John B Routledge grew up in the Cut, the poorest area of the south side of the Outer Banks. When his father goes missing while trying to find a famous shipwreck, the Royal Merchant, John B decides to enlist his best friends to help him search for the gold. Fellow Pogues JJ, Pope, and Kiara are more than happy to go on an adventure. But when Sarah Cameron gets involved, everything changes. The two quickly fall in love, Ward frames his daughter’s new beau for the sheriff's murder, and the couple has to escape to the Bahamas. 

In Season 2, the duo are still on the run, but decide to go back to North Carolina to try to clear his name. They hit a rocky patch when Ward fakes his murder and John B doesn’t understand why Sarah is sad. However, after they discover Ward is in fact alive and he tries to kill Sarah, this helps bring the two back together. Isn’t it romantic?

In Season 3, he reunites with his long-lost father, but his dad’s obsession with gold distances him from the Pogues. “As things really got darker and progressed into a space where he really didn’t recognize his father, I think he started to grieve for the loss of [his old dad],” Stokes told Tudum.

P4L is real though, so of course, by the end of Season 3, the gang is back together to try to save John B’s dad when Big John is kidnapped. After the deaths of their dads and solving the riddles of El Dorado together, Sarah and John B are now closer than ever.

Uglies, Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets, Tell Me Your Secrets, Daytime Divas

Sarah Cameron grew up in Figure 8 — the wealthiest part of the north side of the Outer Banks — on Tannyhill Plantation. At the start of Season 1, she lives there with her dad, Ward, her brother, Rafe (Drew Starkey), her sister, Wheezie (Julia Antonelli) and her stepmother, Rose (Caroline Arapoglou). When we first meet Sarah, she’s also dating a fellow north sider, or Kook, Topper (Austin North). But when she gets swept up in a mystery alongside John B and the other Pogues (the local name for the people from the south side of the island), she tries to turn away from her privileged life. When John B is framed for murder by her own father and brother, Sarah escapes with him to the Bahamas.

In Season 2, the recently married duo (yes, seriously) make their way back to the US, but Sarah and John B’s love soon hits the rocks. When Ward fakes his death, Sarah feels John B isn’t sympathetic enough. But don’t worry, these two crazy kids patch things up after Sarah is kidnapped by her stepmom and learns that her father, Ward, is indeed alive. She narrowly escapes death, at the hand of her own father, and heads to the Caribbean once again — this time with all the Pogues in tow.

Season 3 sees Sarah follow her heart, and choose P4L once and for all. Sure, she and Top rekindle their romance a little when John B goes rogue with his dad, but her heart always leads her back to John B, and the home they found on Poguelandia with their friends. Ward sacrificing himself to save her in the finale causes waves, not ripples for Sarah, who now has  practically no family left, besides Rafe. “The scene itself broke my heart for Sarah because the one time he showed up for her without any ill intentions or underlying motives is the time that ended him,” Cline told Tudum. 

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Stranger Things, The Originals, Boy Erased

JJ Maybank has been best friends with John B since the third grade — and he’d do just about anything for him. Always down for an adventure (and a way to get away from home and his alcoholic father), JJ doesn’t need much convincing to go looking for the Royal Merchant in Season 1. He sometimes makes the situation worse with his hot temper, but he’s fiercely loyal to his friends. 

During Season 2, he helps his father escape Kildare County to avoid prison — making the Pogues the only people he has left. At the end of Season 2, he’s marooned with his friends on the island they call Poguelandia.

Poguelandia is paradise for JJ, and Season 3 sees this wildcard put it all on the line for something he never expected or, thanks to his upbringing, didn’t think he deserved: love, with Kiara. They have a will-they, won’t-they dynamic all season, but when her parents ship her off to a wilderness camp, he knows it’s time to act in order to keep the family together. “Even though he’s probably the most immature [of the Pogues], he’s also mature in the sense of, ‘Well, I’m going to go do something about it, and I will make that action right away,’” Pankow told Tudum. And boy does he, sealing her rescue with a kiss (finally!).

Uncharted, The Crusades, Accidental Texan, 5lbs of Pressure

She's a Pogue — but an adopted one. Kiara “Kie” Carrera lives with her parents in Figure 8, where her mom was born and raised. Her dad was born into a less privileged background, but owns a very successful restaurant now. By all accounts, Kie should be a Kook — however, as a self-proclaimed socialist, she claims to hate the wealth and attitude that comes with her dad’s capitalist lifestyle. 

