix don’t want to give me anything for free.

It’s 1.40am and I just finished season 3 of Netflix’s You. I’m feverishly writing this from my bed; feverish partly because of how f****** fantastic the finale was, and partly because someone in my house tested positive for Covid and I’m pretty sure it’s coming for me next. (Note: it did, in fact, come for me next – I’m holed up in my bed two days later losing my sanity rapidly). What better way to spend my evening? Especially since I can’t sleep due to excessive sneezing.

I teased this season out for as long as humanly possible, mainly in rebellion because it’s ridiculously addictive. To put it very simply, it was f***** insane, in the best possible way. I’m a huge fan of anything so bad it’s good, so You has always been one of my top choices for something truly outrageous that’s perfect to make fun of when I need to flex my improvisational comedy skills. The thing is, I can’t be absolutely sure, but has this show now become so good it’s good? It was very difficult to tell during this heady season of television. Towards the end I gave up on my not-bingeing rule and just powered through to the best finale episode I could ever have asked for. I mean really, it was *chef’s kiss* true perfection. I was very involved. 

I have a few niggles I would like to get out of the way first. The glaringly obvious one (to me at least) would be that Ellie – the adorable precocious teenager whose sister Love murdered in the last season – should never have been mentioned at all if they weren’t going to consistently include her throughout the season. There was a half-hearted attempt to show that Joe was still helping her by stealing library books at his new job to fix up and sell so he could send her cash. This would be fine but after like episode 3 there was literally no mention of this or Ellie again. I hate storylines that just go missing and it just seemed unnecessary to bring her up. Similarly, Forty. In the first half of the season, Forty was brought up constantly. Forty is Love and Joe’s son Henry’s middle name, so Love was calling him Forty and Love’s crazy mum was also calling him Forty and overall there was just a lot of Forty talk. Love and her mother were both clearly still obsessed with him and struggling with the loss, but all it took was for Love to have a drunken conversation with his ghost in the bath for her to be over it and announcing she needed to move on? Really? Y’all are just going to decide to “move on” and he will never be mentioned again? Not passing judgement on anyone’s healing but that doesn’t sound very healthy to me. To make these complaints a little more concise, I wish they had taken a little more time with both of these plot points. It looks a little like they were being careless just trying to make room for more moving parts – which this season has a healthy amount of. 

A final complaint before I get to the good stuff would be Marienne as a character. Tati Gabrielle who plays her is lovely in every way but I felt like they didn’t give her much to work with. I couldn’t really describe her personality because they didn’t give her much complexity and she deserves better. Despite its’ trashy exterior, I feel like this programme tries to give a good message and tackles issues of abuse pretty well when it comes to Joe’s experience, so why can’t we see more of Marienne’s story? Maybe I’m giving You too much credit but I don’t like to dismiss it as pure shite because I think they’re actually trying to tell some heartfelt stories. I say that, and then Joe murders like ten more people so maybe I’m completely off-base. There is a lot of killing this time around…. like, a lot.

In terms of what’s good about this abhorrent/amazing mess, I would like to first commend whoever did the soundtrack because it is dope. Now that I have done that, I will proceed to discuss the rest of it which is overwhelming. The flashback scenes of Joe’s childhood were somehow even more heartbreaking this season, and I genuinely cried a few times. No, I am not an insane Joe Goldberg stan who thinks he is hot and loves the way he stalks people and steals their underwear and murders their best friends, etc., but I appreciate a good backstory and a deep dive into a character’s psychology. The people who make You have created a true enigma in Joe and he’s even more complex this season as we see more of his past. I cannot bring myself to dislike him; I actually kind of love him and not in an OMG he is so cute kind of way. In the little world they have created, Mr Goldberg going around killing people and hiding their bodies just kind of makes sense. We’re not really sensitive to the horror of it – he’s so single-minded and we’re literally in his head so it makes it kind of hard to get any perspective, and it’s genius. I would argue he’s an absolutely perfect character and I cannot imagine anyone better than Penn Badgeley playing him. He’s just so likeable and so evil and it’s all really confusing. 

Love is just pure chaos personified and seeing the couples’ separate plots playing out parallel to each other was entertaining. I liked how the status of their relationship was constantly changing; it played into that whole idea we see a lot in TV and film now, that people aren’t either good or bad but often a bit of both. The swinging storyline was legitimately hilarious and Sherry and her husband were just the right amount of ridiculous and actually cute in an ironic sort of way. Love’s mother is also a hot mess of epic proportions and adds some spice to the proceedings, and I would like to shout out Dante and Lansing for being wholesome as f***. While I’m gushing, I will also say the drugging saga of Joe and Love was just insanely good. While some people might have been scoffing at how insane the whole thing was, I was reacting just how they wanted me to; squealing with excitement and shock and giving in to the mindf*** that is this programme. The end was utter madness and that’s all I can say – I’m still processing. 

I won’t say any more about it because part of the joy of this programme is that you really don’t need to think too hard; in fact it’s probably best if you don’t. Thanks for reading; I wolf you.

Go watch this amazing trash on Netflix.