Netflix’s ‘Outer Banks’ Season 3 Is Not Good

Netflix has a new anointed favorite series, Outer Banks, which has returned for a third season riding high off its renewal for a fourth before these new episodes even aired, truly unheard of at the cancel-happy streaming service.

The bad news is that the show is not…particularly good any more. Not that Outer Banks was ever some pinnacle of television, but it was a decently fun show, though as we reach season 3 here, that fun has mostly evaporated, and I’m not sure I even want this show to come back for a fourth season now.

I’d argue that Outer Banks jumped the shark the minute they flipped a switch on its new “El Dorado” storyline, where like fifty million other adventure series and movies before it, has decided that the lost city of gold should be its new quest, as the Merchant gold just wasn’t compelling enough, currently locked in Ward’s vault once he jacked it from the Pogues.

The season’s treasure hunt vacillates between three different wildly different objectives, the idea that the Pogues can’t reclaim the gold hoard since it’s locked away, but instead are going after a singular golden cross they fought over last season. And then this is all set against the larger backdrop of the El Dorado quest spearheaded by John B’s dad, Big John, and new villain Carlos Singh.

Absolutely one of the worst aspects of the season has been the resurrection of Big John, where it was revealed that he was not actually dead at the end of season 2. While it’s a nice reunion the first time John B and Big John come together, Big John is a terrible character. He totally clashes with the vibe of the show in every way, and even though you’re sort of supposed to think he’s bad and pulling John B in wrong directions, I just hated every second he was onscreen, as he ends up splitting John B from his friends for half the season.

The rest of the show is drama for its own sake, and it’s getting frankly a little exhausting that the series refuses to let its cast members ever, ever win for more than two seconds. Relationships are fractured for impossibly stupid reasons. Treasure quests are once again thwarted by the Camerons for the millionth time. Old villain Ward Cameron has been neutered and replaced by a less interesting Carlos Singh and his giant band of mercenaries essentially turning this into an Uncharted game.

None of this works. It’s a bad season of a show that at least used to be better than this. It feels like Outer Banks has no real plan going forward, and I’m frankly shocked that it was renewed for season 4 if that was based on some Netflix executive doing an early screening of season 3.

We will see what critics and audiences make of it. Audience scores appear to be about the same as last season, but the few critic scores that are in have made it drop sharply, though we’re in a weird situation where only four critics total appear to have watched the #1 series in America right now. I guess you could describe this as a “for the fans” scenario, but I’m not sure how fans of these characters could enjoy what they’re being put through in this tortuous new season. I really hope season 4 can turn things around here, and this series really needs and endgame in mind.

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