Kie is best friends with John B, JJ and Pope, who accept her as a fellow Pogue. Kie and Sarah were best friends in ninth grade before they had a falling-out — but they reconcile in Season 1 shortly after Sarah and John B begin dating. All of the dude Pogues have been into Kie at one point or another. She and John B briefly kissed in Season 1 and she and Pope tried to explore something more in Season 2. But, sadly, Kie’s not as into it as Pope is.

Season 3 though sees her and JJ realize just how kindred they really are. They actually admit they love each other by the end of the season, after he saves her from “literal hell,” as Bailey called it. “Her getting sent away really makes him realize, ‘I need to show her I care and I need to show her I’m going to be there for her, too.’” 

Black Lightning, Time Cut, Council of Dads, American Horror Stories

A Pogue through and through, Pope Heyward would do anything for his best friends John B, JJ, and Kiara. He’s the most cautious member of the group — and also the most studious. It’s clear from the start of the series that he has a crush on Kie and they have a fling. 

The treasure hunt of Season 2 revolves around Denmark Tanny, whom Pope learns is his ancestor. Denmark Tanny was the only survivor aboard the Royal Merchant. During Season 2, Pope has to uncover his family’s history and relics before someone else does. At the end of the season, Pope finds himself marooned on Poguelandia with his friends.

Season 3 sees Pope reckon with heartache, after his romance with Kie ends and Rafe burns his family’s cross. But Cleo arrives just in time to help Pope pick up the pieces. “Everything he was working for is gone, so now he has to try to find a way to stay motivated to even keep going,” Daviss previously told Tudum. “And Cleo does that for him.”

Daviss says in Season 3, Pope and Cleo “are both in this space of not wanting another relationship and wanting to just be on their own. But Cleo was there when Pope was going through a really tough time and she truly supported him.” And because they allowed themselves to be vulnerable with each other last season, “it was just natural for them to be in the space that they’re in now; a very healthy, nice space.”

Do Revenge, Shattered Memories, Age of Summer, Edge of the World

Cleo is first introduced in Season 2 when she meets Sarah and John B aboard a cargo ship bound for her home — Nassau, Bahamas. As a member of the crew, she plans to help turn the two over, but Sarah offers her family’s gold instead. The trouble is, it’s in the Camerons’ Nassau estate and Sarah is supposed to be dead, so they have to steal it. The heist ultimately fails, but Cleo helps them escape Nassau nonetheless.

The group runs into Cleo again when she’s working aboard the ship that the Camerons are escaping on — which is also where they’ve stowed a kidnapped Sarah. She helps Sarah escape and lands on Poguelandia with the others. 

We really get to know Cleo in Season 3. She’s gone it alone most of her life, but she and Pope soon forge a bond. They strike a deal to form the “No Love Club” — that is, until they start to fall for each other. Grant considers Cleo accepting love from Pope “her bravest fight yet” because “she’s been deprived of it for so long,” she told Tudum.

And when we see them again in Season 4, they’re still going strong, even after that 18-month time jump. Grant thinks that beyond just a relationship standpoint, Pope and Cleo balance each other out. “We have a genuine friendship and a genuine love for each other as well as respect and honesty,” she says. They also have of lot of friendly banter, which is what Grant thinks “makes it spicy.”

Greenleaf, Roots, The Resident, Game of Silence

While his sister Sarah eschews her family's wealth and the sneaky ways they obtained it, Rafe Cameron fully embraces it. He parties a little too hard — in fact he gets kicked out of the family estate after he steals from his dad to pay his drug dealer. Toward the end of Season 1, he tries to earn his father’s approval by shooting the sheriff. Oddly, it works and Ward lets him move back in. Throughout Season 2, he continues to do anything allegedly for his father, even at one point trying to strangle Sarah because she sides with John B over their family. 

But after Rafe melts down Pope’s family’s Cross of Santo Domingo in Season 3, “nothing Rafe does can shock me anymore,” Starkey previously told Tudum. Rafe ends the season with Ward naming him the man of the house, before Ward and Sarah jet off on a private plane with the Pogues … and Ward’s never seen again. So who will Rafe blame for the loss of his father? Starkey thinks whether it’s Sarah and John B or himself, “both are destructive.”

Now that he’s dating Sofia and tapping into “a bit of calmness,” Starkey says “it was almost like playing a different character at times. I was like, ‘Oh, I could get used to this.’ ” Without the crutch of his father and their push--pull game of wanting his love and approval, Starkey finds it interesting to see Rafe “in a space where he has someone that he really cares about that’s not his immediate family and someone he feels safe with and protected with and can confide in.” 

