Outer Banks season 4 has an unlikely hero in Rafe (yes, you read that right)

For various reasons, Outer Banks season 4 was the most shocking season of the Netflix original series. Obviously, a major character death has rocked the Pogues, the internet, and the world, but there are smaller aspects of the season that have had our jaws on the ground. There's a Poguelet on the way! JJ's real name was revealed. Oh, and Rafe was actually kinda likable?

I know, I know, I was surprised, too! Drew Starkey usually made Rafe Cameron so easy to hate as a character committed to his lack of self-awareness and being all-around chaotic evil. But something switched in Outer Banks season 4. While he could have still been on the warpath following his father's death in season 3, he's found some semblance of calm and common sense.

In season 4, he's up to all kinds of potentially shady business deals with Hollis Robinson, who flips his own game on him when she convinces his girlfriend Sofia do to a bit of her dirty work. Rafe takes on a more passive role in season 4 until the second half of the season, when he's forced into becoming a de facto Pogue and working with the people he hates most. It's amazing!

Wait, why do we suddenly like Rafe?

On the boat over to Morocco, after Rafe stood up for the Pogues against Deputy Shoupe, the Pogues knock him out and tie him up. They don't trust him! Oddly, I found myself siding with him in this situation. I don't know if I was under his spell or what, but he didn't really give me a reason not to trust him. He'd already helped them out of a jam and there were no visible strings attached.

Of course, when they arrive in Morocco, he's a begrudging member of their group until the Pogues cause a commotion and he's able to split from the pack to go off on a side quest to find Groff. In Morocco, he doesn't really make decisions that go against the Pogue agenda. He pushed Groff in a well and left him there. If only he had stayed in that well, then the big twist wouldn't have happened.

During the quest for the Blue Crown, Rafe's a direct ally to the Pogues against Dalia and the mercenaries. He's taking them out while JJ ascends a stone statue to find the coveted relic. This all comes after Sarah shows Rafe mercy and saves him. After all they have been through, she's able to find love for him as her family. This is the heart of season 4.

Drew Starkey and Madelyn Cline don't have very many chances to act together in season 4. They share few scenes together, but when they do have the opportunity to share the screen, combining their joint slay reminds us that they are the strongest actors in the cast. Starkey and Cline lock in for a deeply moving scene in the finale that's a series-best moment. Without their chemistry, it wouldn't pack the same punch. Without Starkey's nuance, Rafe wouldn't have been nearly as humanized.

Some viewers might disagree, but Outer Banks season 4 and Starkey's performance do a lot of excellent and subtle work at redeeming an irredeemable character. (As he reminds us, he's a killer with nothing to lose!) We're able to find empathy for a person who is broken beyond repair. The depths of his brokenness aren't fully known. What made him this way, aside from his father? What happened to his mother? Unraveling the mystery of Rafe presents a character you can't help but have a little compassion for.

But more than anything, Rafe was just fun this season, particularly in part 2: Watching him find unlikely community with former enemies, seeing him actually sharpen and get smart, laughing as he lives by his one unwritten rule of "be hot, do crimes." We don't need a heavy handed redemption for Uncle Rafe in season 5, we just need more of this. More of his softer side and more of him being ever so slightly better.

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