Warning: Spoilers below.
“Outer Banks” killed off one of its most beloved characters during the Season 4 finale.
JJ Maybank (Rudy Pankow) was murdered by his biological father, Chandler Groff (J. Anthony Crane).
Groff went after JJ and Kiara (Madison Bailey) to get the Blue Crown. He held a knife to Kiara’s neck and JJ handed the Blue Crown over to save Kiara.
However, Groff stabbed JJ who died in Kiara’s arms.
“I already got my wish. Everything I wanted,” JJ told Kiara in his final breaths.
“Take care of the others. I love you, Kie,” he added.
An emotional montage then played of JJ’s moments with the other Pogues with a narration by John B (Chase Stokes).
After JJ’s death, Kiara reunited with the rest of the Pogues as they decided to go after Groff and seek “revenge” for JJ.
Pankow, 26, played JJ since the Netflix show’s premiere in 2020. The series was renewed for a fifth and final season before the final episodes of Season 4 dropped on Thursday.
Fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to express their devastation over fan-favorite JJ’s death.
“You are telling me that the character who went through the most trauma and finally deserved a happy ending got murdered. Throw it away!” one person tweeted.
“There is no #OuterBanks without JJ Maybank,” someone else said.
“‘I love you’ as last scene for a death trope is purely evil,” another fan wrote. “Jj maybank come back it can’t end like this.”
A different angry tweet read, “There is no outer banks without jj. There is no pogues without one of the members, there is no s5 without jj. A huge script hole and all this because the actors have personal problems between them. Professionalism sent greetings.”
“I’m still shocked by JJ’s death,” another viewer confessed. “I didn’t expect that someone from the Pogues will be killed before the series ending. It was a bold move. His last scene with Kiara destroyed me.”
“Taking everyone’s favourite character away? Who’s decision was this? Horrible ending, it definitely won’t be the same without JJ,” one other fan wrote.
Pankaw addressed his character’s death in an interview with Netflix after the finale.
“For JJ, he has to judge every moment in his life, if it’s worth it [to take the risk], and I think it’s constantly, yeah, it is for him,” the actor said. “Even throughout the pain and the suffering and the struggles for JJ, it’s worth it for him to go to that length. He lives his life to the utmost fullest, and I don’t think he regrets any part of it.”
The show’s creators, brothers Josh and Jonas Pate and Shannon Burke, revealed that they always planned to kill JJ.
“It was a really hard decision because he’s such a great piece of the ensemble,” said Josh. “It sets the stage for an epic fifth and final season. We’re planning a story of redemption, and a season that embodies the friendship that JJ had come to represent. JJ’s death was a hard but necessary piece of the architecture for the story, and we plan on honoring that as much as we can because we love the character as much as the fans do. And Rudy’s a great friend of ours.”
The Season 4 finale also revealed that Sarah (Madelyn Cline) is pregnant with John B’s baby.
Sarah learned she’s expecting after taking two pregnancy tests in a pharmacy bathroom. She later told John B, who was blatantly shocked but excited about the news.
“We’re gonna figure this out. Because we always do,” he told her.
Stokes, 32, and Cline, 26, dated in real life for less than two years until October 2021. Stokes is now dating country singer Kelsea Ballerini.
“Outer Banks” follows a group of friends searching for lost treasure in North Carolina. The cast includes Stokes, Cline, Pankow, Bailey, Jonathan Daviss, Drew Starkey, and Carlacia Grant.
Netflix announced this week that the show will end with Season 5.
“With a little sadness, but also excitement, we’re putting Season 4 behind us, and are turning to Season 5, in which we hope to bring our beloved Pogues home in the way we imagined and planned years ago,” the creators said in a statement.
“Season Five will be our last season, and we think it will be our best yet,” they added.
“Outer Banks” is streaming on Netflix.
