While Outer Banks fans are recovering from a double dose of bad news (JJ Maybank dying in the season 4 finale and the season 5 release pushed to 2026), one of the stars of Outer Banks season 4 opened up about how he learned about JJ's death in the finale.
As it turns out, Rudy Pankow, who starred as JJ Maybank in all four seasons of Outer Banks, kept the killer secret that his character would be dying in the season finale from J. Anthony Crane, who played Chandler Groff, JJ's real father, for as long possible. As you'll remember, Groff is JJ's father and killer!
In a new interview with The Direct, Crane revealed that he was shocked to learn his character would kill JJ, and Pankow had a legendary response. Here's what Crane told The Direct:
"I think he knew what was going to happen, but he didn't tell me. But I didn't know that he didn't know! I didn't know he knew already. I thought we're all getting the script at the same time."
Crane continued:
"I texted him like 'Whoa man, you okay with this?' As if to explain that he knew about it long ago, he said, 'Your character's pretty stabby.' You son of a gun. He knew all about it! He was just waiting for me to find out."
Pretty stabby, huh? As fans will recall, Groff killed his son, JJ, after JJ traded the Blue Crown for Kiara (Madison Bailey) after the Pogues solved the mystery, defeated a group of assassins, and were about to make a getaway back to their home. Instead, JJ ended up buried in the Moroccan desert.
Crane also told The Direct that he didn't find out what was going to happen until the night before they started filming the season finale in Morocco. Talk about a whirlwind! Not only are you killing off a fan-favorite, but you don't find out until right before filming the scene? What an epic surprise.
Obviously, it's not a good surprise for most fans. In another interview, Crane mentioned that he has quite the list of fans reaching out to him on social media with some choice words about what his character did. It's important to remember that Crane is an actual human being playing a character. As mentioned, none of this was his choice. We all know that, don't we?
It's safe to say Pankow and Crane took the news about JJ's death a little bit better than fans!
As a fan, I've always wondered how these things are kept secret. Some are kept better than others, but the Outer Banks team kept this secret as under wraps as well as they possibly could. There were definitely some rumors and rumblings about a character getting killed off this season, but I was stunned that they actually went through with it. You usually don't see teen shows make a huge move like this.
So, where do things stand heading into season 5? Production on Outer Bank season 5 should be starting sometime this spring and film through the end of the year, according to Jonas Pate's interview with Port City Daily. Unfortunately, and thanks to Netflix's latest update, we're looking at a 2026 premiere for Outer Banks season 5.
It looks like that was always the plan, but it's always a little bit of a knife to the abdomen (see what I did there?) when we're facing a year-long wait (or more) for the new season.
We'll share more updates about Outer Banks season 5 when we find out!