‘Outer Banks’: 5 Plot Holes and Mistakes in Season 1
Outer Banks has become one of Netflix’s most popular series, giving fans around the globe a thrilling saga to binge-watch during the summer. However, like most teen dramas, the show tends to have some pretty unrealistic moments. While watching Outer Banks Season 1, many viewers noticed a few glaring plot holes that called for a serious suspension of disbelief. Here are a few of the inconsistencies.
[Spoiler alert: The following story contains spoilers for Outer Banks Season 1.]
How did John B. live on his own?
John B.’s (Chase Stokes) mom wasn’t around during the Outer Banks timeline, which meant he was living with just his father, Big John Routledge (Charles Halford), at the Chateau. Then, Big John left to pursue the $400 million gold treasure and went missing, leaving a teenaged John B. on his own. John B. continued to live at the Chateau by himself, even when Child Protective Services tried to place him in foster care.
How did John B. manage to take care of himself at the Chateau? There was likely an outstanding mortgage on the house, and with Big John out of the picture, someone else had to pay for it. We know John B. had a job with Ward Cameron (Charles Esten), but he was fired early in season 1.
Lana somehow knew about Scooter’s findings
Other Outer Banks Season 1 plot holes had to do with the show’s timeline. For example, Lana Grubbs (CC Castillo) helped John B. and JJ (Rudy Pankow) piece together the mystery of Big John’s compass when they found it on a sunken boat. Lana revealed that her husband, Scooter (David Ury), had found the compass on a nearby island and brought it back with him on the boat.
However, Scooter died in a storm before he could make it home. In that case, how did Lana find out about the compass? Scooter had been the only one to know about it, and he died before he could tell her.
A ferry ride from the Outer Banks to Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Later in the season, John B. and Sarah Cameron (Madelyn Cline) visited the State Archives at the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill to find more clues. They took a ferry from their fictional hometown of Kildare County to Chapel Hill. That’s impossible in real life, considering Chapel Hill is landlocked.
As Carolina Coast Online reported, Outer Banks co-creator Jonas Pate has since chalked the plot hole up to an editing error. Apparently, a scene where the teens took an Uber ride to Chapel Hill after the ferry ride had been cut from the script. While that does clear things up, anyone unaware of Pate’s reasoning would likely run into confusion while watching season 1.
John B. and Sarah survived a storm on a capsized boat
In the season’s final episodes, John B. and Sarah escape the police by heading out on a boat in the middle of a dangerous storm. The boat capsizes, presumably killing the couple. However, they wake up the next morning hanging on to the overturned boat.
How did the teens not drown overnight? Additionally, they wore life vests when they woke up, but they weren’t wearing them when the boat flipped. How did they manage to put on the vests? Their survival was pretty much a miracle.
John B. and Sarah had no one to call
Finally, this Outer Banks Season 1 plot hole confused even the cast members. John B. and Sarah told their rescuers that they had no one to call back home, which was not true at all. What about JJ, Kiara (Madison Bailey), or Pope (Jonathan Daviss)?
Pankow, Bailey, and Daviss touched on the plot hole in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. They wondered why John B. and Sarah didn’t call their characters. However, they also thought John B. and Sarah might have worried the police would tap the phone call, or that the remaining Pogues were in police custody.
Outer Banks Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Netflix. Meanwhile, season 3 is currently in production.
