First off - ooooooooooooooh Green. I like the new color scheme :)
Anyhow, I'm crossposting my big ol' mess from the abc boards here for those that don't go there. Hope you enjoy.
Hey Mole fans, greetings to the new folks and hello to the familiar names from seasons gone by. Some of you may have been anticipating my
breakdown of the episodes, so I apologize for the delay - a lot of personal business got in the way of me providing this breakdown earlier. For
those who don't know me, I was quite voluminous in my musings during the earlier seasons of the show (and was known to make a little mischief here and
there as well).
A couple notes, first off, by way of explanation of my methodology. First off, I don't do the spoiler thing. Frankly I'm trying not even to look at any of the previews for future episodes as they might give away who advances and who doesn't. Please don't put spoilers in this thread - I've waited way too long for this new season. In terms of analysis, mostly I try to be textbook in the sense that I examine what the players do, how they react, as well as the situations they get put in and how they got there (more on this in my first episode summary actually). I do look for the hidden clues but I really don't expect them to become too apparent until perhaps later on in the season. I'll cop to the fact that I don't read that many other threads (see fear of spoilers) so I apologize if any of this is redundant and been beat to death in another thread. I did manage to notice someone picked up on a Biblical thread seeming to run through episode one and I think these kind of analyses are perfectly valid as previous seasons have tended to show a literary flair. Being a tv show, though, I'm sure they're more than happy to take a little creative license here and there. I do think that the website profiles are fair game, but I also seem to recall in past years that wasn't all that helpful. (Darwin was a fan of Chuck Close paintings - a guy who by sheer dumb coincidence does a lot of work with paintings involving fingerprints).
Finally, before I start, I have to say how pleased I am that this in fact a real edition of the Mole in the spirit of the first 2 seasons. I think the episode one challenges were great, well designed and executed. The opening sequence was well done as well (gotta love how far computer graphics have come in the last few years) though somehow I'm not sure if or where any hidden clue will come up there (I noticed a date of birth shown - but it was in 1970, a year none of the players were born in). Personally I think they were just about having fun with the frame-by-frame crowd (though I could swear that field shown at the very beginning of the episode had a thumb-print in it - naah).
Anyhow, on to the episode.
Clearly the Mole wasn't put in charge of the assignments of the other players (seeing as the players themselves picked who played this role, that's not a big surprise) and boy did Marcie suck at assigning the bags. Clay and Mark had money in their bags and succeeded. Liz, Kristen, Nicole, and Bobby (who was Livid) got their bags but had no money. It's not clear who the other no-money person was but out of the other 5, 4 of 'em missed bags that had money. (Victoria - nice helmet btw, Paul, Alex, Ali, and Craig - who you'd figure woulda been the last no-money bag). All but Craig could reasonably suspect they may have had cash, so if the mole acted early these guys would get a bump up from that. Oddly Liz, if the Mole, would get a very likely freeroll here - since it seems that picking her to get the bag over the others is just too implausible. Succeeding would give her good cover if she's the Mole. I think there was a decent chance, however, for some Molish play actually. That first steer of the boat really seemed to be the cruial moment in the challenge. The folks turning left were that much more suspect there.
The accommodation picking is another brilliant thing to do on the first night (still trying to figure out exactly what Marcie's criteria were, not that it mattered). It paved the way though for really the two stars of episode one. If Nicole is the Mole she's decided to "play it big" - her reaction to being left outside was indeed priceless as well as her insistence on staying up all night (when you know there's a challenge the next day, it would just seem ludicrous to stay up all night). Ya gotta figure she was perhaps more than a little distracting to the comfortable sleepers as well. This is where Paul came in. This dude got an unbelievable amount of confessional time and general face time as well. He is sure to complain about Nicole upsetting their sleep. Actually he seems to direct a lot of heat toward Nicole in most of the episode - if he is the Mole, he's stumbled upon his perfect foil.
I found a couple other interesting things ahead of the next challenge. Paul totally starts bossing and appoints Alex and himself as the drivers. If he is the Mole, it is brilliant strategy to have such a transparent alliance - he just looks like a clumsy player. If he truly suspects Alex as the Mole (which he didn't indicate in confessionals but just may be the case) it probably helps to keep his enemy close he figures. Now at the outset of the challenge, the fact than Jon wants the biggest whiner is just way too convenient with the way that Nicole has behaved (it's interesting to ponder if she was inside the cabin and still found a way to complain). I always look for these kind of "coincidences" as they may indicate where the producers want the Mole to be in a challenge. But, you'll say, the team got 15k out of that challenge - she even made some reasonable decisions on roles (Mark as history teacher does in fact seem like a good choice for appraiser, a brain surgeon and the not-likely-physical Liz also make sense on a certain level). The (first) choice of Craig as a runner seems whack, but is not completely ridiculous if one is trying to make strong appraisers. Anyhow, I got a little off track here. This is a challenge where just about anybody can act like the Mole anyway. You gotta figure on day one the players will want to look as suspect in the challenge aspect as possible. The real reason that it seems very convenient that Nicole got to be in the power position was as follows: 1) she got an exemption on the first night - for such an obvious choice to be in that position it almost would be unfair if she were a player; 2) taking her out of the picture if she's the Mole totally gives all the other players a great opportunity to observe each other (and not her) and become suspicious of the others; 3) If the plan was for her to stay up all night, sticking her alone on the beach for the rest of the day was probably a great way to get her rested up for the days ahead without being obvious about it; 4) This also would be a great time for her to game plan with the producers about how to approach the players now that they've gotten a look at how they interact. Brought together, it's pretty powerful.
