The Mole, Week 2

I've now had the chance to catch up on this week's episode of The Mole, that ran while I was in Las Vegas.

As FKL wisely pointed in last week's discussion, failure to obtain a bag during the waterfall mission does not necessarily eliminate anyone as a suspect, what with the whims of the currents carrying people away from the mark. So while I agree that no one should be eliminated as a suspect solely based on their performance in that first mission, I still choose to focus my greatest suspicions on the players who performed well there.

As a refresher, that means I was looking at Kristen, Clay, Mark, and Liz this week. I was already well on my way to discounting Liz entirely, and then she went and got executed, closing the door on that. Of the remaining three, I thought it was Kristen who emerged as a stellar Mole candidate this week.

Let me begin with the weakest "evidence" first. It seems unlikely to me that the producers would really give away three exemptions in a single episode of the game. And they do often give explicit instructions to the Mole, such as "make sure when this game comes up, you put yourself in this position." I believe this is what could have happened with the three exemptions of this episode, which were claimed by Kristen, Mark, and Paul. As the Mole, any of the three could have been instructed to take the role that put them in the position to easily claim an exemption (leaving only two true ones to be given away).

Working up from there to the next weakest evidence is Kristen's performance in the Pigs mission. She pushed Bobby around in that wheelbarrow without complaint toward Bobby or Craig (her "teammates" in the challenge), and without complaining to any of the other sub-teams she encountered down in the village. But as soon as she got back to the pig pen and everyone else returned, she started whining long and loud about how she got stuck pushing Bobby.

First of all, what a great way to very publicly make the case that she was working her ass off while someone else was contributing nothing. Absolutely the sort of thing the Mole should do. And secondly, she waited until everyone was there in one place to start the complaining -- so that everyone would hear it all at once. If she'd whined on the way down to the village, whined while roaming the village, and whined back up at the pig pen, that would have been over the top. That would have been exactly the sort of behavior that got Nicole so hated in the first episode. This way, everybody gets to know of her "selfless act" all at one time, without her needing to truly belabor the point. Again, behavior perfectly in line for a Mole.

Finally, I'll move up to what I consider the strongest evidence, the "Uphill Battle" portion of the soccer mission. Like the Waterfall mission, here was an opportunity for the Mole to go all out and not risk putting money in the pot. Now of course, any player would do the same in this situation, with an exemption on the line, so that doesn't tell the whole tale. Not to mention that Mark was also one of my prime suspects from last week. So why focus on her and not him?

Consider this: once she and Mark abandoned the ride and started jogging, Mark started talking about his exhaustion and saying how hard it was to push the bike. Kristen said she'd be happy to push the bike because she wasn't tired, though Mark refused this offer. Then Jon, the host, shows up with the offer to take a taxi the rest of the way, in exchange for $5000 from the pot. Mark immediately refused the offer, but Kristen -- who just said she wasn't tired -- was willing to entertain it. Now granted, she didn't push too hard for it, but Mark was clearly dead set against it, and the Mole can't push too hard when sabotaging, for fear of making it look obvious. But to me, that move made her the number one Mole suspect at this point in the game.

Meanwhile, two other players made moves that made it conclusive in my mind that they aren't the Mole.

In the soccer mission, after the goal had finally been scored and everybody started running off in different directions, bickering and arguing about which way to go, Victoria jumped in and said, "we need to work as a team!" There's no way the Mole would make that move. If the team is falling apart all on its own and sabotaging its own chances to win money, then the Mole's job is to sit back quietly and do nothing. Or, alternately, divert suspicion by coming through in the clutch and making a big move to "save the team." But simply trying to rally everybody like a coach and say, "let's all work together." No way. I say Victoria can't be the Mole.

Then there was Craig's performance in the Pigs mission. Sure, his team sucked it hard in finding the pottery pigs to bring back. But when he returned to the arena, Alex was dominating the show, doing the slingshot thing all wrong, and unwilling to let anybody in to have a try. Again, the Mole could just sit back there and do nothing, watching the team fail without any "help." But Craig, enough of a teddy bear not to raise the hackles of an Alpha Dog like Alex, was able to talk his way into holding one end of the slingshot. And suddenly, where there had been no successful catches before, they caught 26. That's money that Craig is more or less directly responsible for putting in the pot. Sure, as I said, sometimes I could see it making sense for the Mole to jump in and be the hero, but I just don't buy it in this situation. $0 to $26,000 is an awfully big jump in money for the Mole to have contributed.

There you have it, my thoughts on week two. Nicole, Bobby, Craig, and Victoria are now all off my list. Kristen is absolutely number one, with Clay and Mark lagging considerably farther behind. Alex, Ali, and Paul all live somewhere in the no man's land between.