Queer, The Other Zoey, The Devil All the Time, Scream

Topper is a Kook — and proud of it. He basks in his wealth and hates the Pogues. At the start of the series, he’s dating Sarah. Even when she breaks up with him to date (and later marry) John B, Topper won’t let her go. He loves her deeply, even going so far as to help her escape with John B in Season 1 and to attack best friend Rafe in Season 2 to save her. 

In Season 3, let’s be honest, Topper is still wrapped around Sarah’s finger when she comes back from Poguelandia. She even convinces him to lend the Pogues his truck and leans on him when she and John B are going through a rough patch. But after she ditches him for John B (again), Top really lets his rage and jealousy catch fire, literally to the point where he burns down John B’s house. But has Topper finally given up hope on Sarah heading into Season 4? “She'll probably come back around, lead me on, [and] break my heart again,” North told Tudum.

One Fast Move, Beautiful Wedding, I Didn’t Do It, Kickin’ It,  A.N.T. Farm

We meet Fiona in Season 3 and see Rafe take a romantic interest in her when he hosts a party at Tannyhill. She doesn’t seem like she’s part of Rafe’s usual Kook crowd though, as she works catering and bartending jobs. 

Co-creator Josh Pate saw the introduction of Sofia as an opportunity to show more sides to Rafe that “aren’t just him being the worst person in the world,” Pate told Tudum. In Season 4, Fiona will continue to be Rafe's romantic interest — and we might even get to know her better too. 

El Roomie, Control Z, Journey to Bethlehem, ¡Qué despadre!, La Negociadora, Gossip Girl: Acapulco

Luke Maybank is not the most respected father figure on The Cut. A heavy drinker and drug user, he’s physically abusive to his son JJ, and he knows exactly how to pour salt in JJ’s wounds — that Luke himself created. 

Last we saw Luke, JJ was helping ship him off into the unknown to escape jail. It’s no wonder JJ considers the Pogues his real family.

Sweet Magnolias, Fly Me to the Moon, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Spider-Man: Homcoming, Five Feet Apart

Wes Genrette is a mysterious new character introduced in the Season 3 finale. After the Pogues are honored 18 months after they found El Dorado, he approaches them with an offer of a new adventure: Locating Blackbeard’s treasure. And, pray tell, what does John B say to that? “Hot damn.”

Queen Sugar, Midnight Special, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ocean’s Eleven

Deeply grief-stricken over the loss of his wife, Chandler welcomes the Pogues to a new adventure.

Dead Ringers, Billions

The daughter of Wes Genrette, Larissa Genrette was the heiress to Blackstone Manor on Goat Island. She died years ago in a mysterious drowning. Before her death, she was married to Chandler Groff and had a son.

Sweet Magnolias, Catch a Killer, Misfit: The Series, L.O.L. Surprise: The Movie, and the Royalteen films (as the voice of Princess Margrethe in the English versions)

Dalia is a revolutionary-like leader and worldly baddie on a plunder who comes face-to-face with the Pogues.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Double Blind

The biggest realtor on the island who previously worked with Ward in a successful business deal, Hollis now has her eye on Rafe for a new venture.

Dynasty, Eastsiders

Lightner is an imposing stranger with a piratical nerve. This dangerous and calculating outdoorsman appears to test the Pogues. 

Animal Kingdom, Station 19

Ruthie is a wild child with a toxic streak who develops a close relationship with Topper.

FBI: International, Clickbait

Kiara’s mother, Anna, was born and raised as a Kook. She does not approve of her daughter’s relationship with Pogues John B, JJ, and Pope — so she forbids Kiara from seeing them (to little avail). 

She can’t even keep Kiara away from the Pogues when she and her husband Mike send her away to a wilderness camp in Season 3. “They’ll probably have some stuff to work through in Season 4,” co-creator Shannon Burke previously told Tudum.

The Queen’s Gambit, Godless, City on a Hill, Tales of the City

Mike is married to Anna and father to Kiara. He’s a successful chef and operates a busy restaurant called the Wreck. He has a better relationship with Kie, who sometimes works with him at the eatery. Mike will occasionally give her friends free food. 

But their relationship grows strained the closer she gets to the Pogues — and JJ. “We try to write all these characters to create these scenes where everyone’s trying to do the right thing inside their own story,” co-creator Josh Pate previously told Tudum. “And if you had a kid who’s running off, cutting school, you’d be pretty worried about her.”