The challenge did show me certain things about the others: 1) Bobby just really seems like a bad actor; 2) The scavengers really did seem to get into a grab anything mode - hell it was Marcie who brought the vacuum clear to the table!; 3) Paul was both screwing up but also deflecting onto others like mad aiming at Nicole and then later aiming at the appraisers; 4) Liz made a subtle mistake with the Victrola but I'm not sure that I didn't hear Mark call for it too; 5) Mark was trying really hard - I couldn't help but notice that there was a chance for them to dump out one of the 3 correct times (they had all 3 on their 2nd attempt) but they did not dump any of the good items when they made their last attempt. I think the Mole could've really gotten away with say, switching out the guns, without really arousing a ton of suspicion.
Anyhow, onto the symbolic stuff that seems to going on. It's all about the Bible really (heck that was one of the correct items in the challenge). They started in a city called Los Angeles. Jon alludes to the Last Supper (btw adding one more thing into the Nicole pile is the fact that Judas left the Last Supper - was the traitorous Mole kept out of there by design?). The images were very religious during the quiz too - holy statues, a picture of Jesus being Crucified. It's gotta be the most religious imagery this side of a Mike Huckabee ad. Heck, even after the one commercial break that cow was standing in front of a Church. But it wasn't just Nicole that gets suspicion from that imagery. Paul is a good biblical name after all. Could it be a clever pun on Kris-ten? Probably a stretch. Ali did seem to talk a lot about God though, so in a certain way it could point in her direction. And didn't Mark write one of the Gospels? The mind boggles.
One other random thought that I'm sure has been caught. The last question of the quiz didn't quite have the alphabetical order right. Ali was listed before Alex - it really should be the other way around. Just a thought.
Anyhow time for my Mole percentages for Week 1:
12) Marcie. Duh. She's gone but she got the full Manuel exit treatment which was nice. Her narrative seemed to end up being an appendage of Paul's story line which might be a longer one. Or it could be a handy misdirect for the viewers.
11) Mark. Perhaps he was referring to his strategy of being Mole when he said he come out too strong in the challenges, but I really think that he just got too into the competitive aspect and will have a hard time selling himself as a Mole to his fellow players. The waterworks about his family did come across weird. I can't really make anybody a zero in week one but right now I gotta put him at 0.9%. Mark's not the Mole
10) Liz. I find it hard to believe that the Mole would do nothing at all to screw anybody up in week one or at least try to throw suspicion someone else's way in the process. The victrola thing just seemed weak. If you were gonna screw up the appraiser part of the challenge you would probably be more apt to try and use up the 3 bell rings too soon.. Just don't see it being her. Mole probability is 1.1%. Liz is not the Mole.
9) Clay. He got a bag at a time when logic would dictate it probably had money in it. A good set-up for a deep mole game I guess. He was useless in the scavenger challenge, but heck there were like 7 moles in that challenge. I can't really close the book on him as yet but he'll have to show me more to get me think he's the Mole. Mole probablility 1.5%. Clay ain't the Mole.
8) Craig. He did come pretty damn close to getting that bag but did fail. And I guess that's ideally how the Mole would do it. Still, what really are the chances that Marcie would have thought that Craig would succeed anyway? Probably not as high as her picking someone else for the money would have been. A Molish Craig would know this and be more apt to succeed. Like Clay, he didn't really do much in the challenge. It just seems to implausible that he'd be the Mole since it seems like the physical elements are almost designed for him to fail just on his own without chicanery. Again I guess there's that glimmer that the Mole really did bring his own sign to the table. Or perhaps he just thought it was ridiculous to be out there and that was in own cute way of protesting. Mole probability 1.7%. Craig ain't the Mole.
7) Bobby. He says he's a student of the game. Well the student would have to know that you can't really succeed all the time if you're going to trick anyone into thinking you're the Mole. He just seems to be overdoing it a bit. I also really felt that he looked genuinely stressed when his name was entered during the elimination ceremony. I won't bury him in the sand just yet, but at 1.8% Mole probability, Bobby is not the Mole.
I will say at this point that this is where my tiers break off for the first time. I really doubt one of the first 5 I listed will prove out to be the mole. On to the middle of the back. The next 4 still have pretty low Mole percentages, but there is room to grow.
