Whereas many of History’s most popular reality series — like “Pawn Stars,” for example — shed light on niche professions, “The Curse of Oak Island,” rather, chronicles an ongoing treasure hunt. In each episode, series leads Rick and Marty Lagina attempt to further their efforts to search the island mentioned in the show’s title for hidden treasure. In short, decades worth of rumors have claimed that Nova Scotia’s Oak Island is the site of various treasures purportedly linked to popular conspiracy theory subjects like William Shakespeare and the Knights Templar. The Lagina brothers, therefore, are attempting to put these rumors to rest, whether that means uncovering long lost artifacts, or debunking those longstanding theories once and for all.
Sometimes the efforts of the Lagina brothers and the experts they enlist are fruitful, leading them to artifacts of varying historical relevancy. On other occasions, however, fans have become critical of the Lagina brothers for employing what they perceive to be faulty research methods. In a Season 9 episode, for example, some fans became frustrated when the team confused labels on a treasure map.
Similarly, some fans on Reddit recently recalled a time the “Curse of Oak Island” team uncovered what looked like a promising lead, only to never return to it again.
The Lagina brothers never returned to their supposed flood tunnel
Midway into the run of “Curse of Oak Island” Season 9, one Reddit user started a thread on the series’ official subreddit titled “Did the show ever follow up on what was thought to be a flood tunnel near Smith’s cove?” recounting how, in an earlier episode, the Lagina brothers and co. located what seemed to be a flood tunnel. Finding an authentic flood tunnel would be huge for the Lagina brothers’ research, given that the island’s holy grail, so to speak, is contained within a pit rumored to be protected by a system that will flood it if it’s excavated improperly. Locating a flood tunnel, then, would mean finding one of the mechanisms used to protect the pit, and thus lead them directly to the island’s most well-known treasure.
User redwoods_orthodox proposed in response that the team never returned to the tunnel as a way to artificially prolong their treasure hunt, and thus the series. User prospero_duke, meanwhile, shared their belief that the tunnel visibly contains some barrels, indicating that it’s manmade, and presumably a worthwhile lead. Finally, user AnySignature7753 suggested that “it was nothing and they moved on to not look dumb.”
In either case, some viewers seem to feel that they’re in the dark about the tunnel’s relevancy or lack thereof, given that it was dropped from the series entirely and has yet to reappear.