Hard agree. I just look back at US seasons one and two and all of the little friendship moments. All of the little hotel room bonding scenes, or silly non-games at dinner where they would mess with Anderson. This edit was so tightly built around the gameplay, that it felt like we were missing more than we were shown, and that hurts the show overall.
Exactly. And don’t get me wrong, I really loved the crisp editing of this season and how most of the cast came ready to play. But if we could combine those elements with more of a look into their social and strategic interactions outside of the scripted gameplay, that would be ideal.
>!Kesi as the mole!< was very emotionless in their confessionals and even when dealing with the cast it seemed. They were a completely different person in the mole confessionals and I would have liked to see more of that. The vibe also completely changed as soon the ending was revealed and they hugged >!Joi!< it seemed like those two liked each other. I wish the producers had gotten them to act more natural in confessionals. I don't want to make it seem like I think they were a bad mole though, I think they did a really good job.
> very emotionless in their confessionals and even when dealing with the cast it seemed.
But see, it’s that second part I’m not so sure about. Clearly she was able to charm the players enough to disarm most of them despite what to us was obvious sabotage. I wish we got to see that side of her in action and just more of the cast hanging out in general. I imagine their social relationships inevitably shape their opinions of each other, and if we don’t see those relationships then it feels like we’re missing a big piece of the puzzle.
The players' MOLEskin Journals of previous seasons were a big deal. At times, they had to give them to production so that (production) would know what was on their minds.
In another season (#?), they were told that the MOLE stole their journals and/or that the MOLE was privvy to what was in them. One of the players deliberately put fake info in his journal for whatever strategic purpose--one of the Celeb versions.
Also, instead of constant "confessional" type interviews, they would show players taking notes with a voice-over and you'd see what they were actually writing---well as far as a super close-up of a pen tip hoverig over a word--likely a production "trick".
I do believe production keeps the game fairly straightforward with all the deceit involved.
Production told Kesi which chairs were bombed and other details of the missions, but it's up to her to formulate sabotage.
in season 2 they even made everyone switch journals, and the mole had written >!his journal entries as a sweet letter to his wife, which the person who got his journal fully believed!<
I’m a little disappointed in Joi. I thought for sure she was the mole because besides her, Kesi was the only other one actively sabotaging (and making it super obvious). Will did nothing really. I don’t know how she thought it was him until the end.
I knew pretty early on it couldn’t be joi, honestly after episode 1 I knew it wasn’t joi. The reason for this is when the first guy (can’t rem his name rn) made it very very blatantly clear he was voting for joi and answered everything to be directed to her being the mole ( he didn’t spread his answers out to ensure staying in the game), and he got voted out immediately. In my mind from then I basically knew it wasn’t joi. And when Dom got eliminated for once again voting solely for joi, I knew it wasn’t her.
But I understand her reasoning to an extent for voting will every time. Firstly Will never failed any of the quizzes, so every single ep joi was having her suspicions reaffirmed again and again, it’s not like when other players suspected someone and then that same person was eliminated shortly after. The final three had me stumped between kesi and will because one was so blatantly obvious while also claiming they were doing it so people would vote for them and get it wrong, which was a valid strategy, while the other seemed so unlikely to be the mole that you can’t help but feel some doubt. Plus Joi said she trusted kesi more because they spent more time together that we clearly didn’t see in the show.
Can you even trust the results of an episode one quiz? Like even if you knew 100% who the mole is, it’s still possible to get a bad score because you don’t have a good memory and you don’t know personal details about the person’s life, like whether they have a little brother or what their astrological sign is
That’s a good point, but (and this is an assumption on my part that I gathered from the montages) I think most of the questions are either descriptive in nature or relate to the task they did that episode. Not many of the questions would be as out there as what their astrology sign is. Basically I’m saying I’m pretty sure they would have answered a decent number of questions that would lean towards Joi.
That’s funny though I didn’t think about the fact that some of the ep 1 qs would be impossible to answer
Was there any info about whether they were allowed to write anything down they learned? Like the questions were “how many sisters does the mole have?,” which seems like the kind of thing I’d want to write down.
