With the Royal Merchant’s gold already found, Outer Banks' teens go on a search for the Cross of Santo Domingo, which happens to be based on an episode of The Lone Ranger. Outer Banks season 2 follows the Pogues as they try to clear John B’s name, retrieve the gold stolen by Ward, and find the new relics of the Royal Merchant before a historic South Carolina family can first. As more of the island’s secrets are uncovered, the Netflix show’s teens face their most dangerous adventure yet.
The Pogues discover that the $400 million in gold wasn’t the only treasure Denmark Tanny hid in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, he also stashed the valuable Cross of Santo Domingo and its corresponding key that opens a hatch to the holy garment. Once Pope finds out that the key has been in his family for generations because of his relation to Denmark Tanny, he makes it his personal mission to retrieve the Cross and avenge his ancestors. The search for the Cross takes the Pogues on an even more harrowing journey than Outer Banks season 1 as they face trouble from alternate parties that want it for its riches and supernatural healing power.
While the Royal Merchant is loosely based on a real-life shipwreck, the Cross of Santo Domingo in Outer Banks season 2 is derived from a fictional relic of the same name in a 1956 episode of The Lone Ranger, aptly titled “The Cross of Santo Domingo.” In the episode, the Lone Ranger tracks down a group of thieves who steal the holy cross with the intention of selling its encrusted jewels. A priest from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic comes to return the cross to its home, citing its power to bring happiness and good fortune to the town. The cross is tracked down by the Western series’ masked Ranger and is safely returned to its people.
In The Lone Ranger, the Cross of Santo Domingo is less than a foot tall, isn’t plated in gold, and only houses a few rare jewels worth about $100k to its finder. The cross has much higher stakes for the Outer Banks characters, being plated in gold, seven feet tall, and encrusted in diamonds, which is worth about $1 billion by its hunters’ estimates. Another difference is that in Outer Banks, the cross was a gift from Spain that was being transported on the Royal Merchant, whereas on The Lone Ranger, it had been stolen long ago after being in the possession of a Santo Domingo church.
After the Lone Ranger finally tracks down the location of the cross, the events that follow may actually give a clue to the events of Outer Banks season 3. The jeweler who initially had the cross wanted to sell the cross to pay for doctors to cure his young son Timmy’s illness, which has left him wheelchair-bound. An outlaw threatens to harm the jeweler if he doesn't hand over the cross, leading Timmy to miraculously stand up from his chair and hand over the relic. The Lone Ranger and the family deduce that the healing powers of the cross only worked because Timmy gave it up for selfless reasons. If this same rule applies to Outer Banks, Carla Limbrey, who only wants the cross to cure her own illness and keep herself alive, will have to be completely selfless to achieve such a gift, where her actions were only self-motivated in Outer Banks season 2.