Category: the mole

Liz was the mole’s next victim in The Mole 5 Episode 2. Bobby proved to be either really good or really bad, while Paul proved to just be obnoxious, giving Nicole a run for her money in that respect.

Following the death threat, there may be some lack of trust amongst the group, so this task is all about trust. Players must split into 5 players who trust blindly and 5 who can’t trust anybody. From those groups, players will form teams of two with someone from the opposite group. They’ll go on a bobsled with one blindfolded person receiving descriptions of some pictures from the non-blindfolded person behind them. When they get to the bottom, they must then identify the objects correctly.

Clay & Bobby: 5 out of 7 correct for $10,000
Paul & Ali: 5 out of 7 correct for $10,000
Craig & Victoria: 7 out of 7 correct for $14,000
Kristen & Mark: 7 out of 7 correct for $14,000
Alex & Nicole: 1 out of 7 correct for $2,000

Alex & Nicole are a little bit too suspicious. It’s not over yet, though. Clay & Bobby and Craig & Victoria broke the rules, talking after crossing the finish line, so their money doesn’t count.

Pot total: $89,000 out of $240,000

Clay is waivering in his trust of Bobby. Mark is also getting suspicious. Mark now trusts Clay and wants to use him to figure out Bobby. Clay, however, only trusts himself.

The players go to a spa. So where is the catch? They’ll find out when they’re done with their massages. Their clothes are missing. Now they’re left with just shoes and underpants. They must make it to a restaurant for dinner by 6:30 (just over 2 hours), but they’ll need to pass the dress code, which they can do by convincing people to give them the clothes off their backs. In addition to money being at stake, if they don’t make it to dinner, they don’t eat.

Clay and Mark decide to quit right away before the mission even starts.

Bobby, Nicole, and Craig are one of the teams of three, perhaps the oddest looking team of three ever. Nicole is first to be clothed. After some time, a theater group helps clothe them. They even get a shirt big enough for Craig. Now they need to find pants for Craig. At Bobby’s suggestion, they decide to head to the laundromat, which happens to be the same laundromat where everybody’s clothing is being dry cleaned. They arrive with moments to spare, and they’ve got everybody else’s clothes with them. So this time Bobby and Craig are the heroes.

Kristen, Ali, and Victoria look like Charlie’s Angels. They very quickly get a lot of attention. Whoever tries to clothe them is going to get beaten up. But that’s not a problem since everybody who sees them is drooling. To make matters worse, they have on what they refer to as hooker boots, which means their feet are killing them. Ali says she wants to give up. They eventually run into some American’s who give them shirts. After that, they meet up with a woman on her smoke break, and she’s got three bottoms for them. They are able to arrive on time.

Alex and Paul get some shirts from cab drivers and then some pants for Alex. Paul runs into a New Yorker who happens to have a spare pair of pants, which completes their wardrobe. They arrive at the restaurant first.

Aside from Clay and Mark, everybody completed the task, earning $40,000 for the group.

Pot total: $129,000 out of $290,000

At dinner, it’s time for Paul to fight with Mark. And Bobby. And Craig. And Nicole. Any more takers?

Nicole suspects Bobby. Victoria suspects Ali. Clay suspects everybody. Paul thinks the last group arriving with everybody’s clothes is way too fishy.

Unlike last week, nobody is exempt, but an offer is on the table. If somebody leaves the game now, they get $20,000. Nobody is interested.

Kristen is safe.
Mark is safe.
Victoria is safe.

After telling Victoria it’s too late to take the money, Jon raises the offer to $30,000. Ali takes it and is out of the game. She would have been safe. There’s still an execution to get through.

Alex is safe.
Bobby is eliminated.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Mole 5 episode 4, which airs Monday at 10/9c on ABC.

The Mole returned after a 4 year hiatus with 11 new contestants trying to figure out who the mole is. At the top of The Mole 5 Episode 1, the majority of the people believed that Marcie was the mole, but in the end, she was the first person sent home. Meanwhile, Nicole turned out to be the whiner who is far too full of herself.

Paul’s coalition partner is already gone. Might need to come up with a new strategy here.

The first stop is a park in Santiago, Chile. The mission will be a race to the summit.

Mark and Kristen will be riding a bicycle built for two. The other 9 will be taking a 10 minute gondola ride up to the top, but they’ll need to earn their ticket to ride by playing football against one of the city’s “toughest and fiercest teams.” If the bikers win, they get an exemption. As they’re leaving, before they even start going, the chain comes off the bicycle. This keeps happening again and again, so they just decide to run for it.

