Why JJ is the True Protagonist of the Final Season of ‘Outer Banks’

There are characters who are part of a series and characters who, at a certain point, become the series itself. JJ Maybank was certainly one of them. For four seasons he was the most chaotic heart of the Pogues, the one willing to risk everything for his friends, but also one of the characters with whom the audience developed the strongest bond. And yet Outer Banks 5, the final season of the series, opens precisely with his absence. JJ died at the end of the fourth season and will not come back to life. And that is why it feels natural to ask: what was the point of eliminating the most central character in the series only to then build an entire season around him?Because JJ, in the fifth season, is practically everywhere. Not physically, of course, but in the motivations of all the other characters. His death is the trauma that drives Kiara, the reason the Pogues embark on the new mission, and the ghost that accompanies the entire season. There are numerous flashbacks and even moments dedicated to JJ as a child to continue to take a deeper look at a character who can no longer take part in the story. It is almost a narrative paradox: the season that should bring the Pogues' story full circle ends up mainly telling the story of the character who can no longer complete that circle.OBX 6 is not happening! Here's why!​The OBX prequel: everything we know​OBX: the breakup between Chase and Madelyn​But why did Rudy Pankow leave Outer Banks?At this point, it is inevitable to return to the question surrounding Rudy Pankow’s exit from the series. In recent years, various rumors have circulated about the reasons that may have led the actor to leave Outer Banks, including claims that his partner played a role in the decision because of her alleged jealousy over the relationship between Rudy and Madison Bailey, who plays Kiara. But these are rumors that have never been officially confirmed.Another possibility is that Rudy simply chose to devote himself to other projects, which is, in fact, what happened. He recently joined the cast of Reminders of Him. The showrunners, on the other hand, have always maintained a different version: JJ's death had supposedly been planned for a long time and was part of the narrative design of the final season. Even accepting this explanation, one question still remains: if JJ's exit had been planned so carefully, why does the fifth season seem built to continually fill the void he left behind?The fifth season became a story about JJ, even though JJ is not thereLooking at the last two seasons, the feeling is that Outer Banks has almost split its story in two. The first three seasons told the Pogues' adventure and could even have represented a natural conclusion to their journey. The fourth and fifth, however, opened a new chapter, bigger, more ambitious, and inevitably harder to manage. And, not coincidentally, it is precisely in this second chapter that JJ is eliminated.The problem is that his death does not free the series from his presence: it makes him even more central. Kiara goes through devastating grief and spends much of the season clinging to the possibility of bringing him back. The search for the blue crown also becomes a search for JJ. The Pogues' choices continue to be influenced by his memory, and the flashbacks become a tool to show us what the character can no longer experience in the present. If his death really was intended to give the story a new direction, the result is almost the opposite: Outer Banks continues to need JJ to tell its own story.So was it really necessary to kill him?Killing JJ made sense if the goal was to tell the consequences of grief, but did it really make sense if the goal was to close the Pogues' story?Because JJ was not simply one of the protagonists. He was one of the characters who defined the very identity of the group. His relationship with John B, Kiara, Pope, and Sarah was part of the essence of the series. Without him, all the dynamics change, but above all, the way we look at the story changes: we are no longer just following a group of kids dealing with one last great adventure; we are watching a group trying to move forward after losing one of its most important members.Perhaps this is precisely the strength and, at the same time, the limitation of the fifth season. JJ is dead, but he continues to be the emotional protagonist of the story, and the more the series tries to remind us of that, the more natural it becomes to wonder whether it would not have been more interesting to let him live that story instead of constantly telling us how important he was after losing him.The question, then, is no longer just “Did JJ have to die?” but becomes another, much more difficult one: if a series reaches its final chapter and its most important character is the one who is not there, are we really sure that was the right ending for Outer Banks?