The Real Reason JJ Was Killed Off in Outer Banks—& Whether Rudy Pankow Could Still Return
It was both the biggest twist in the entirety of Outer Banks run, and the kind of thing that felt overdue. The show is, after all, going into Season 4. John B. (Chase Stokes), Sarah (Madelyn Cline), Kiara (Madison Bailey), JJ (Rudy Pankow), Pope (Jonathan Daviss), and Cleo (Carlacia Grant) have been hunting for treasure after treasure for seasons. In doing so, they’ve come across very dangerous situations. And yet, four seasons in, they’re still all very much alive and well. Or, they were before the Season 4 finale when JJ is tragically killed.
A show with six main characters and a lot of near-death situations when no one ever dies can get unrealistic. But at the same point, this really didn’t feel like the time for JJ to go. We’d just learned about his true parentage, and he was still coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t actually a Pogue (the poor kids), but a Kook (the rich kids) and that his mother was Larissa Genrette and his father Chandler Groff. And, he was going to be the Godfather to John B. and Sarah’s kid.
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Related: Who killed Wes Genrette on Outer Banks?
But Outer Banks pulled a twist in the last episode of Season 4—even if some fans aren’t convinced it’s going to stick—and had Groff himself kill his son, all to get the blue crown, a magical artifact that is said to grant wishes. As the season ended the rest of the Pogues wowed revenge, with Season 5 set to be the show’s last.
Why did they kill JJ in Outer Banks? Is he gone for good? What have the writers and Rudy Pankow said about it?
Why did they kill JJ in Outer Banks?
The show-specific answer as to why they killed was given by the co-creators in an interview with Cosmopolitan. In it, they revealed they knew pretty early on this was going to be JJ’s final season. “We were pretty sure early on that this was where it was going. We thought that one of the Pogues would die almost in the very beginning in season 1, and we were pretty sure it was going to be JJ. We just weren’t sure when we were going to play that card. We knew this would be JJ’s season—this is JJ’s story. And we realized pretty early on, like, Okay, we’re going to play this card now.”
Narratively, this makes sense for a show that has yet to kill a big character. Plus, it sets up the rest of the Pogues on a journey of revenge in the last season, that can end with them with the final treasure and ready to settle down for good.
Fans, however, have pointed out the likelihood that Pankow wasn’t written out because of creative concerns, but because of a supposed rift between him and co-star Madison Bailey, who plays his on-screen love interest Kiara. Bailey and Pankow used to be good friends, but rumors indicate they had a falling out last year—to the point their respective significant others unfollowed each other and both Bailey and Pankow unfollowed the other person’s significant other—and things have been rocky ever since.
It would explain the lack of JJ and Kiara moments in a season where they’re supposed to be an established couple, and it might also explain why some of the scenes the two had together were cut in a way that made it seem like they weren’t even filming together, as many fans have pointed out.
Whether rumors of the rift are true or not, fans have pointed out that the blue crown does give the show a chance to bring JJ back, if they choose to take it. But for the answer about where Outer Banks will go, we will have to wait until Season 5.
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