Reviews Of Blah: The Curse of Oak Island S05E09

Synopsis

A research expedition to a French castle reveals new clues, including ancient carvings that could link the Knights Templar to Oak Island.

What I thought

In Money Pit the large 50” hole in H8 is starting to take shape with only 10ft done thus far. Casing is being joined up and prepped but it’ll be several days until they get down to a decent depth of 200ft.

Meanwhile, in PARIS, Rick, Alex and Peter are off to meet their new researcher Nichola and head on a train to meet the Rochefoucauld family in Charente whilst nattering about the last 5 seasons and more of Oak Island history. Hopefully they didn’t do a narrator recap every 5 minutes to her. However, we do get a reminder of a large rock on Oak Island with symbols on it that was blown up in 1921 in the hope of finding treasure underneath but alas they found nothing and destroyed evidence in process. And to think I complain and the Laginas??? However, one small rock did remain with H O on it as well as a cross with symbols around it which the Knight’s Templar also had on their shields and that it might be written in Greek. The researcher is really convinced on the Templars being involved. At Rochefoucauld Castle, they are greeted by the curator to show them around. This castle begun being created in late 10^th century to protect against Vikings. Rick shows off the map with the family name on it. She says her family were involved in the crusades and may as well met the Templars, but she’s not heard of any evidence. She says the writing on that map is in Old French (or slang) and says the top right writing relates to ‘in the direction’ of, and not something about a drink that the researcher thought, who probably was consuming a few bottles whilst she was doing the translation! She gives them the keys to go down the tunnels underneath the castle which has no foundations but is instead on top of a large rock. It’s impressive down there but there’s no carvings, which she says is probably because they’ve been washed away as river used to be diverted down there. Now that’s how you clear up a mystery quickly!

Next day in France the team head to the village of Domme, were they met Jerry Glover, a Templar expert, who has arranged them to visit a 14^th century castle called The Dome; I see what they did there with the village name. The Knight Templars were arrested, imprisoned and executed here and thus spent a lot of time banged up in a building where they carved lots of various shapes on the wall (allegedly via their teeth!!!), of which the expert says to Rick that what Rick calls the Templar Cross isn’t exclusive to the Templars but more used by crusades. Rick also believes that one of the symbols looks like the Rochefoucauld family emblem. Is that a link? It’s safe to say that this expert gave more information about Templars than the Rochefoucauld lady although she did translate a bit of the map. There’s also a link, made by Rick, of the tree of life symbol to Nolan’s Cross. This concludes their visit to France, which in my view was totally unnecessary as all this information they could have got elsewhere or via the new technology called the Internet. Maybe Rick had built up some airmiles to use?

Back on Lot 24, Samuel Ball’s lot, with Gary the metal master, Laird the archaeologist, Marty and Jim. Laird has them doing things properly as they gradually remove dirt, sift it and slowly uncover more rocks. Laird thinks the stone formations indicate a man-made floor, but it’s not a large structure so maybe a lookout post? They also find some pottery that Laird dates to around 18^th century.

War Room meeting, everyone is back. They go over pretty much what we’ve just seen from their France visit. It’s the same old stuff regurgitated, as is the last minute of the episode as the casing in the Money Pit is shown drilling onwards to it’s first target of 100ft odd.

Rating 5/10 – I understand their visit to France but all of that could have been gained quicker and just as easily without heading anywhere. On the island, very little activity or progress.