A cliff on the Outer Banks? Here’s why you’re seeing one in new Netflix promo poster

“Oh, the beautiful cliffs of North Carolina’s Outer Banks,” said no one, ever.

Whether you’re a fan or a hater of Netflix’s hit “Outer Banks” series, you may have heard that the show will be back for its third season soon — Feb. 23, to be exact. The streaming platform announced the Season 3 premiere date Tuesday, posting a series of “first look” photos on social media.

And, as it has since the show launched in April 2020, the series is once again generating online discussions and jokes, similar to the one above, about its depictions of North Carolina geography and landscapes.

The supposed gaffe in question this time? The poster features what appears to be much of the show’s cast — the “Pogues,” or the working class locals of the barrier islands — standing on a cliff above the ocean.

Yes, a cliff.

Since the poster was released Tuesday, social media users familiar with the real-life Outer Banks have been commenting on the cliff, believing it to be an error, or at least a misleading photo, that wrongly depicts the landscape of North Carolina’s coast.

“Are the OBX cliffs close to the ferry to Chapel Hill?” one Twitter user asked Wednesday, referencing an infamous Season 1 gaffe on the show that implied two main characters took a ferry from the Outer Banks to Chapel Hill.

So, why is there a cliff on the new poster? Is it supposed to actually be on the real Outer Banks?

We have answers. (Beware: light spoilers ahead.)

Why is there a cliff on new OBX Netflix poster?

We’ll keep this fairly short: No, the cliff is not supposed to be on the real-life Outer Banks.

That’s what’s implied by the ending of the previous season, at least, when the Pogues end up on a deserted island they dub “Poguelandia.”

Though the show is called “Outer Banks” and is set on North Carolina’s coast, much of last season was set away from its namesake locale, as the Pogues continued their quest for hidden treasure that began in Season 1.

The Pogues’ adventures took them to the Bahamas and Charleston, South Carolina, before they returned home to OBX, then left again. At the end of Season 2, they board a large boat. They eventually all go overboard from the large ship, boarding a smaller lifeboat that they take to Poguelandia.

The Season 2 finale shows the Pogues seemingly having a good time on their deserted island, surfing and gathering around a fire, among other activities. (Back home on the Outer Banks, the Pogues are believed to have disappeared, and search efforts, led by the local sheriff, get underway.)

JJ, one of the Pogues, remarks that he plans to make a flag for Poguelandia, to include “a chicken on it.”

The official Season 3 summary from Netflix confirms what the promotional poster and “first look” photos (which show the chicken flag) tease: the Pogues are still in Pogeulandia, not the Outer Banks, to begin Season 3.



From Netflix: “After losing the gold and fleeing the Outer Banks, Season 3 finds the Pogues washed ashore on a desert island that, for a brief moment, seems like an idyllic home. Officially deemed ‘Poguelandia,’ the island’s newest residents spend their days fishing, swimming, and reveling in the carefree lifestyle of their temporary dwelling.”

Though it’s not clear yet how long the Pogues will stay on Poguelandia or if they’ll get back home safely, another promotional photo from Episode 4 shows JJ and Kiara, another Pogue, in a landscape that looks more like the South Carolina filming locale that serves as a stand-in for the real Outer Banks. They also have a motorbike — something the deserted paradise of Poguelandia likely wasn’t equipped with.

The season summary says the Pogues will soon “find themselves once again caught up in a race for the treasure, quite literally running for their lives.”

Where else will the Pogues go this season? We’ll have to watch starting Feb. 23 to find out.

This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 2:16 PM with the headline "A cliff on the Outer Banks? Here’s why you’re seeing one in new Netflix promo poster."

Korie Dean

The News & Observer

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Korie Dean covers higher education in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer, where she is also part of the state government and politics team. She is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill and a lifelong North Carolinian.