Life is all about perspective and when it comes to some of the more out there storylines on Outer Banks, no one is more willing to remind someone of how lucky they’ve got it than Camila Mendes. Let’s back up.
If you fell off of Outer Banks back in Season 1 or so and tuned into the fifth season, you may be shocked to find out that the Pogues are spending their last adventure in search of a crown that has supposed resurrection properties, far from the island shenanigans that the series started. No one is more surprised about the direction that the story has gone in than the stars themselves, including Jonathan Daviss, who plays Pope in the series.
Sitting down with DECIDER to chat about the final season of the hit Netflix drama, Daviss said that while he can understand fans talking about the “Riverdale-ification” — the term referring to the CW series Mendes starred in from 2017-2023 — of Outer Banks, i.e. the show completely straying from the original storyline and even becoming supernatural, he feels so grateful to be in a program that never went to the extremes that his former castmate’s did.
“Camila Mendes and I did a movie together called Do Revenge and I was complaining and I’m like, ‘Man, like, we’re doing this and we’re doing that [on Outer Banks] and she looked at me and she goes, ‘We have superpowers this year,’ And I’m, like, ‘I’ll shut the hell up. I’m sorry,’” Daviss said with a laugh, adding that Mendes said, “‘My character has slime powers, JD,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ll shut the hell up. That’s my bad.’”
Mendes starred as Veronica Lodge in Riverdale alongside KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch, and Cole Sprouse, with the series (originally) following a group of high school students battling mysterious murders and disappearances in their quaint town. The series was adapted from the Archie Comics but made major departures over the course of the seven-season journey… including the superpowers.
Chase Stokes, who plays John B. in Outer Banks, also spoke with DECIDER and added that he too had his moments where Outer Banks‘ ludicrous storylines had him scratching his head, but that he was glad that the series never went off the rails. “I mean, thankfully we didn’t get hit by a comet, you know, and go back in time like Riverdale did,” the actor said, referencing one of Riverdale‘s more outlandish storylines.
In all actuality, Mendes’ Riverdale character only obtained powers in the show’s sixth season, as the writers of the CW hit introduced the alternate reality of “Rivervale” a parallel universe to Riverdale that features all kinds of supernatural happenings. The show does eventually return to an altered timeline version of the original storyline, however, many of the characters develop powers and abilities.
Thankfully for all of the Outer Banks cast members, things never went to a place as dark and twisted as Riverdale did for its final seasons, although many viewers in the fandom maintain to this day that Season 6 is one of the best seasons the CW show aired. So while the Kooks and the Pogues never had to do sing-along episodes or go to an alternate timeline, the Riverdale cast got to have powers on screen and find out what it means to take a show on a detour that absolutely no one was expecting. So who’s the real winner here?
Outer Banks and Riverdale are both streaming on Netflix.
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