Curse of Oak Island - Season 4 Finale (sort of)

Well, that certainly was a disappointment. After a week of teasing us with the discovery of a gold coin from deep in the fourth hole they dug, and with their archaeological expert (Dr. Lori and whose last name I didn’t write down) saying that it was an important discovery, we finally learn the truth. It wasn’t a gold coin but a gold-plated button and Dr. Lori wasn’t talking about the button when she talked about the amazing artifact but about the cross that a couple of the McGinnis sisters had which had been handed down through several generations. We’d seen it before.

Or, in other words, the tease had been deceptively created to give a false impression that something very important had finally been found during their dig, pointing to a treasure in the Money Pit. That wasn’t the case.

In the two-hour season finale, we got the same old tired rhetoric that they were on the verge of finding proof that there was a treasure hidden in the Money Pit. And when the two, somewhat boring hours were over, they had found nothing to prove there was a treasure, only that lots of people had spent lots of time, lots of effort and lots of money to come up with just a few, tiny gold relics, some old British coins, and lots of wood that had been used in all the other attempts to find the treasure.

The most important revelation, which had been made before, was when the McGinnis sisters returned. One of the three had died of cancer and the remaining two had a small, glass globe with some of her ashes in it to be buried on the island. And while I certainly emphasize with them for their loss, it wasn’t actually relevant to the hunt for the treasure.

They also brought with them that small, gold cross that they had shown to the Lagina boys some time ago, saying that it was part of the treasure recovered by their ancestor. But here’s the thing, or rather two things. First, if what they say is true, then the treasure is gone, found by that ancestor and his two pals, and second, there really is nothing to prove that the cross came from a huge treasure trove. Their expert, Dr. Lori, said that it was old, of a style that suggested it was of Spanish origin, and that at one time it was covered by jewels (emeralds) that had been removed.

Once we have disposed of this, and seemingly forgotten about the gold-plated button, they returned to continue their digging which reportedly has cost three or four million this year alone. They keep pulling up wood until they hit a metal obstruction that others had reported in the past and had failed to penetrate. But in the world today there are methods that weren’t available a century ago and they break through. They had pulled up pieces of metal that might have protected or been part of equipment used in those earlier excavations. They don’t know what they have other than it doesn’t seem to be modern and a suggestion that it is not from a treasure but from the search of others for the treasure.

Having penetrated the metal obstruction, they continued down but had to stop because their casing which guided the equipment wasn’t long enough to protect the equipment. In other words, they could lose a valuable piece of equipment and the owner/operator didn’t want to take the risk. Digging, for the season, was over.

They did pull up another bit of metal that was bent in the middle and had several holes in it. Again, they thought it looked old. They returned to Dr. Lori who told them that the piece of metal was just the sort of thing they would use on treasure chests back in the time of pirates and chests of gold. The problem, as I understood it, was that the metal would be used on all sorts of chests including those storing clothes and other personal but not necessarily valuable items. On Oak Island, everything is related to pirates, treasures or the Knights Templar.

Dr. Lori looked at other things they had found including the spike that she identified as part of an old sailing ship which also suggested pirates, the old coins which were established as British, and then learned about the wooden planks and parts found in the swamp. This seemed to underscore the theory that a ship had been sunk into the swamp centuries ago which bolstered Dan Blankenship’s theory that they hid the treasure, or parts of it, in plain sight.

So, let’s recap the four years of digging, diving, traveling, exploring (and maybe throw in some stuff that went on decades and centuries ago). They have found lots of wood from other attempts to find the money. They remind us that there was a stone found at the 90-foot level that had strange makings on it but that no one bothered to photograph and that has since disappeared. There was a three-link gold chain of which we do have pictures. And then all the stuff that is not particularly valuable or relevant for us. Nothing that proves there is treasure on the island, only that people have been there for centuries, many of them looking for the treasure.

I don’t know how much money has been spent, I do not know what the Laginas or any of the others are paid for being on the show and I don’t believe they will ever find anything of value because there is nothing of value to find. Had they taken the money and invested it in blue chip stocks or even money market or savings accounts (and with the amount of money they had, they could have hit some very favorable rates) they would have made a great deal more.

Next season they will be back but I’m not sure (with the exception of the Blankenships) if they still believe they will find anything of value. It might just be for the excitement of doing a TV show, getting a nice summer vacation without having to pay for it, and getting a nice check for being a reality TV star. If there is money to be made on Oak Island, it is in the TV show and in any books that are written about it and not treasure from the Incas or the Aztecs or the Knights Templar or the Spanish pirates or British pirates. As I have said, the real treasure is in the TV show and not the ground.