Episode 7
Once again we seem to have a serious problem here as the team succeeded fully in both missions. I feel like the Mole has been getting the short end of the battle, especially lately.
Before getting into the mini-recap, I will point out the uniqueness factor for the most recent quiz (the higher the number the less unique that person was an answer on the quiz - and also the more cover for a would-be Mole possibly).
1t) Mark 23
1t) Paul 23
3) Clay 22 <-------------- executed
4) Craig 19
5) Nicole 15
As a fun aside, I'll throw in the full list of how somebody would score if:
1) They answered 100% for another person as the Mole (and all the answered did correspond to that person)
2) That person wasn't the Mole (thus any they got right would be b/c of coincidence, not that they knew who the Mole was.
If Mark is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 5 right
and someone went 100% Paul they'd get 4 right
and someone went 100% Craig they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Nicole they'd get 1 right
If Paul is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 4 right
and someone went 100% Mark they'd get 4 right
and someone went 100% Craig they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Nicole they'd get 2 right
If Craig is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Paul they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Mark they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 2 right
and someone went 100% Nicole they'd get 1 right
If Nicole is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Paul they'd get 2 right
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 1 right
and someone went 100% Mark they'd get 1 right
and someone went 100% Craig they'd get 1 right
This is pretty amazing. If Nicole is not the Mole, they she is probably burying players on the quiz at this point if they are gunning for her. Gunning for Paul is sorta the 'safest' play in that you are likely to survive (at least quiz 7) if you were gunning for him and it's not him. But again we don't actually know the quiz answers people are really using (Mark could 100% be lying and is NOT targeting Nicole for example - he could've been trying to mislead Clay whom he may consider his biggest threat at this late stage for example). But it's fun to ponder.
The first task was pretty cool and again fell into the classical kind of Mole game that I love to see. Lots of dependence on other players, lot of opportunities for genuine mistakes, fake sabotage and real sabotage.
I also came to realize watching this game what could be a brilliant technique for trying to determine the Mole - the willful mistake. Now of course this could've doomed Clay for all I know but it goes like this. You as a player purposely make a mistake - give the suspected Mole a chance to either back you up or correct you - and if they seem to let your blantant mistake go you have a bigger mole suspect. Clay's totally screwy 739 calculation comes to mind as Paul came around to pretty much 100% back him up. Now it's entirely possible Paul was just confused but it's also possible that that was a sabotage play. Of course if Clay willfully did that to try to 'catch' a Moley Paul maybe he threw himself off the track. But I digress.
Craig jumps onto the dumb team and Nicole quickly follows him. Things were pretty straightforward for most of their 'dumb' tasks, though Nicole did catch and correct a Craig error in figuring out the '89' answer (or maybe it was the '144'). They both completely screw up the last number (Craig says 228 and Nicole says 238 - guess they shoulda split the difference). In the retry period Nicole goes out and comes back with an impossible answer - it's completely reasonable to think that this could be Mole sabotage disguised as a mistake - remember if she's the Mole she's playing it over-the-top mostly in her errors. Clay really does work miracles in getting the right answer in a fashion that I'm not even entirely clear on frankly.
Anyhow the smart team faces less numbers but more complicated ones. Something weird happened in the edit b/c they are shown getting 4181 which was the last number in the entry as the 2nd one they got right - not sure if they went out of order or what the deal was with that. Paul completely screws up the map reading and leads them many blocks away though Mark gets them back on track and really got them home with 3 correct numbers and back in time.
It is definitely suspicious that Craig seemed to want to put any number but 233 in there - whether this was Mole work or not is debatable as he did, in fact, type the right number at the end.
Btw, Paul did instantly react to Nicole's bad '227' answer as being ridiculous fwiw.
