Episode 10 Part 1.
Okay gang, this is it
To be honest, I'd have to say
that things are fairly set in a certain sense, but I've decided to become a bit more (psuedo-)scientific with my Mole percentages so ya might wanna take
a closer look at 'em (though Mark's was more or less backed in to to be honest). It's a pretty tough call and ultimately I may have
'phoned' it in a bit with the last two. 
I did a bit of a rewatch of some of the episodes, so I'll have some random commentary on that - I tried to look for possibly hidden clues that I haven't seen before - hopefully they aren't old hat with this crowd.
Anyhow, Episode 10 itself. The Tick-Tock-Boom Mission was pretty cool and a bit of a Mole classic. In a way, it kinda was reminiscent of one of the last couple of tasks in season one of the Mole (the 3 rooms one) - more on that in a little bit. Clever stuff. I tired to make out some sort of possible hidden message regarding the place names (especially the fact in some instances there was city AND country and in other case there was just a country which was weird, especially when you consider China has one time zone (so Beijing was redundant) and then they had one for New Zealand proper and another for a set of islands. Regardless Itseqqortoomitt is like the coolest city name ever
. I couldn't make out any particular patterns with the letters as presented on the walls (I did think it was interesting that there were
multiples of some). The 2nd game was also pretty interesting I thought with a fun element - I am curious if they picked their assignments randomly or if each
was specifically assgined to the tasks they were given.
Anyhow, I'll dig into the players now, throw up some new percentages and ramble some more.
3) Mark. Regardless of the percentage listed below, I find it nearly impossible that Mark is the Mole. It's true that he did keep $75k out of the pot in the last mission by taking the dossier but I genuinely think that he is a befuddled player who has the sort of misfortune of being paired with his 2 prime suspects in the final 3. It'd be kinda neat if we get to see that dossier on the website after it's all over. Does it give a dead giveaway of the Mole's identity? The questions on the final quiz seemed to very heavy on where the Mole was standing in various games - it's plausible that they 'give' away the identity (indirectly but clealry) and it becomes up to the player to remember the Mole's position in the game. My gut says it's likely this is what occurs with the dossier - no real giveaway on the questions (other than who is the Mole). But perhaps not. Mark did well enough on the Tick-Tock-Boom game, correcting a number of Nicole errors and managing to figure out the key piece of information (red+blue) by crossing out letters. It's possible that if he's the Mole this may have been an assigned "win" to try one last chance to throw the players off the Mole's trail and that the dossier was an assigned sabotage. Still as mentioned in my prior post for Episode 9 for Mark, I just don't see the incidents of important sabotage, especially when combined with some truly heoric efforts to put real significant money in the pot (most notably Grapes of Cache). Mark is one hell of a competitor, but he's not the Mole.
Mole probability:
2.683686159813459096966932756%
2) Craig. It's funny, really. As I laid out in my episode 9,oops I mean 8 I think - anyhow you know, last episode rankings, a pretty dang solid and comprehensive case can be made for Craig to be the Mole. Nothing that happens in this episode really would fall away from that logic, to be honest. All of a sudden, in Tick-Tock-Boom we see Craig become SuperCraig, discovering key element after key element that they will need to win the task. He was the first to say that there were 24 places to go with the spaces in the solution. He is the one who sorta miraculously finds the time zone map, looking around away from the others and seeming to drag them over to see it in a sense. Craig also points the way to using the big clock in the middle of the room, which while common sense, saved a lot of time in a short-timed task. He is the first to specifically ask if there's a purple wire (which proves to be the correct one) and is the one to snip the wire - not dilly-dallying at all like in say the Go Figure game. By the way, anybody get an idea of that totally weird noise that happened at the commercial break after one of Craig's confessionals - are they using backwards audio now? I wouldn't be surprised if they go "all audio" with the hidden clues they present (most famous of these of course is the "crying baby" sound that was played over a picture of Mark a few episodes back. There's a couple more of 'em too, I just don't recall them offhand. Anyhow, back to Craig. This last task was similar to one of the last tasks in season 2, which presented the chance to see the Mole dossier (*season 2 spoiler ahead - skip to the next paragraph if you don't wanna see it for some reason). Okay still here? Good. Anyway, in that season the Mole basically donated $100k into the pot when they won that last game - now it's interesting to think what would happen this time. My gut actually says the Mole would keep the money out, believe it or not, and use the cover that would give them as possibly being a player.
