Ten thriller episodes of Netflix’s new teen drama Outer Banks are out to take the audiences on a nostalgia-in-a-blender exercise. It seems like a mixture of The O.C., Riverdale, possibly Stranger Things and On My Block, with a dash of high-school drama Simple Plan. Revolving around a group of inexplicably beautiful teens who make irrevocably bad decisions.
While it is a blend of class warfare, drug addiction, and grisly violence, which is part of many teen dramas; it is largely a teen pursuit to $400 million treasure buried somewhere on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Teens pursuing mystery
Outer Banks is a show with moody settings and teenage characters. The teenagers are in pursuit of a mystery’s answer, dodging bullets fired by menacing thugs invading a tucked-away Eden to extract its hidden treasure.
Alike its other teenage shows, Netflix’s Outer Banks is a teen adventure meant to excite in several base ways, from its goofy treasure hunt to its shirtless hunks.
Created by Shannon Burke and the twin brothers Jonas and Josh Pate, the show tells the story of John B (Chase Stokes), who has basically lived alone since his dad went missing, some nine months prior to the pilot episode. John narrates and steers the viewers through the story. He is obsessed with the Royal Merchant, a vessel that sunk and vanished in 1829 but rumored to have gone down with $400 million in British gold.
Outer Banks moves more like a maze than a puzzle, weaving through clues only to hit dead ends, with new problems popping up around every corner, and raising stakes.
The plot
Although John has lived alone after his father’s disappearance, he has got good company in his friends: JJ (Rudy Pankow), Pope (Jonathan Daviss), and Kiara (Madison Bailey), whose family is among the pretentious Outer Banks elite called Kooks, but she prefers the company of not-so-wealthy kids in the Outer Banks called the Pogues.
The story begins when John B and his friends find several clues related to his dad’s disappearance, clues that might lead them to the Royal Merchant and its huge bounty. The series of events lead them into increasingly serious conflict with the Kooks and in various storms that knock out power for much of the region so that even though the show is set in the present day, reduced availability of mobile phones and computers give it a feel of the past.
As John B and friends cruise across the sunlit sea, Outer Banks conjures up the giddy, youthful rush of pure motion.