In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Outer Banks star Charles Esten (The Postman, Nashville) discusses his character’s fate. This article will contain spoilers for season three.
Outer Banks season three debuted on February 23rd. It has dominated Netflix’s Top Ten chart and has already been renewed for fourth season. The newest installment, via People, follows the Pogues: “They find themselves once again caught up in a race for the treasure, quite literally running for their lives. They’re broke and far from home, they can’t trust anyone, Ward and Rafe are hungry for revenge, and there’s a ruthless Caribbean Don who will stop at nothing to find the bounty. Was the treasure ever within their reach? Or was it all a trap to stop them once and for all? Either way, it’s the Pogues against the world – and the only way out is together.”
Esten portrays Ward Cameron, who has a complicated history with the Pogues and often served as the antagonist of the series. Season three will be the end for Ward, however, as he pushed Lou Ferrigno Jr.’s Ryan (Stargirl, S.W.A.T.) down a cliff in an effort to save his daughter, Sarah, played by Madelyn Cline (Glass Onion, This Is the Night).
He says of his character: “It’s been very gratifying to me because it’s not often that the bad guy gets any kind of emotional arc. But from the very beginning, they put it in the lines, and they allowed me to run wild with it, is that other side of Ward that makes people not exactly sure they hate him — where they might just see a human being under there. It was gratifying to get to explore that, but it also made total sense to me because, at the end of season two, Ward has everything — all the gold, the cross, he got away. Once he recovers, he won. And meanwhile, the Pogues have nothing — literally the shirts on their back, and they’re on a deserted island — and they have everything. Because they have each other. They have the family that Ward has supposedly always been fighting for, and to my mind is the real treasure of the show. We’re all chasing this gold, but in the end, they walk away with that, and Ward walks away with nothing. Not only that, he’s walking away with these horrible memories of laying his hands on his daughter, choking her. The other thing is, not only does the audience not really know to the end, I don’t know how soon the writers knew how it was gonna go out. It was just an interesting line to follow of, is he authentic? Is he feeling this? Is he using this to get the other gold? Why should anybody trust Ward? The answer is, they shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean things can’t happen within him.”
He also discusses Ward’s death scene: “There were different outcomes of that scene. To my mind, we landed on the one that is by far the most meaningful and the most interesting. Sometimes things just work out, and a lot of it is the writers being utterly available to what’s gonna work in that moment and what’s gonna really make the audience feel something. There’s a spot early on — in fact, in one of the ads — where Ward is with Sarah. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since they were on the boat and the terrible fight at the end of that scene. Sarah is telling Ward how much he’s hurt her, and he’s saying how sorry he is. Later, she says, ‘Remember when you told me you would do anything for me?’ And Ward looks at her, and he says, ‘Anything.’ It was just true in the moment. If he was being authentic — and that was always the question — well, he ends up proving it, which is really special and sweet to me because I love the human beings, man. They’re fascinating and interesting and maddening and glorious, in all these different ways. So you don’t want to play anybody that’s less than that. You want to play somebody that has all these facets.”
When asked about possibly returning for season four, Esten adds that he doesn’t know, but “it’s a flat-out impossibility that I come back, short of a flashback.”
Esten shared a series of photos featuring him and a few cast members on Instagram.
Season three of Outer Banks is available exclusively on Netflix.