In Netflix’s Outer Banks, the show prides itself on its teens being more adult than usual. It’s why parents accept they’re treasure hunters destined for wild chases. This adds intensity, drama and action, especially with Outer Banks Season 3 searching for El Dorado.

It allows the likes of John B to cut an Indiana Jones-like figure, with Sarah and Kiara giving off some Tomb Raider energy. Unfortunately, Outer Banks continues to make a big mistake with its female characters. In the process, it takes away from their maturity with knee-jerk reactions that don’t add up.

Outer Banks Rushes Sarah into Cheating

Outer Banks Season 3 has John B hiding clues because his father, Big John, is pressuring him about keeping the City of Gold secret. Big John doesn’t trust Sarah because she’s Ward Cameron’s daughter, which leads to her questioning John B’s loyalty. Shockingly, she goes off and briefly gets back with her ex, Topper. It’s a story direction that doesn’t feel organic to her character, their relationship or the narrative.

In Sarah’s case, she’s married to John B, and while they’re young, it’s not puppy love. There’s nuance in the relationship, so it’s an odd creative choice to have her make this rash decision without so much as an argument. It’s also the reason John is shaken when the truth emerges. Worse yet, Topper is written as still being head over heels for Sarah. Thus, she is depicted as using Topper to have a place to stay and food to eat. This then ties into how JJ and Co. goaded her earlier to flirt and get Topper to escort them on a mission. In this case, Sarah knew the stakes. Topper is toxic, but the story direction is done to stir the pot with her and John B. This effectively gets him in a place to beat Topper up and become a villain in town once more.

Outer Banks Repeats the Kiara Mistake

There’s nothing wrong with teens embracing their sexuality and making impulsive decisions, as it’s part of growing up. But Outer Banks compounds the flaw by not having Sarah clarify when she admits the mistake to John B. It seems like just a kiss, but the writing makes it sound like so much more. This facilitates John B to think she wanted to get back at him. It’s a development that calls back to Kiara, who slept with Pope in Season 2 after she was rejected by John B. Like Topper with Sarah, Pope is also depicted as being in love with Kiara.

Kiara may not have been written as using Pope the way Sarah was with Topper, but it’s still a huge disservice to Outer Banks‘ female leads to lazily depict them sleeping with male characters as the catalyst for conflict within the Pogues. The fact Kiara dumped Pope soon after upset fans of the show, and Sarah is written as doing the same to Topper, sending him over the edge. Though Topper did help the out crew when they were in a bind and John B was off with his dad, this doesn’t change the fact that he is a jerk. Thus, it’s symptomatic of lazy writing to present Sarah and Kiara as cruelly making these bad calls so that the male characters can deem them heartless.

In Sarah’s case, just being with Topper alone is more than enough to set John B off. Nothing physical is even needed as she already knew John B hated the elitist stance Topper stands for with the Kooks. Instead, Outer Banks could benefit to treat Sarah as an elevated character — something that was course-corrected for Kiara and JJ’s romance, with a jealous Pope coping. The latter is handled tastefully, honoring all bonds and developments of the people involved. But per Sarah and Topper, Outer Banks presents character arcs that paint the women as evil.

Ultimately, it leaves Sarah and John B’s arc cheapened, right after they both professed they were soulmates. Had there been chemistry, or a slow build highlighting remnants of a past love between Sarah and Topper, the characters’ actions would’ve made sense. But like Pope and Kiara, the show simply follows a rash path for shock factor — something Outer Banks Season 4 will hopefully rectify.