Sweet Magnolias, Criminal Minds, The Company You Keep, Line Sisters

Pope’s father, Bobby Heyward, is known around the island simply as Heyward. He’s a fishmonger who owns the seafood shop that serves Pogues and Kooks alike on the island. 

Like the Carreras, he’s not a fan of Pope hanging out with John B and JJ. He’s a descendant of Denmark Tanny, a key figure in the treasure hunt of Season 2. He is deeply invested in his son and his future, and takes a liking to Cleo — and her jerk shrimp recipe — in Season 3.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, American Made, The Quad, Ambitions, Terror Lake Drive

Sarah’s father, Ward, may live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of the Outer Banks, but he didn’t start out there. In fact, like John B, he grew up in the Cut, but Ward went on to become a real estate developer. Although he initially comes off as a friendly, nice guy — even going so far as adopting John B when his father disappears — it doesn’t take long for his manipulative, evil ways to show through.

He knows all about the treasure of the Royal Merchant and is willing to harm anyone who gets in his way of finding it, even his own daughter. At the end of Season 2, Ward is seen recovering from a head wound and promising his son, Rafe, that they will get Sarah back and he’ll find redemption. Good luck with that, Ward. Tragically, he does save Sarah when she needs him most, taking bullets for her when the hunt for El Dorado comes to a close in the Season 3 finale. 

Back in the first season, Esten told the creators that “someday you’re going to need this guy to die. I think it would be very cool if he did it to save Sarah,” said Esten. “So we resurrected that at the very end there.” The whole cast was devastated to see Esten leave, as he had “become a dad to all of us,” said Cline.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Nashville, Enlightened, The Office, Big Love, Party of Five

Nine months before the series premiere, Big John goes missing while trying to find the Royal Merchant. His disappearance is what causes his son, John B, to begin his own treasure hunt. 

We learn throughout Season 1 that Big John was actually looking for the wrecked ship with Ward Cameron, who injured him and left him for dead — but he didn’t die. At the end of Season 2, we discover that he was rescued and has been recovering in Barbados all this time. When he was originally cast to help launch the story in Season 1, Halford had no idea he’d come back until he was in Chicago doing a show. “I got a text from Chase,” Halford previously told Tudum. “I hadn’t heard from him in a while. And he’s like, ‘Dude, I just read the last scene from the second season, and man, you’re alive. You’re going to Barbados.’  I just threw my phone. I was so excited.”

Big John finally reunites with John B in Season 3, as father pulls son away from the Pogues to seek El Dorado together. His obsession with treasure makes John B question his dad’s priorities, but ultimately Big John chooses his son when it counts in Venezuela, blowing up the entrance to the City of Gold in order to save John B’s life. But when Big John is shot on the journey, he succumbs to his wounds in the finale, leaving his son to mourn him… again. John B is “just broken,” said Stokes.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Constantine, Rectify, The Walking Dead, True Detective

Rose is married to Ward and stepmother to Rafe, Sarah and Wheezie. Apart from that, we don’t know a ton about her — except that she’s willing to scheme and connive just as much as her husband. 

Minx, The Resident, The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets

Carla Limbrey is introduced in Season 2 as a wealthy treasure seeker from Charleston, South Carolina. She has her sights set on Pope and his family, specifically the Denmark Key. She explains to him how an enslaved person named Denmark Tanny survived the Royal Merchant shipwreck and wanted to buy his wife and child’s freedom with what he saved from the ship. Instead, he was killed by Carla’s ancestors. 

Carla has a keen interest in finding this key and what it leads to: the Cross of Santo Domingo. Carla suffers from an unknown illness, and the cross is said to contain a shroud that has healing powers. She’ll stop at nothing to get it — but unfortunately there’s no cure in it for her. At the end of Season 2, we see her approaching (the alive!) Big John to team up in finding the shroud. 

To placate her in Season 3, Big John and John B give her a (fake) shroud. Once it’s in her hands, she starts to walk again. But whether the “cure” is real or a placebo effect, that’s a mystery for another time.

Lost, The Santa Clauses, First Kill, The Expanse, Once Upon a Time, Revolution

A Caribbean don, Carlos joined the cast of Outer Banks in Season 3. Despite being an extremely wealthy man living in Barbados, Carlos isn’t content with the riches he’s already amassed and is on a quest to find the city of gold, El Dorado. He’s pretty ruthless — not to mention dangerous — in his pursuit of the treasure. But his greed proves fatal, and all his scheming blows up, literally, when he’s killed by Big John’s dynamite in the finale.

The Handmaid's Tale, Nurses, Station Eleven, Disappearance at Clifton Hill