Alex and Bobby had been in a soccer league, so the team is feeling good. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the tough, fierce team may have to stop for nap time part of the way through. The kids pretty quickly humiliate them. Nicole’s the goalie, but she doesn’t want to jump in the dirt to stop a ball. Bobby is once again dying from the exercise. Paul joins him and coughs up a lung. After 20 minutes with no goal, they’re given one more chance to score with penalty kicks. Ali manages to score a point. The players get gondola tickets and a map to the station, where they’ll need to go by foot. This proves difficult. First, they can’t decide where to go. Then Liz has to go to the bathroom, so she sits down and rests for a while.

Kristen and Mark see Jon, who offers them a taxi ride in exchange for $5,000 from the pot. Mark quickly rejects this and opts to continue biking.

The soccer players have made it to the summit, but the team’s pretty split despite the fact that they don’t see Kristen or Mark. To make matters worse, Kristen and Mark are hiding and jump out. Both of them have earned exemptions, and no money goes into the pot.

Pot total: $35,000 out of $120,000

Paul takes the opportunity at lunch to tear into Bobby. Nicole’s happy to not be the victim of the attacks for a change.

The players have received a ransom note for 50 ceramic pigs that have been spread throughout the town. They have approximately one hour (until 12 souvenir pigs can be made). The three groups of three will search for pigs. The group of two will be responsible for delivering them safely after the others use a slingshot to get them there.

Group of two: Liz and Paul
Group of three: Bobby, Kristen, and Craig
Group of three: Alex, Nicole, and Victoria
Group of three: Ali, Clay, and Mark

Alex speaks some Spanish because he took it in high school (so pretty much he probably knows colors, numbers, and where the library is). This is enough to get some help from the locals.

Bobby hops in a wheelbarrow and lets Kristen push him. One way or another, this guy is overacting. Either nobody will suspect him because he’s just too blatant, or everybody will suspect him because he’s just too blatant.

Paul hears something rattling in one of the pigs. He keeps shaking it and gets curious, knowing there’s an exemption. With that, he smashes it, and he’s right. He’s got this round’s third exemption.

Alex insists on using the slingshot for his group. He quickly proves disastrous. Craig wants a turn to help, which turns out to be a good idea, as they go from just one rescued pig to a respectable number.

Alex, Nicole, and Victoria: 26 pigs returned
Ali, Clay, and Mark: 18 pigs returned
Bobby, Kristen, and Craig: 0 pigs returned

Of the total 44 returned pigs, they managed to save 28 of them, for a total of $28,000 earned from this task.

Pot total: $63,000 out of $170,000

Alex left his journal in Bobby’s room. Whether he left it on purpose or not, Bobby is quick to take a lengthy look.

Ali suspects Alex. Craig suspects Mark. Alex suspects Nicole. Nicole suspects that Bobby’s either the mole or just sucks.

Clay is safe.
Alex is safe.
Victoria is safe.
Bobby is safe.
Liz is eliminated.

A few people have classy comments to say after Liz departs. Paul mostly just wants everybody to know that he hates Nicole and Bobby.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Mole 5 episode 3, which airs Monday at 10/9c on ABC.

In 2001, ABC brought us one of the better reality shows in which a bunch of contestants got together and tried to figure out who among them was trying to sabotage their efforts. This was followed by a season two and then two very entertaining celebrity seasons. I often wondered what happened to the show, but wonder no more. It’s back. I’m not really sure what to call it, so I’m going to stick with The Mole 5.

Check out the full The Mole 5 cast.

The new host is Jon Kelley. It’ll be interesting to see whether he can live up to Anderson Cooper.

Not wasting any time, based on first impressions, they take a secret ballot who they think the mole is. Most people suspect that Marcie is the mole. This will allow Marcie to make all the decisions for the group for the next 24 hours.

The first mission is based on a bunch of German tourists who died on a waterfall. 6 people will jump for cash, while 5 will jump for a bag full of paper. Marcie will decide who jumps for what. They’re all attached and ready to jump off a raft toward a bag above the waterfall. Alex fails quite convincingly. Ali comes close but no cigar. Clay grabs the bag. Kristen, the neuroscientist who looks better than the model (just don’t tell the model that), also grabs her bag. Bobby, despite the slim chance he could hang himself doing this, is the third to grab a bag. Retiree Liz is happy to prove she can do it, and she gets another bag. Paul gets beat by a 60-year-old lady and just barely misses his bag. Victoria gives a humiliating performance. Craig, the heaviest contestant by a good margin, doesn’t get the bag, but he doesn’t die either, although he did apparently get choked. Nicole through some dumb luck grabs a bag. Mark is last to go and gets his bag.

This brings them to a total of 6 bags:

Nicole: paper
Kristen: paper
Bobby: paper
Mark: money
Liz: paper
Clay: money

Pot total: $20,000 out of $60,000

A couple of suspicious choices here, notably Kristen and Bobby.

