OBX 's Chase Stokes on Season 2, Working with Girlfriend Madelyn Cline: 'It Gets A Lot Crazier'

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John B is back!

Season 2 of Netflix's breakout treasure hunt drama Outer Banks isn't expected to premiere until later this year, but as Chase Stokes tells PEOPLE, fans should prepare for the adventures to "get a hell of a lot crazier."

For the last couple of months, Stokes, 28, and the rest of the Outer Banks crew have been filming the show's upcoming season on location in South Carolina.

Season 1 ended on a massive cliffhanger that saw teens John B (played by Stokes) and Sarah Cameron (played by Stokes's girlfriend, Madelyn Cline) alive after evading police and miraculously outsmarting a hurricane. Presumed dead by everyone back home, they sailed off to the Bahamas to search for gold.

That leaves the rest of the Pogues — JJ (Rudy Pankow), Pope (Jonathan Daviss) and Kiara (Madison Bailey) — navigating life on North Carolina's sandy beaches without their daring, Hawaiian shirt-clad leader. "These kids are really going to be pushed to their limits," Stokes says.

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One of the biggest changes within the Outer Banks world actually happened off-screen. Last June, Stokes and Cline — who play on-screen lovers — announced their real-life romance on Instagram.

"It's been a lot of fun to drive together to work, come home and throw ideas off of each other about different scenes, collaborating, watching her get excited about her work and be her cheerleader," Stokes says.

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He continues: "The beautiful thing for us is that our relationship was established as friends and coworkers prior to what we have now. The biggest difference now is I get to be even more proud of her as my partner when I watch her work."

"Especially this year, not just her, but everybody in the show has increased their performances and worked super hard on everything that we're doing right now," he adds. "I'm in the background, kind of like a stage mom, watching her absolutely crush it and going, 'That was awesome!'"

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In between shooting scenes, Stokes says, the cast has been experimenting with different, fun activities to pass the time: movie marathons, playing cards, axe-throwing, and even a Nerf-gun war.

"Nerf sent us probably 50 Nerf guns with a lot of ammo," he says. "We live in the same apartment complex, so me, Drew, Maddie and JD set up an entire war zone in the hallway at 3 in the morning, just blasting each other … we snuck into Rudy's room and blasted him while he was sleeping, too!"

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So will John B and Sarah Cameron find the Royal Merchant treasure in the Bahamas? Will they be reunited with the rest of the Pogues? Stokes won't say, because the mystery is just what makes Outer Banks so fun.

"The glory of last year was that nobody knew what was going to happen, nobody knew what was coming," he says. "But I think people are really going to enjoy season 2 … it has a very, very beautiful message."

A premiere date for season 2 of Outer Banks has not yet been announced.