6) Kristen. Hrm. She got a bag when she was supposed to, in a situation that it'd be reasonable to expect here to get money. Not exactly suspicious there. Not sure she did a helluva lot as an appraiser either. Dang, she might be too high here and probably belongs in the first group. I put too much stock in the Christ/Kristie thing, I think. Put her at 2.5% Mole Probability. Kristen's not the Mole.
5) Victoria. Would they really go out of their way to be so obvious as to give the Mole the one helmet with a green thumbprint? Or was it a fluke that perhaps her head was the only one that needed a helmet in that particular size? She failed in that first challenge and didn't even stand up - I mean she really did pretty bad there. I know that Marcie brought the goat and Bible up herself, I'm not sure about the musket. But if it wasn't Victoria she ended up being useless there. While it'd be a bit more appropriate if she were from Corpus Chirsti, Bishop Texas still has a Biblical feel to it, right? Her confessions seemed to be flattering to Mole, which would be cute of course if it were her. Was having a Victrola there a clever pun on Victoria? She also did one small piece of directing of action by being the first to volunteer Nicole as the whiner. Her relief at not being executed seemed pretty genuine. Probably not enough there. Mole probablility 4.5%. Victoria isn't the Mole.
4) Ali. She failed to get a bag that probably had money. That effort was seriously weak - she seemed to guide the boat the wrong way and then leapt just short at the end. She did seem to work more than Paul did as a timekeeper, though she did a decent amount of yelling at him too it seemed. She did seem a bit nervous when she was entered during the elimination ceremony. She's a girl that loves God - and that does seem to tie with at least episode one's theme. Was her name purposely put out of order on the last question of the quiz? All-in-all, I can't say I see enough. Mole probability 6%. Ali isn't the Mole.
3) Alex. This is the guy who is at the top of my 2nd tier of suspects. Like Ali, his name popped up out of order on the quiz, be in by accident or design. He was the first to go down the falls which could've been good cover, it's true. But he pushed the raft WAY left and then pulled himself on the wrong side of the strap on his way to the bag. Yet another non-helpful scavenger. It seems like Paul is trying to play him, but maybe Alex is in fact playing Paul and is the Mole after all. Maybe I'm seeing things, but when he's taking the quiz, the combo of his black shirt and white tie seem for a moment to make him look like he's wearing a priest's collar. Maybe that's just me. Anyhow Mole Probability is 7%. Alex is not the Mole.
On to the Big Two. One of these two I actually picked in a pre-episode one pick for reasons even I'm not entirely clear on. I hope I'm not being stubborn here!
2) Paul. This is someone who grew on me the more I watched the episode. I really wanted to dismiss him as an actor and a big part of me still thinks that he's just someone who's playing hard and trying to play everyone. But there really is a lot there. He failed at the bag challenge and even made it seem that it was terribly embarrassing that he did (while a little old lady succeeded). He mixed it up multiple times with Nicole and stirring things up really is something the Mole would do. He appointed himself driver and Alex as well. Now, maybe it's a coincidence that appeared on the quiz, but with only 10 questions that was kind of interesting. His reaction at execution time was strange - he actually completely hid his face when the green thumbprint came up. Almost as though he was afraid to give something away (like say a non-surprised reaction). He really did poorly at the time keeper game to a ridiculous degree - it seemed like he just let those last few minutes run out. While a player would be wise to do this to gather suspicion, it still is within the realm of Molish play to be that obvious - so long as you are doing a good job spreading the blame around - which Paul certainly was. Still that could be a legitimate player play - get everyone to suspect everyone and hope it screws them up on the quiz. It does seem like the way he's aligned so far seems to be more in tune with Molish purposes than it is for game play. His name is Biblical. He more red to an execution. I feel like he's gonna be in this game a while - either as a player or as the Mole. But my gut right now falls on the side of a really good instinctive player. Mole probability 33%. Close, but Paul is not the Mole.
1) That would leave Nicole (I will shameless say Go Illini! at this time.) I do feel a bit nervous on this one cuz she is almost just a little too out front there. Still while she succeed in grabbing a bag (in perhaps the most improbable fashion) as noted above it just seems way too good that she got to be the designated whiner that easily. She's managed to become a disruptive force already in a manner that seems to more subtly affect game play at this time. Staying up all night and making the 8 inside miserable (and perhaps a little less rested) would be a Molish move. I'd guess that making Bobby and Craig scavengers isn't all THAT suspicious - but they did sleep outside. That challenge was a pretty rough one so maybe she figured it mattered less that seemingly competent people were appraisers. That set-up is just way too neat and she is acting not just like a Mole, but a Mole with production help. And Judas didn't say for all of the last supper so maybe this Judas was picked to not go at all. I have to see how next week goes (especially with an eye on Paul) but I have to say that right now I'm still sticking with Nicole as the Mole. Mole probability 40% (which seems kinda low, but hey there's 11 folks left).
Hope you enjoyed this. I'll try and do a bit better (and sooner) for Week 2.
Cheers!
-QG