As for part 2, we have the family challenge. It really is unthinkable that anyone, player or Mole, would sabotage this challenge. Was Nicole acting like a player when balancing out the number of trusted players at 2-2-1? (Btw, sometimes the Mole is just a player in a challenge and may not know what's happening next). Or was she truly a player afraid to give anyone else an edge? Hard to say. Nicole proved her medical school chops here by running down the answers from Clay super fast and apparently perfect. Mark must've done well enough with Nicole's answers (even if not fast) that he could joke around on the answer with his mini-imitaion of Nicole's changing her answer.
But all-in-all the family challenge didn't give us much to go on in terms of determining the Mole IMO.
On to the percentages. I went back and looked at all my previous episodes and it is pretty humorous how much fluctuation there was in my percentages after Nicole's. I think I made some of the swings a bit wider than I should have and a part of me reread these and pondered "WHAT was I thinking?!?". The funniest thing is that now after 7 episodes, I've pretty much come full circle. Here we go.
5) Clay. Clay is gone and with it a lot of Mole percentage is freed up. Clearly he must've been a pretty good player at misdirecting the others whether intentionally or not. There was a tie, so heck, he could be 100% and still be getting whacked here. Still my condolences, ClayFOMOs.
4) Mark. The last couple of episodes really have buried Mark in my consideration of him as the Mole. Episode 6's $70,000 marathon effort put a pretty big dent in the MARKFOMO case and that was followed up by this week where he worked very hard to make sure the answers were correct and got them headed back in the right direction after Paul misread the map. He raised a blip in the middle of the season with some suspect moves, but really the whole picture is that of a very competitive person who has done too much right. Mark is NOT the Mole. Mole probability 1.5% (and I might be being generous)
3) Craig. Craig still rates as a contender but I still don't see the strongest case for him. He does seem to try and get one of the numbers mixed up, intentionally or not, on the "sneak tip" as Nicole would say. He threw out a lot of "wrong" numbers at the end, but ultimately did type the RIGHT one. I really think he was screwing with the others at that point with some last minute gamesmanship. I'm not ruling him out in the same categorical fashion as Mark, but Craig is NOT the Mole. Mole probability 10.5%
2) Paul. Things have come full circle for me here. On the first episode Paul was my #2 suspect and the case I made at that time was actually pretty good. He was VERY bossy in episode one and while he seemed to tap out early in the beach and soccer challenges, he was sure to direct his ire and blame at everyone else BUT himself. His initial coalition partner was executed and the person he paired up with the most in episode 2 met the same fate. In other challenges he has always been more the "take your time" guy than the "hurry up" guy - which is kinda odd for a New Yorker when you think about it. He dropped down my list in the middle because his approach in those middle episodes seemed to become much more of a bark than bite type approach. He was stirring up trouble, but not in a fashion that seemed to impact the challenges. That changed in episode 6 when he started up with Nicole and wasted time during the Grapes of Cache challenge - arguing with her. His sense of direction has been bad at times (I don't know that jumping from question 3 to question 7 in Grapes of Cache had a negative impact, but it's possible). He did seem ready to back up Clay's mistake of 739. While I've come full circle, I still think Paul is NOT the Mole. Mole probability 37%
1) Nicole. It's been a bumpy ride but I still have Nicole on top and it's been kinda fun to see others fall by the wayside while she never did quite bury her case. A doctor who can memorize 30 questions with no problem (not surprising) but who can't count and can't figure simple brain teasers instead relying on guessing? It is pretty strange. While she did correct one answer of Craig's early in the challenge, perhaps she knew the really screwy one was coming up later? The self-execution drama was pretty extreme - but again would the Mole lie to their own mother? Perhaps
. My biggest concern is that the person I most consider a player (Mark)
seemed to work hard to steer a proven player (Clay) to look at Craig and Nicole (and presumably not at Paul). Are you really sharing your true feelings about
players at the final 5 stage?!? Are you really gonna trust that person at that point and share info? I suppose it's possible, but that would be the
biggest negative I can think of on Nicole. She's had a pretty high sabotage factor throughout and I do think an over-the-top Mole is certainly possible.