Perhaps it'd be a free will choice again - and maybe in that instance were Craig the Mole he would put the money in the pot. It's interesting to ponder. I have to admit it is a bit funny and sketchy that Craig would be talking about that bridge and magically it's the final destination - then again Paul found a New Yorker willing to give up some "Emergency" Pants so anything is possible. A couple things on the quasi-hidden clue front. Did it not seem every shot of Craig when he was going between the 2nd and 3rd tasks featured a green building or a buliding with lots of green in the background? Maybe that's just me and maybe it's a coincidence but that was kinda odd.
Two things to ponder for the hidden clue buffs (again sorry if these are kinda old news). I feel like there very well may be all (or some) hidden clues in the background of confessionals (not necessarily just the Mole's actually). In episode 5, the one with Clay and Paul's little verbal fight, the background each of them is in front of them is virutally identical, showing a table in the background with a candle, what looks like a ball, and something else on it. When Clay was shown the ball is solid, when Paul is shown there's a sorta dark sideways "C" taking up the bottom half of the ball (like a sideways PacMan). Is that a clue or a fluke, I don't know. In Episode 6, when Clay is shown in his confessionals, most of them feature to dark metallic figures on the left side of the screen behind him, one higher that the other - they look kinda like the letter "i" or sorta like people. But in one confessional frame of Clay's, all of a sudden there are FOUR of these figures behind him to the left, and they are all LEVEL with each other. I reall think it's a clue, but what is it? Perhaps they are referring to Craig's glasses (Four I's - Four Eyes - Get It?) as he is in fact the only player to wear glasses out of all 12 of them. I may try to rewatch the confessionals from eps 1 to 4 tomorrow to look for similar stuff. So yeah, there's a lot there. I will say again that I wouldn't be disappointed if Craig were the Mole (failed personal Mole pics aside) as I don't know if I'd call him that conventional a choice. He's just kickin' it old school Mole style by trying to stay under the radar and do stuff that's not obvious. But I can't do it. I just can't at this rate. Craig is NOT the Mole. Mole probability...hmm let's call it:
42.683785453599766426348727244%
Episode 10 Part 3:
oops forgot a couple more Craig tidbits. One - did they have Jon say a hidden clue by saying "Take Care, Slick" to Paul at the end of the last episode? Was that a nod to Craig's SLIKE shirt? He also seemed oddly fascinated by Mark's perusing of the Mole Dossier. Given that he was the "Tango" guy in this task - was even THAT a clue?
Which brings us of course for the final time to:
1) Nicole. at this rate, if I'm wrong I may as well be perfectly wrong, no? Regardless of how it all turns out it's been a fun season to analyze and a fun run. If she isn't the Mole, the Illni in me would like to see her end up winning of course But there is yet a case to be made. Although there is definitely a
very strong logic and past history that would indicate the Mole would actually try and succeed in the last episode to throw players off, with past seasons
already in the books, perhaps the producers saw fit to throw that playbook out the window. If she's not the Mole, she's actually a great player
because clearly she would have thrown enough doubt in some players to slide on by. She messes up a few of the time zones - which really seems like such a
simple and silly mistake for someone who demonstrarted such a strong memory in "Ticket To Ride". Again it seems like she was really far from
helpful in this task and in sort of a role reversal from "Go Figure" was the one that seemed to be trying to stall and delay things at the very end
bringing up the two wires. Again, it very well could be true this all points to her as a PLAYER trying to cloud up Mark's thinking just enough to get by
one last time.
