The final season of a popular, long-running Netflix series features a number of connections to the Wilmington area.
Season five of "Outer Banks" hit Netflix on Aug. 20 and is currently listed as the most-watched show on the streaming service, which is the world's most popular.
For starters, Jonas Pate — who with his brother, Josh Pate, and Shannon Burke, is a co-creator of "Outer Banks" — lives in Wilmington. (Jonas Pate is also a co-writer and director of the series.)
The Netflix mystery drama has shot primarily in South Carolina, but for its fourth season, which came out in late 2024, "Outer Banks" shot scenes in the Wilmington area for the first time. For the show's fifth and final 10-episode season, the only scenes shot in the Wilmington area mostly
appear in episode six, titled "The Big Easy."
The action-packed scenes, which include a gun-wielding confrontation, were shot in September 2025 at the Southport-Oak Island Ferry Terminal in Southport.
"Outer Banks" stars Madison Bailey, Madelyn Cline, Jonathan Daviss, Carlacia Grant, Rudy Pankow and Chase Stokes as a tribe of working class, romantically involved, treasure-hunting "Pogues" who are constantly getting into conflicts with the rich "Kooks" who run Kildare, the Ocracoke-like island where they live.
The gorgeously shot show has a soapy, "Goonies"-inspired vibe and a running Haves vs. Have-Nots theme. Season five has the principals in search of a "blue crown" and other fictional artifacts connected to the pirate Blackbeard, one of which is said to have to the power to resurrect the dead.
Season five includes multiple references to "Figure 8," as in New Hanover County's Figure Eight Island, where a couple of Pogues attempt to pull off an ill-conceived robbery.
Also, in multiple scenes over episodes No. 5-7 of season five, Cline, who plays a Pogue-loving Kook named Sarah Cameron, sports an "I Believe in Wilmington" T-shirt, a reference to the iconic mural at Second and Princess streets downtown.
Multiple actors with Wilmington ties score roles in season five of "Outer Banks" as well.
Wilmington actor and restaurateur Justin Smith ("Saturday Night"), who's the artistic director of Opera House Theatre Co. and who co-owns a number of area bars and restaurants, including The Rift, reprises his role as the drug runner Barracuda Mike.
Former Wilmington actor Cullen Moss returns and is top-billed as the no-nonsense but increasingly Pogues-sympathetic Sheriff Shoupe. Moss has numerous key scenes in season five.
Former Wilmington actor Jason Davis has a big arc as well, playing the crooked, deliciously douchey developer Dale Zeasy.
Josh and Jonas Pate have a long history of shooting movies and TV projects in the Wilmington area.
In the mid-1990s, the Pates, who are twins, shot a film called "The Grave" in Wilmington. It got into the Sundance Film Festival and kick-started their careers while also exploring many of the treasure-hunting themes they continued to mine in "Outer Banks."
The brothers shot NBC series "Surface" in Wilmington in the mid-2000s, and Jonas Pate created (with Josh as producer) 2025 Amazon series "The Runarounds," about a young band trying to make it big. "The Runarounds" was both set and shot in Wilmington.
Jonas Pate and his wife, Jennifer, co-produced the 2026 movie "Driver's Ed," which starred their daughter, Hoggard High School graduate Lilah Pate, who also starred in "The Runarounds."
According to a story on entertainment industry site Deadline.com, Josh Pate, Jonas Pate and Shannon Burke are working with Netflix to develop a series called "Kildare," described as a "prequel" set 20 years before the beginning of "Outer Banks."
Jonas Pate said he wants to shoot "Kildare" in the Wilmington area, but that North Carolina's film incentive/rebate would have to be enhanced in order for that to happen.
"('Kildare') is coming together and we would love to shoot at home," Pate wrote in a text message. "Hoping to get the rebate sorted soon. … If they don't, it's back to (South Carolina)."
"Outer Banks" was originally supposed to shoot in Wilmington, but Netflix moved the series to South Carolina in 2019 over objections to North Carolina's notorious, since-repealed "bathroom bill."
John Staton is the arts and culture reporter for the StarNews. You can reach him at jstaton@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: No. 1 Netflix show features locally shot scenes, Wilmington actors