This performance (the fake self-execution) seemed even more like a set-up than anything else. I can't back out now anyway 
Nicole is the Mole. Mole probability 51%
Hopefully we'll get some mixed results this week to help finally bring some true clarity ahead of the final 3. Enjoy Monday's episode.
-QG
Once again we seem to have a serious problem here as the team succeeded fully in both missions. I feel like the Mole has been getting the short end of the battle, especially lately.
Before getting into the mini-recap, I will point out the uniqueness factor for the most recent quiz (the higher the number the less unique that person was an answer on the quiz - and also the more cover for a would-be Mole possibly).
1t) Mark 23
1t) Paul 23
3) Clay 22 <-------------- executed
4) Craig 19
5) Nicole 15
As a fun aside, I'll throw in the full list of how somebody would score if:
1) They answered 100% for another person as the Mole (and all the answered did correspond to that person)
2) That person wasn't the Mole (thus any they got right would be b/c of coincidence, not that they knew who the Mole was.
If Mark is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 5 right
and someone went 100% Paul they'd get 4 right
and someone went 100% Craig they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Nicole they'd get 1 right
If Paul is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 4 right
and someone went 100% Mark they'd get 4 right
and someone went 100% Craig they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Nicole they'd get 2 right
If Craig is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Paul they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Mark they'd get 3 right
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 2 right
and someone went 100% Nicole they'd get 1 right
If Nicole is the Mole...
and someone went 100% Paul they'd get 2 right
and someone went 100% Clay they'd get 1 right
and someone went 100% Mark they'd get 1 right
and someone went 100% Craig they'd get 1 right
This is pretty amazing. If Nicole is not the Mole, they she is probably burying players on the quiz at this point if they are gunning for her. Gunning for Paul is sorta the 'safest' play in that you are likely to survive (at least quiz 7) if you were gunning for him and it's not him. But again we don't actually know the quiz answers people are really using (Mark could 100% be lying and is NOT targeting Nicole for example - he could've been trying to mislead Clay whom he may consider his biggest threat at this late stage for example). But it's fun to ponder.
The first task was pretty cool and again fell into the classical kind of Mole game that I love to see. Lots of dependence on other players, lot of opportunities for genuine mistakes, fake sabotage and real sabotage.
I also came to realize watching this game what could be a brilliant technique for trying to determine the Mole - the willful mistake. Now of course this could've doomed Clay for all I know but it goes like this. You as a player purposely make a mistake - give the suspected Mole a chance to either back you up or correct you - and if they seem to let your blantant mistake go you have a bigger mole suspect. Clay's totally screwy 739 calculation comes to mind as Paul came around to pretty much 100% back him up. Now it's entirely possible Paul was just confused but it's also possible that that was a sabotage play. Of course if Clay willfully did that to try to 'catch' a Moley Paul maybe he threw himself off the track. But I digress.
Craig jumps onto the dumb team and Nicole quickly follows him. Things were pretty straightforward for most of their 'dumb' tasks, though Nicole did catch and correct a Craig error in figuring out the '89' answer (or maybe it was the '144'). They both completely screw up the last number (Craig says 228 and Nicole says 238 - guess they shoulda split the difference). In the retry period Nicole goes out and comes back with an impossible answer - it's completely reasonable to think that this could be Mole sabotage disguised as a mistake - remember if she's the Mole she's playing it over-the-top mostly in her errors. Clay really does work miracles in getting the right answer in a fashion that I'm not even entirely clear on frankly.
Anyhow the smart team faces less numbers but more complicated ones. Something weird happened in the edit b/c they are shown getting 4181 which was the last number in the entry as the 2nd one they got right - not sure if they went out of order or what the deal was with that. Paul completely screws up the map reading and leads them many blocks away though Mark gets them back on track and really got them home with 3 correct numbers and back in time.
It is definitely suspicious that Craig seemed to want to put any number but 233 in there - whether this was Mole work or not is debatable as he did, in fact, type the right number at the end.
