I'm not sure that this week's episode provided a lot more ammunition in support of my "Kristen is the Mole" theory, but I'm nevertheless going to stand by it. And here's what I can piece together in support of it.Kristen really spearheaded the heavy exemption talk among her team during the Andes hike mission, essentially being the one to convince the group to leave extra bricks behind to get up the mountain faster. That kept money out of the pot. Then, just like last week during the Dress Code mission, she was completely silent and without complaint for most of the journey, trying to fade into the background.
It does break down a bit that she didn't fight harder against Clay for the exemption. I think she could not have stubbornly held her ground to keep ALL the money out of the pot, because that sort of stubbornness would be completely against the character she has established in the game to this point. But I am wondering if she at least made the argument that Paul mentioned in his confesssional -- that she carried more gold than any of them. Seems like she could have put up a little more of a fight. What didn't we see in the editing?
In the mission involving the quotes from journals, it was a gimme for her to guess her question correctly, since Nicole's stupid theatrics were clearly going to get that money disqualified anyway.
If I really was playing the game, though, this would be the week I'd really have to lay it all out on the line. I think the time has come in the game where simply playing the odds during the quiz would not be enough to stick around; only seven real players were left, and one had an exemption! You'd have to start answering based on a real suspicion. And it happened this week that virtually every answer you could give that included Kristen as the Mole was flying totally in the face of the odds:
There are now more men than women in the game. Most of the players wore jeans (blue pants) to the mission, but she wore black. She was the only player to have her answer in the Quotes mission disqualified.
Basically, answering questions assuming she's the Mole seemed this week a sure fire way to get executed if you're wrong. Which means, I suppose, there could have been two viable quiz taking strategies.
One, you could go all out answering that it's Kristen. If you survive that round without being executed, then you'd know you had the answer.
Two, you could try and split your answers. Play the odds on about half of your questions (like the "disqualified" question), but go with Kristen on the other half. Maybe splitting would give you just enough correct answers to keep rolling while you collect more intel.
But I think I'd go with number one. Would I still be in the game at this point? I think so... but I guess we'll only know for sure when the final episode arrives.
3 comments:
Interesting episode, but I think burning the journals was a bad piece of game design on the part of the producers, because in doing so they were automatically penalizing the players who do use their journals.
I think it was an absolute certainty that the player who would volunteer to have his journal destroyed was someone who didn't really use it anyway. There's no way someone like Mark would have sacrificed his journal. Thus, the producers knew they were punishing those who were actually following the rules. "Use your journal to record your thoughts and observations and to prepare for the quiz..."
So for one thing, I think this decision was as arbitrary as saying "This week we'll give an undue advantage to the male players." Bad game design.
For another thing, I feel burning the journals actually goes against the basic rules of the game. You're told that this is the place where you can plan your strategy for the game and record whatever you feel you need to record. And then, not even halfway through, they take that away. WTF?
Taking away your clothes and saying your next mission if to find them back, that's ok. But this was almost as if they'd said, after everyone had answered the quiz, "All right! This week we've decided that the person who gets eliminated is the one who's scored the HIGHEST on the quiz. We know, we told you before that this basic rule of the game was the opposite, but hell, we've just changed our minds."
I don't like this one bit.
Now... if they come back next week saying they made copies of the journals -- which in effect would mean that the players had to go through one quiz *without* their journals (still cracking the basic rules of the game, but I could live with that), then it would turn out to be a rather hot idea (with an interesting psychological effect more than anything else).
But will they do that? I have my doubts.
FKL
I also thought the journal torching was very cruel. (the type of cruel where only the prankster gets the joke and the victim is genuinely injured) that guy's head was about to explode! I was wondering if they magic-act-style switched them for fake journals before they were burnt up, but from the player's reactions I don't think that was the case. but that's the benefit of "producing" the show to manipulate what we see. I think if they were getting the journals back next week they would have put that in the preview for next week's episode? (let the audience in on the joke?)
I was also wondering why nobody tried to think of a more clever way to carry bricks up a mountain? like tie the jackets into a sled or something... very uncreative thinking on that challenge.
the mole
I didn't mention the burning of the journals basically because I didn't like it either. I agree with your assessment -- it seemed unnecessarily punitive and unfair, and I can totally understand Mark's reaction.
Really, it felt like more of a typical "reality show" moment of drama, rather than an engineered bit of gameplay. And that's a shame, because I like The Mole for the good gameplay and for being much LESS like a regular reality show.
I too doubt that the journals will be returned.
And to "the Mole," right on! Yeah, somebody should have thought of a better way to get more bricks up the mountain. I'm sure the producers were ready for something like that -- they'd clearly put more bricks at the bottom of the mountain than could be simply carried in backpacks.
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