All 4 Outer Banks seasons ranked from worst to best

1. Outer Banks season 1

There’s no doubt Outer Banks season 1 is the best season of the series so far. In the first season, we’re introduced to the Pogues: John B., JJ, Pope, and Kie, played by Chase Stokes, Rudy Pankow, Jonathan Davis, and Madison Bailey. After finding a sunken boat after a hurricane, the group of friends get caught up in the adventure of a lifetime: the hunt for the Royal Merchant, a ship that was sunk off the coast of the Outer Banks hundreds of years ago.

John B.’s father was close to finding the gold when he was lost at sea months earlier and presumed dead. John B. enlists the help of Sarah Cameron (Madelyn Cline), the Kook Princess of the Outer Banks, and so begins their forbidden love story.

There’s something so special about the first season of Outer Banks. The stakes are high, but they are so much lower than in the second and third seasons. Before everything changes, there’s a way that things could slow down and get back to how they used to be. By the end of season 1, it’s clear there’s no going back. The Pogues are full steam ahead into the dark world of treasure hunting, and man, doesn’t it get dark!

Again, it’s not that there is anything wrong with the second and third seasons. The first season was such a breath of fresh air in the teen drama department at Netflix. The story, I’d argue, is the tightest of any season, too. That makes a lot of sense given where the story begins: John B unable to let go of his father’s disappearance.

Luckily, Outer Banks has already been renewed for a fifth and final season on Netflix! We'll update the ranking again when the final season is released.