Btw, Paul did instantly react to Nicole's bad '227' answer as being ridiculous fwiw.
As for part 2, we have the family challenge. It really is unthinkable that anyone, player or Mole, would sabotage this challenge. Was Nicole acting like a player when balancing out the number of trusted players at 2-2-1? (Btw, sometimes the Mole is just a player in a challenge and may not know what's happening next). Or was she truly a player afraid to give anyone else an edge? Hard to say. Nicole proved her medical school chops here by running down the answers from Clay super fast and apparently perfect. Mark must've done well enough with Nicole's answers (even if not fast) that he could joke around on the answer with his mini-imitaion of Nicole's changing her answer.
But all-in-all the family challenge didn't give us much to go on in terms of determining the Mole IMO.
On to the percentages. I went back and looked at all my previous episodes and it is pretty humorous how much fluctuation there was in my percentages after Nicole's. I think I made some of the swings a bit wider than I should have and a part of me reread these and pondered "WHAT was I thinking?!?". The funniest thing is that now after 7 episodes, I've pretty much come full circle. Here we go.
5) Clay. Clay is gone and with it a lot of Mole percentage is freed up. Clearly he must've been a pretty good player at misdirecting the others whether intentionally or not. There was a tie, so heck, he could be 100% and still be getting whacked here. Still my condolences, ClayFOMOs.
4) Mark. The last couple of episodes really have buried Mark in my consideration of him as the Mole. Episode 6's $70,000 marathon effort put a pretty big dent in the MARKFOMO case and that was followed up by this week where he worked very hard to make sure the answers were correct and got them headed back in the right direction after Paul misread the map. He raised a blip in the middle of the season with some suspect moves, but really the whole picture is that of a very competitive person who has done too much right. Mark is NOT the Mole. Mole probability 1.5% (and I might be being generous)
3) Craig. Craig still rates as a contender but I still don't see the strongest case for him. He does seem to try and get one of the numbers mixed up, intentionally or not, on the "sneak tip" as Nicole would say. He threw out a lot of "wrong" numbers at the end, but ultimately did type the RIGHT one. I really think he was screwing with the others at that point with some last minute gamesmanship. I'm not ruling him out in the same categorical fashion as Mark, but Craig is NOT the Mole. Mole probability 10.5%
2) Paul. Things have come full circle for me here. On the first episode Paul was my #2 suspect and the case I made at that time was actually pretty good. He was VERY bossy in episode one and while he seemed to tap out early in the beach and soccer challenges, he was sure to direct his ire and blame at everyone else BUT himself. His initial coalition partner was executed and the person he paired up with the most in episode 2 met the same fate. In other challenges he has always been more the "take your time" guy than the "hurry up" guy - which is kinda odd for a New Yorker when you think about it. He dropped down my list in the middle because his approach in those middle episodes seemed to become much more of a bark than bite type approach. He was stirring up trouble, but not in a fashion that seemed to impact the challenges. That changed in episode 6 when he started up with Nicole and wasted time during the Grapes of Cache challenge - arguing with her. His sense of direction has been bad at times (I don't know that jumping from question 3 to question 7 in Grapes of Cache had a negative impact, but it's possible). He did seem ready to back up Clay's mistake of 739. While I've come full circle, I still think Paul is NOT the Mole. Mole probability 37%
1) Nicole. It's been a bumpy ride but I still have Nicole on top and it's been kinda fun to see others fall by the wayside while she never did quite bury her case. A doctor who can memorize 30 questions with no problem (not surprising) but who can't count and can't figure simple brain teasers instead relying on guessing? It is pretty strange. While she did correct one answer of Craig's early in the challenge, perhaps she knew the really screwy one was coming up later? The self-execution drama was pretty extreme - but again would the Mole lie to their own mother? Perhaps
Hopefully we'll get some mixed results this week to help finally bring some true clarity ahead of the final 3. Enjoy Monday's episode.
-QG