In the Three To Tango game she gives a classic underwhelming Nicole performance. Now there is a school of thought that would say based on the past seasons involving the dossier, perhaps the best move for the Mole would be simply to fail miserably and avoid the decision - that is let the true players battle it out for the dossier and leave the $75k decision to the better of them. That is actually pretty dang logical. There are a couple other factors too that I noticed. I did think it was interesting that she'd be getting photographed in front of the Obelisco - in prior episodes, players were shown giving their confessional in front of a series of Obelisks on the table behind them. Perhaps this is a hidden clue? Not totally dismissable. She had a cactus behind her in a confessional - one of those was scene it at least one dinner scene (that could be meaningless, but I noticed it so I'll throw it out there it case it clicks with someone). One very worrisome thing that crossed my mind was the fact that she did seem genuinely nervous when they were about to start the final 3 quiz - may have been a false impression by me but that was troublesome. Lastly, I did see one final piece of compelling weirdness that has given me at least a tiny bit of strength going into this finale and that was a possible hidden clue (or maybe a figment of my imagination). At the end of Mark's looking at the dossier, we seem him lift up the papers (our only look of any sort really at the possible contents). About 1/4 of a page is exposed, and it's well, blank actually. EXCEPT that I could SWEAR that it looked like the word on the otherside of a sheet looked visible. And I could also swear that it really did look like it said "NICOLE" backwards. My jaw dropped when I saw it (and I slowed it down as well) as it really was right at the end of my analysis. Is this the final "hidden" clue (heck could it be a computer added thing that wasn't even on Mark's sheet awaiting an eagle eye?). Conversely, it's totally possible that the Mole's dossier broke down each of the players somehow and a page devoted to Nicole would be either a) expected or b) actually damaging as it would imply the Mole was talking about her...a player (that is it doesn't really prove that it's her). Anyhow, if anybody else is able to make it out to convince me I'm not crazy, let me know. And with that I'll say that for one last time...Nicole IS the Mole. My phoned in Mole probabilitiy for her is:
54.63252838658677447668434%
A few stray thoughts coming up...
Episode 10, Part 4:
Epilogue/stray thoughts.
I kinda can't wait to see what the hidden clues and their meanings are and at the same time I'm kinda bummed that I don't feel like I found more compelling ones at this stage (maybe those confessional rewatches will help me) The other thing that seems to be going on (And I'm sure there's a thread about this too) has to do with all those moon
pictures and how they are in various different stages (the thing behind Paul in that confessional that I alluded to earlier may have been meant to represent
the moon for all I know. I can't remember where at this point, but I do seem to think that Jon used the phrase "You eclipsed" something
something at some point. I'm not totally sure.
I'd also like to ask a little quick help in nailing down who was what answer for a couple of the final quiz questions:
Question 9 about the pants color. I think Craig and Nicole wore blue pants and that Mark work black pants. UPDATE-CONFIRMED
Question 12 - Any idea who opened a wine bottle after Grapes of Cache? I didn't catch that. UPDATE - It looks like it was never shown.
Question 11 - Did Mark have a collared shirt in Grapes of Cache? The other two definitely didn't although at least one question (Question 6) did actually have the same answer for all 3 of 'em (they all rode in the back) UPDATE - ALL THREE have non collared shirts.
Question 18 - never mind I got that.
From what I have been able to piece together at this point it looks like the number of "automatic" correct answers actually breaks down as follows:
Mark has 3 automatically correct
Nicole would have 2 automatically correct
Craig would have 1 automatically correct.
This may change based on the answers I'm not 100% sure of.
I have to say that this has really been a great sseason and thanks to ABC for bringing us another Mole season (and I do hope it returns again somehow someway somewhere - though hopefully here). It really is a beautiful fun and unique show.
Thanks for checking out my thread!!!
-QG
Okay gang, this is it
I did a bit of a rewatch of some of the episodes, so I'll have some random commentary on that - I tried to look for possibly hidden clues that I haven't seen before - hopefully they aren't old hat with this crowd.
Anyhow, Episode 10 itself. The Tick-Tock-Boom Mission was pretty cool and a bit of a Mole classic. In a way, it kinda was reminiscent of one of the last couple of tasks in season one of the Mole (the 3 rooms one) - more on that in a little bit. Clever stuff. I tired to make out some sort of possible hidden message regarding the place names (especially the fact in some instances there was city AND country and in other case there was just a country which was weird, especially when you consider China has one time zone (so Beijing was redundant) and then they had one for New Zealand proper and another for a set of islands. Regardless Itseqqortoomitt is like the coolest city name ever
Anyhow, I'll dig into the players now, throw up some new percentages and ramble some more.