Marcie’s got one more decision to make. Only 8 people can fit in the cabin. 4 must sleep outside: Nicole, Liz, Craig, and Bobby. Nicole lets us know she doesn’t have to do anything but stay black and die. She believes she’s clever. She goes inside but just won’t sleep, which she thinks is staying within the rules. She’s quite pleased with herself, despite the fact that she kept people up all night and also risked a fine.

Paul wants to form a coalition. He chooses Marcie. He also apparently has one with Alex.

The group unanimously chooses Nicole as the group’s biggest whiner. They’re right. Her first duty is to pick 6 scavengers, 3 appraisers, and 2 timekeepers.

Scavengers: Craig, Marcie, Alex, Bobby, Victoria, Clay
Appraisers: Kristen, Liz, Mark
Timekeepers: Paul, Ali

Timekeepers must refill an hourglass, which will only last 10 minutes if not refilled. The scavengers must run all over the beach and find things, which clearly out of shape Craig finds ridiculous. The appraisers must determine what the castaway Selkirk had with him, which thus would have been around in the 1700s (obvious hint: there was no electricity then). On the first try, they get one item correct. On the second guess, they get three correct items. Their third guess is the same.

Revolver: wrong (invented in 1835)
Musket: correct
Bible: correct
Jeans: wrong (invented in 1873)
Goat: correct

Pot total: $35,000 out of $85,000

The other correct items were tobacco and a teakettle.

Someone’s going to be left on the beach by themselves. It’s Nicole. Time to celebrate. Let’s see her try to find a way to circumvent this.

The women are all suspicious that Bobby was quite quickly out of breath on the beach. They also notice that Paul and Alex are in it together, but Paul says this is just his tactic.

Paul suspects Craig the most because he’s a nice guy, as does Mark. Bobby suspects Kristen. Marcie suspects Nicole. Victoria suspects Bobby.

The contestants will now take a quiz that contains 10 questions about the contestants and the past few days. There’s good news for Nicole. Because she’s stranded on the beach, she has an exemption.

Ali is safe.
Victoria is safe.
Paul is safe.
Bobby is safe.
Mark is safe.
Marcie is eliminated.

Strange to see the person everybody originally suspected the most is headed home, although her choices in the first challenge were a little bit too suspicious. Marcie is not the mole. Who is the mole?

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of The Mole 5 episode 2, which airs Monday at 10/9c on ABC.

Alex
31
Musician
Haverford, PA

Ali
24
Model
St Louis, MO

Bobby
25
Restaurant Manager
Philadelphia, PA

Clay
32
Criminal Litigation Attorney
Philadelphia, PA

Craig
30
Graphic Designer
San Diego, CA

Kristen
35
Neuroscientist
Santa Monica, CA

Liz
60
Retired
Whitefish, MT

Marcie
31
Stay-at-home mom
Corona, CA

Mark
42
High School History Teacher/Soccer Coach
Mukwonago, WI

Nicole
33
OBGYN Doctor
Chicago, IL

Paul
29
Utility Worker
Yonkers, NY

Victoria
26
Retail Manager
Bishop, TX

ABC plans to revive The Mole for the summer, and Variety reports that a replacement host for Anderson Cooper has been chosen. Jon Kelley, former weekend anchor for Extra, will be the host for The Mole when it returns after a four year hiatus.

It is believed that the show will premiere on Monday May 26 at 10PM, possibly being paired with The Bachelorette 4.

I’ve said on more than one occasion that ABC should bring back The Mole, particularly with the strike going on now. This summer, they’ll be doing just that, Variety reports, marking my first excuse in years to actually watch something on the alphabet network.

Stone Stanley Prods., producer of the first four seasons, folded in 2004, but Scott Stone is back with a new company and has achieved his goal of bringing the show back as well.

“This is a show we honestly love and people ask us about all the time,” said ABC Entertainment alternative series senior VP John Saade, though he says the timing is coincidental. “We were looking to bring the show back even when the writers were working.”

“If anyone asks me what my favorite show has been, I’ve answered ‘The Mole,'” Stone said. “Not surprisingly, this has been a passion of mine since the option lapsed three or four years ago. In my staff meeting every week, people would say, ‘Don’t even bring it up.’ I kept throwing it out that it was eventually going to be the right time. And it perennially ends up on lists of people’s favorite reality shows. That kept the fires burning inside me.”

He has suggested that there will be some changes to the show’s format. “We simplified it to where the people at home can play along,” Stone said. “And the quiz will be much shorter than in the past.” I’m getting a Mole Australia 5 vibe from that (not a good thing), but I’m definitely willing to give it a chance.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, host of the first two seasons, is not available to host. Ahmad Rashad, who hosted seasons three and four, has not been asked return. “We’re looking for someone in the Anderson mode, a little mysterious but full of comedy,” Stone said. “It could be a breakout role for someone.”