Note: This story contains spoilers from”Outer Banks” Season 5.
As the Pogues set out on their last adventure for the fifth and final season of “Outer Banks,” Kiara, played by Madison Bailey, held out hope on the legend of the Blue Crown.
Legend has it that the highly coveted artifact, which Chandler Groff stole from the Pogues after tragically killing [SPOILER] JJ Maybank (Rudy Pankow) in the Season 4 finale, has capabilities to bring someone back from the dead.
JJ’s presence in Season 5
Kiara (Madison Bailey) witnessed JJ’s death at the hands of his biological father in Morocco and watched him bleed out in her arms. In Season 5, Kiara wants to avenge her boyfriend’s death by killing Groff herself and realizing the Blue Crown’s powers.
Throughout the final season the Pogues travel to Morocco, Croatia and beyond to find the Blue Crown and fulfill its prophecy.
The Pogues mourn JJ’s death throughout the season, but it all came to a head when the crew tracked down the crown’s whereabouts in Croatia in the hands of dangerous pirates.
Rudy Pankow as JJ, Madison Bailey as Kiara in episode 410 of “Outer Banks.” (Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/Netflix)
Does the Blue Crown revive JJ?
The Pogues travel from their home in the Outer Banks to Croatia one last time with hopes of bringing JJ back to life and securing the treasure gold for good this time.
Kiara, John B (Chase Stokes), Sarah Cameron (Madelyn Cline) and Pope (Jonthan Daviss) orchestrate a plan to launch an explosive off a cliff that will cause an avalanche and prohibit the pirates from reaching the lake where the Blue Crown’s powers could be enacted.
When the pirates’ van falls off the cliff, Kiara raids the car in a standoff match for the crown. Kiara and John B fend off the pirates, allowing Ki to steal the crown and sneak up to the lake to fulfill the prophecy.
She recites a prayer to the stars and the “god of gods,” begging for JJ to rise. Ki sees several shooting stars, but the prophecy does not immediately come into effect. She pleads and recites the prayer again, but nothing happens.
She begins to cry when a comet-like shooting star emerges in the sky, triggering a series of happy flashbacks from Kiara and JJ’s time together starting from when they saved a dying dolphin on the beach together until his final breath.
Kiara’s encounter with JJ
The other Pogues never fully believed the legend, but Kiara assured them that the crown’s powers do work but not in the way you think it does.
“Kiara could have had anything in that moment,” Bailey told TheWrap of reaching closure with the Blue Crown. “I think a lot of people will watch that scene and be like, “What was that? It was enough for her. It was enough.”
“If you’ve experienced loss, I was like, ‘Oh, I would love to dream about this person, then I closed my eyes and had a dream that night.’ That’s magic. That counts,” she added.
But did Rudy Pankow return for Season 5?
Technically, no.
All of the footage of JJ in Season 5 is from previous seasons of the series or flashbacks to an elementary school-aged JJ and Kiara. Though his presence looms large over the final season, the creators did not bring back Pankow to close out the final chapter.
All episodes of “Outer Banks” Season 5 are available to stream on Netflix.