3) Mark. Regardless of the percentage listed below, I find it nearly impossible that Mark is the Mole. It's true that he did keep $75k out of the pot in the last mission by taking the dossier but I genuinely think that he is a befuddled player who has the sort of misfortune of being paired with his 2 prime suspects in the final 3. It'd be kinda neat if we get to see that dossier on the website after it's all over. Does it give a dead giveaway of the Mole's identity? The questions on the final quiz seemed to very heavy on where the Mole was standing in various games - it's plausible that they 'give' away the identity (indirectly but clealry) and it becomes up to the player to remember the Mole's position in the game. My gut says it's likely this is what occurs with the dossier - no real giveaway on the questions (other than who is the Mole). But perhaps not. Mark did well enough on the Tick-Tock-Boom game, correcting a number of Nicole errors and managing to figure out the key piece of information (red+blue) by crossing out letters. It's possible that if he's the Mole this may have been an assigned "win" to try one last chance to throw the players off the Mole's trail and that the dossier was an assigned sabotage. Still as mentioned in my prior post for Episode 9 for Mark, I just don't see the incidents of important sabotage, especially when combined with some truly heoric efforts to put real significant money in the pot (most notably Grapes of Cache). Mark is one hell of a competitor, but he's not the Mole.
Mole probability:
2.683686159813459096966932756%
2) Craig. It's funny, really. As I laid out in my episode 9,oops I mean 8 I think - anyhow you know, last episode rankings, a pretty dang solid and comprehensive case can be made for Craig to be the Mole. Nothing that happens in this episode really would fall away from that logic, to be honest. All of a sudden, in Tick-Tock-Boom we see Craig become SuperCraig, discovering key element after key element that they will need to win the task. He was the first to say that there were 24 places to go with the spaces in the solution. He is the one who sorta miraculously finds the time zone map, looking around away from the others and seeming to drag them over to see it in a sense. Craig also points the way to using the big clock in the middle of the room, which while common sense, saved a lot of time in a short-timed task. He is the first to specifically ask if there's a purple wire (which proves to be the correct one) and is the one to snip the wire - not dilly-dallying at all like in say the Go Figure game. By the way, anybody get an idea of that totally weird noise that happened at the commercial break after one of Craig's confessionals - are they using backwards audio now? I wouldn't be surprised if they go "all audio" with the hidden clues they present (most famous of these of course is the "crying baby" sound that was played over a picture of Mark a few episodes back. There's a couple more of 'em too, I just don't recall them offhand. Anyhow, back to Craig. This last task was similar to one of the last tasks in season 2, which presented the chance to see the Mole dossier (*season 2 spoiler ahead - skip to the next paragraph if you don't wanna see it for some reason). Okay still here? Good. Anyway, in that season the Mole basically donated $100k into the pot when they won that last game - now it's interesting to think what would happen this time. My gut actually says the Mole would keep the money out, believe it or not, and use the cover that would give them as possibly being a player.
Perhaps it'd be a free will choice again - and maybe in that instance were Craig the Mole he would put the money in the pot. It's interesting to ponder. I have to admit it is a bit funny and sketchy that Craig would be talking about that bridge and magically it's the final destination - then again Paul found a New Yorker willing to give up some "Emergency" Pants so anything is possible. A couple things on the quasi-hidden clue front. Did it not seem every shot of Craig when he was going between the 2nd and 3rd tasks featured a green building or a buliding with lots of green in the background? Maybe that's just me and maybe it's a coincidence but that was kinda odd.
Two things to ponder for the hidden clue buffs (again sorry if these are kinda old news). I feel like there very well may be all (or some) hidden clues in the background of confessionals (not necessarily just the Mole's actually). In episode 5, the one with Clay and Paul's little verbal fight, the background each of them is in front of them is virutally identical, showing a table in the background with a candle, what looks like a ball, and something else on it. When Clay was shown the ball is solid, when Paul is shown there's a sorta dark sideways "C" taking up the bottom half of the ball (like a sideways PacMan). Is that a clue or a fluke, I don't know. In Episode 6, when Clay is shown in his confessionals, most of them feature to dark metallic figures on the left side of the screen behind him, one higher that the other - they look kinda like the letter "i" or sorta like people. But in one confessional frame of Clay's, all of a sudden there are FOUR of these figures behind him to the left, and they are all LEVEL with each other. I reall think it's a clue, but what is it? Perhaps they are referring to Craig's glasses (Four I's - Four Eyes - Get It?) as he is in fact the only player to wear glasses out of all 12 of them. I may try to rewatch the confessionals from eps 1 to 4 tomorrow to look for similar stuff. So yeah, there's a lot there. I will say again that I wouldn't be disappointed if Craig were the Mole (failed personal Mole pics aside) as I don't know if I'd call him that conventional a choice. He's just kickin' it old school Mole style by trying to stay under the radar and do stuff that's not obvious. But I can't do it. I just can't at this rate. Craig is NOT the Mole. Mole probability...hmm let's call it:
42.683785453599766426348727244%
Episode 10 Part 3:
oops forgot a couple more Craig tidbits. One - did they have Jon say a hidden clue by saying "Take Care, Slick" to Paul at the end of the last episode? Was that a nod to Craig's SLIKE shirt? He also seemed oddly fascinated by Mark's perusing of the Mole Dossier. Given that he was the "Tango" guy in this task - was even THAT a clue?
