The Mole (recap)

By Jen Smith
Fancast.com

I officially suck at guessing The Mole. Considering this was my first ever endeavor into Mole territory, I thought I did decently along the way. But mostly I was just stumped. So, on the finale last night I was fully expecting the person I didn’t suspect to be the Mole, because, well, that’s how my life rolls. It’s been a whole 12 weeks for the contestants since they last took the quiz. That’s quite an excruciating wait. I would go a little coo-coo. Last night, Jon Kelley not only revealed who the winner is, who the Mole is, and all the clues we missed, but he also reveals whether or not he really is Vulcan. We find out after the commercial break. I flipped over to watch Michael Phelps get the gold. And we’re back.

First, we see a nice little reminder of all three finalists’ suspicious behavior. Nicole can’t be trusted to count tiles, Craig is breaking rules of communication, and Mark took all the exemptions, leaving money out of the pot. All 9 executed players are also in this tiny little studio, looking quite nice I might add. Alex, I believe you owe me a phone call, mister. And they didn’t let poor Liz get a word in. We did get to witness a funny recap of all the hilarious Bobby moments. That boy really is hopeless. Remember the wheel barrow? “Hola.” Funniest moment of the show. We even got to see his audition tape where he bragged about his physical prowess only to pass out from side cramps within his first 30 seconds of activity in a given challenge. Poor, fragile Bobby.

Now it’s time to find out who’s who. The three remaining contestants are behind some locked doors and they’re each handed key cards through a slot. The winner comes out first. Guess what? It’s Mark. SHOCK. Not really. We all saw that one coming, but it doesn’t make it any less deserving. That man probably did deserve it the most. He was a good player. Mole time, mole time, mole time! The Mole is… Craig! Yeah, I know, he was the big cuddly teddy bear. Here’s the thing about Craig though: he was chosen because he was so likeable that no one would suspect him, but because of that I immediately dismissed him. I thought to myself “are the producers that dumb that they would choose someone who no one would suspect normally, because that means that everyone would suspect this person for that reason alone, but they did they realize that and do it anyway because they knew that we knew?” I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. Anyway, Nicole is bummed. She was never convinced it was Paul, except for until the last couple weeks. Too late.

Now we get to finally see all the sabotaging of Craig’s. I’m excited because I have a mental list of all the things that I considered clues that I want to be reaffirmed. The first mission, if you recall, was to jump off a waterfall and try to catch a bag of money. Craig missed and everyone chalked it up to him being the jolly, fat character. Victoria even said “bless his heart” when he showed off his lack of athleticism. The second mission (the stupid Robinson-Crusoe scavenger hunt) showed Craig in semi-Moleish behavior by being slow and not running. We also find out that it was Craig who insisted Bobby get in the wheel barrow. He gets a high five for that one. There were also some other little clues like getting Nicole to talk during a no-speaking challenge and getting Mark on exemption to prevent money from going into the pot. I’m unimpressed by the sabotaging. It’s fairly straightforward here.

Now for the clues. The hidden, subtextual, read-between-the-lines clues. I will save you from reading about them. Jon labeled these clues for die-hards only, and boy howdy was he right. They were pretty asinine. Like, in the opening credits for one show they had hidden a series of numbers that turned out to be the area codes of the three finalists. Et cetera. Pretty silly stuff that no one would ever spot. At least those with a life. We do find out that Craig’s hypothermia scare was very real and the few producers that actually knew who the Mole was looked terrified when he was carted away in an ambulance. Other odds and ends: Paul knew all along that it was Craig but failed to beat Nicole in the quiz because she was faster by 4 seconds. Mark almost got eliminated several times because he didn’t know who the Mole was until the last quiz and was only saved by having fast quiz times. Also, Mark gave up 75K for the dossier which had only one quiz answer in it. Turns out he didn’t need it because he beat Nicole by four questions.

That brings Season 5 of The Mole to a close. The best man won, and even though the finale was actually really boring, the hidden clues sucked, the sabotaging really sucked, and no one cares that Craig was the Mole, it was a decent season. I’m hoping for another season at least, but just a little meatier next time. We need more drama, more deception, more dirt! Welcome back, Mole. You sneaky little sucker.