The Mole (2008): “Episode Nine”

“Episode Nine”

August 4th, 2008

The most memorable task to ever appear on The Mole took place in this equivalent week during the first season. Trapped in separate rooms in a hotel, Steven, Jim and Kathryn are forced to use what they have in their hotel rooms to escape, which involves a whole host of weird little clues. It was a ridiculous task that they failed miserably at, which made it an extremely easy con for The Mole.

Unfortunately, there isn’t quite as fantastic an event this time around. The tasks here are more about running around and luck than they are about really figuring out clues. This might be for the best, though, because this isn’t the sharpest bunch around: what really made this episode stand out was the mistakes people made, and the ways in which these tasks kept this show entertaining this season. The various human interactions that made the show almost unbearable earlier this season are better in small doses, as people struggle or succeed in isolation.

So while it isn’t quite the poetry I sometimes want, it still provides plenty of Mole-related entertainment to be had in the penultimate episode.

The first task is really an issue of something that seems really complicated and difficult, but eventually actually allows them to finish the task without actually getting it right. They just needed to put the big picture together, and their various little mistakes ended up not mattering as soon as they put red + blue together. I dislike challanges that they can just luck into like that, it isn’t really fair. I get that the quiz has been dumbed down for us to follow at home, but did the task need to be as well.

The task also didn’t offer anything new: Nicole still makes mistakes (Craig is right to point out that Nicole is tough to read because of her combination of sabotage and incompetence), Mark still watches over everything, and Craig always seems to be holding back (Although he found that drop down map a bit too quickly). That they got it right in the end shows that The Mole was probably trying to let things play out, but who knows at this point.

And the second task wasn’t much better, as it returned to the second season’s “Race to the Dossier that may or may not be helpful.” However, while Craig and Mark put on an interesting race, Nicole was just plain entertaining. Yes, she’s been annoying all season, but there is just something really compelling about seeing someone completely break down and (hilariously) just start dancing and mouthing off to Jon Kelley on the phone. Kelley has not seemed more like Anderson Cooper than in his moments rolling his eyes at Nicole as she literally just did not get anything, and then got very annoyed with everything.

It’s not really good gameplay, or entertaining in any of those ways, but it remains charming because it shows just how much this game can destroy people, and how much Nicole can just totally fall apart. Between her and Jon, and her completely idiotic presumption that she could fool Jon with the cameramen around, it was just a lot of fun to watch, something that The Mole does kind of need every now and then. Still, I would have rather that the task made gave her trouble, rather than just her incompetence.

The quiz, though, I thought was just right: there were some DAMN tough questions, including finally some trick answers (As in, when there are only two possible answers, there are more than two options), even if I’m tired of these “standing” questions or this whole collared shirt questions. That kind of stuff is not easy to remember, and I have to wonder if any of them REALLY knew what was going on. I also wonder what the Dossier really could have had that would help these questions, and whether it confirmed or changed his suspicions.

As for the question of who the Mole is, I still have to say Craig. I don’t know why, but it just feels right, and there’s been too many clues in that direction at this stage in the game. If it is Mark, in the end, I give him full points for his various tirades and emotional meltdowns, but I think the big man’s big ambulance trip is the big con. Either way, this is all buildup to next week’s exciting finale, which oddly seems to have been staged indoors or something similar. I do hope we still get an interview segment.

Cultural Observations

• This is definitely not as cool a final quiz location as the first season: that bullfighting ring was just epic.
• I loved the group of “youths” who helped Mark – they were just so enthusiastic about it, and the final picture they took was just really entertaining. His later attack on the poor woman at Congress, though, was less mutual.