Which brings us of course for the final time to:
1) Nicole. at this rate, if I'm wrong I may as well be perfectly wrong, no? Regardless of how it all turns out it's been a fun season to analyze and a fun run. If she isn't the Mole, the Illni in me would like to see her end up winning of course
In the Three To Tango game she gives a classic underwhelming Nicole performance. Now there is a school of thought that would say based on the past seasons involving the dossier, perhaps the best move for the Mole would be simply to fail miserably and avoid the decision - that is let the true players battle it out for the dossier and leave the $75k decision to the better of them. That is actually pretty dang logical. There are a couple other factors too that I noticed. I did think it was interesting that she'd be getting photographed in front of the Obelisco - in prior episodes, players were shown giving their confessional in front of a series of Obelisks on the table behind them. Perhaps this is a hidden clue? Not totally dismissable. She had a cactus behind her in a confessional - one of those was scene it at least one dinner scene (that could be meaningless, but I noticed it so I'll throw it out there it case it clicks with someone). One very worrisome thing that crossed my mind was the fact that she did seem genuinely nervous when they were about to start the final 3 quiz - may have been a false impression by me but that was troublesome. Lastly, I did see one final piece of compelling weirdness that has given me at least a tiny bit of strength going into this finale and that was a possible hidden clue (or maybe a figment of my imagination). At the end of Mark's looking at the dossier, we seem him lift up the papers (our only look of any sort really at the possible contents). About 1/4 of a page is exposed, and it's well, blank actually. EXCEPT that I could SWEAR that it looked like the word on the otherside of a sheet looked visible. And I could also swear that it really did look like it said "NICOLE" backwards. My jaw dropped when I saw it (and I slowed it down as well) as it really was right at the end of my analysis. Is this the final "hidden" clue (heck could it be a computer added thing that wasn't even on Mark's sheet awaiting an eagle eye?). Conversely, it's totally possible that the Mole's dossier broke down each of the players somehow and a page devoted to Nicole would be either a) expected or b) actually damaging as it would imply the Mole was talking about her...a player (that is it doesn't really prove that it's her). Anyhow, if anybody else is able to make it out to convince me I'm not crazy, let me know. And with that I'll say that for one last time...Nicole IS the Mole. My phoned in Mole probabilitiy for her is:
54.63252838658677447668434%
A few stray thoughts coming up...
Episode 10, Part 4:
Epilogue/stray thoughts.
I kinda can't wait to see what the hidden clues and their meanings are and at the same time I'm kinda bummed that I don't feel like I found more compelling ones at this stage (maybe those confessional rewatches will help me)
I'd also like to ask a little quick help in nailing down who was what answer for a couple of the final quiz questions:
Question 9 about the pants color. I think Craig and Nicole wore blue pants and that Mark work black pants. UPDATE-CONFIRMED
Question 12 - Any idea who opened a wine bottle after Grapes of Cache? I didn't catch that. UPDATE - It looks like it was never shown.
Question 11 - Did Mark have a collared shirt in Grapes of Cache? The other two definitely didn't although at least one question (Question 6) did actually have the same answer for all 3 of 'em (they all rode in the back) UPDATE - ALL THREE have non collared shirts.
Question 18 - never mind I got that.
From what I have been able to piece together at this point it looks like the number of "automatic" correct answers actually breaks down as follows:
Mark has 3 automatically correct
Nicole would have 2 automatically correct
Craig would have 1 automatically correct.
This may change based on the answers I'm not 100% sure of.
I have to say that this has really been a great sseason and thanks to ABC for bringing us another Mole season (and I do hope it returns again somehow someway somewhere - though hopefully here). It really is a beautiful fun and unique show.
Thanks for checking out my thread!!!
-QG
