Outer Banks Season 2: How [SPOILER] Is Still Alive

How is Big John Routledge still alive after apparently being found dead in Outer Banks’ first season? Netflix’s Outer Banks is a teen adventure drama that follows North Carolina’s Outer Banks islanders, the Pogues, who go on a journey to find sunken treasure after John B’s father seemingly died on his search. The second season follows the Pogues as they deal with reclaiming the gold, uncovering a new Royal Merchant-related treasure, and trying to seek justice by having Ward and Rafe Cameron arrested.

The biggest underlying mystery of Outer Banks’ first season was what happened to John B’s father Big John, but season 2’s ending threw a wrench in John B’s closure. The closing moments show Carla Limbrey showing up to a house in Barbados with a letter containing the Royal Merchant’s wheat symbol, finding Big John alive and still thick in his research. He tells her he knows where she can find the holy garment she seeks, but only if she helps out his son. The ambiguous deal is likely referring to Limbrey needing to find and rescue John B and Outer Banks‘ Pogues from the unknown island they’re deserted on, though it begs the question of how Big John knows about what has befallen the teens.

When Ward seemingly committed suicide, John B had felt he could find closure with his own father’s death. Once Ward revealed he had faked his own death, John B’s need to avenge his father was revived, though now that Big John is alive, John B has to reckon with why his dad never contacted him over the past year. Big John surviving the ordeal seemed quite unlikely, but here’s how we think John B’s father is still alive after the events of Outer Banks’ first two seasons.

Royal Merchant Partners Found Him

John B’s father is revealed to have been living with a man in Barbados for an undisclosed amount of time, but the episode hints he’s been there since Big John’s supposed death by Ward. The man seems to know much about the Royal Merchant and helping Big John on his search considering the house is littered with research on the ship and its treasures, while Limbrey’s visit doesn’t seem to be their first meeting. It’s possible that in the extended group of Royal Merchant hunters, another ship on its way to look for the treasure found Big John on the beach and rescued him.

As Outer Banks’ second season makes clear, Big John, Ward, Scooter, and the two men that stalked John B in the first season weren’t the only people who spent time and money searching for the Royal Merchant. Big John’s research took up an incredible amount of his time and life, meaning he would have come into contact with many other people whose mission was to find the shipwreck before resorting to Ward Cameron. Outer Banks season 2 reveals Big John had met Carla Limbrey before his disappearance, who likely also had her own outside contacts on the search that could have connected to hide Big John.

The Skeleton Wasn’t Big John’s

One of the aspects that don’t make sense when finding out Big John is alive is that a skeleton hand was found next to the compass where he had supposedly been camping out on the beach. Knowing that Ward would still have Scooter scope out the beach for any clues before the storm came, Big John intentionally left the compass with Redfield carved into it so that John B could find it and finish his work with the Pogues. Big John knew something bad would happen to him which is why he left the tape recorder message for John B to continue the search, likely because he would have really been killed by Ward had he openly survived.

The story that Lana Grubbs tells John B in Outer Banks season 1 about Scooter finding Big John’s body with the compass also doesn’t make sense. Scooter was killed before he could come back from the island, so there’s no way Lana would have known this story. Another plot hole is that when Sheriff Peterkin goes to search the said island, she only finds Big John’s glasses; no skeletal body is present by then. This would mean Big John was rescued or found a way off the island before Peterkin came looking, likely with help from Scooter and Lana, who would have had to keep Big John’s survival a secret to avoid retaliation by Ward. In the Netflix show’s season 1 flashback story that Lana tells John B, a skeletal hand is shown near the compass, though Peterkin never saw a body, so it may have been an intentional fabrication to mislead people into believing Big John was dead. If there was a skeleton, it could have been from long before Big John washed up on the beach or the body of someone who found him there.

Big John Was Found By A Passing Boat Like John B And Sarah

It’s possible that Big John was never actually found by other Royal Merchant searchers, and was simply discovered half-dead by a ship at sea. This would parallel how John B and Sarah were found by Captain Terrance’s boat when they were stranded at sea during the storm. Terrance, Stubbs, and Cleo originally had no knowledge of the Merchant and no intention of finding it, only becoming gold hunters once Sarah and John B had told them. If Big John was put in the same situation, he may have told the people that found him that if they keep his survival a secret and help him, he’ll give them a share of the treasures from the Royal Merchant.

Limbrey Helped Him Hide Out From Ward

Most of the second season of Outer Banks makes it seem like Limbrey only knew Big John in passing as another of Ward’s unlucky partners in finding the Royal Merchant. She mentions to John B and the Pogues that Big John wasn’t the only person Ward screwed over on his path to find the Merchant’s gold, meaning they were possibly all working together at one time. Ward and Limbrey never cross paths in the second season as she only goes to Tanneyhill and meets the Camerons once he has already faked his death, so the Outer Banks characters’ real history together is ambiguous.

Ward’s involvement in finding the Royal Merchant was pretty arbitrary for his partners considering his actual research was minor and he mostly just provided funds for Big John and access to Tanneyhill’s history for Limbrey. As both grew to understand Ward’s malicious nature, the best course of action was for Big John and Limbrey to team up while keeping Ward as removed as possible. Had Big John revealed himself to be alive, Ward would have intervened, never been held responsible for his actions, and ruined the plan Big John had set by sending John B and the Pogues to find the treasure instead. Limbrey only cared about finding the holy garment and Cross of Santo Domingo, so helping Big John, who knew much more about how to find Outer Banks‘ relics, would be much more beneficial than dealing with Ward.

About The Author

Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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