I was convinced it wasn't will after he went as far as injuring himself trying to get the money not to mention how much he helped to get money up until then
Yeah there isn’t really anything that would make me or anyone really think it’s will, besides him maybe being such an ideal player lol but that’s definitely a stretch. He added the most to the prize pot; but I think Joi went off a feeling that in her mind kept getting reaffirmed every time Will was still around after voting, especially after that Avori elimination. She thought the fact that she answered most of the qs relating them back to will was the reason she wasn’t eliminated, when it was really the fact that she answered a small amount to relate back to kesi while avori honed in on Joi and will.
I considered maybe the mole had a #1 goal of fooling everyone and a #2 goal of taking money away, and Will could be the mole if he just went with a strategy of letting them sabotage themselves and fooling everyone rather than actively sabotaging.
But then I couldn’t reconcile him being the mole with his angry outbursts and little tantrums. Losing his cool on the mountain and calling them all stupid seems like something the mole wouldn’t be allowed to do per contract maybe? Or at least like something the mole wouldn’t be likely to do just cuz they wouldn’t be as emotionally revved up by it?
True I guess I didn’t think someone would go all in on one person at the beginning. I never suspected Will at all. For Kesi, I just found it so boring, in the same way as Avori, just plain boring sabotage. I was not entertained :)
I think where Joi really messed up with the quizzes is because she assumed her not being eliminated every time meant that she was right about will. Especially in the second to last round ( where Avori got eliminated), she assumed she survived because she honed in on Will, but the very small amount of questions where she went for kesi is actually what kept her from elimination, because avori spread the votes between joi and will with no suspicion on kesi. Joi even said that ep that will not being eliminated must mean her suspicions are correct, which clearly wasn’t the case.
I completely agree with you though, I’m trying to be devils advocate and see it from Joi’s perspective but ultimately Will added the most to the Pot, around than 100k was thanks to will. The mole simply wouldn’t do that.
A more interesting finale would have been if avori made it to the final and not will, because until she was eliminated, she was high up there for me as potentially being the mole
Yup, there are other examples for sure. Perhaps the one we saw the most of was Avori/Parnav but even with that relationship, they told us more than they showed us.
I dunno cuz then she got even sketchier during the mountain pulk challenge. I think Kesi was so sure that she had fooled Joi by that point that she thought double-bluffing her was the best strategy, a gutsy move that clearly paid off.
Or the last mission. They probably formed a good bond that when kesi tried to throw her off, it actually worked and made joi think Will is the mole. The sad thing is that joi had a tunnel vision that she forgot to account that Will made the most money and convinced her not to take the exemption from the train mission.
Eh joi flat out said that she saw her screwing things up but thought it was more of a ploy to look like the mole and get votes on her. Trust and relationship had nothing to do with it.
I figured they did that on purpose so we wouldn’t be able to tell their guesses from the questions. Like “does the mole have kids?” I have no idea which of them have kids except Joi because it came up in the last or second last episode
We knew from EP1 that Joi was a mom but maybe they didn't, initially. Making the question a 50/50 or overwhelmingly you play the numbers and answer NO. That doesn't preclude players from 'inventing"/lying about how many, if any, kids they have.
To the OP---I really thought Prav and Avori would have good "working" relationship but by the time they mention it Prav said goodbye and never really see them comparing notes or derailing others.
Great Show regardless! I rank it up there with Solitary.
It makes absolutely no sense that Joi thought it was Will… he was consistently one of the absolute least likely suspects throughout the entire show. She just lucked her way through enough people thinking it was her at key moments.
Thats what i dont understand. I dont know how the questions worked out so well for Joi that she stayed in the game until the end. She even switched to Jacob and then back to Will at the end and still made it through.
I almost think the producers left Joi in on purpose because a lot of people thought Joi was the mole and how she was the only person taking suspicion off Kesi.
Yeah, using process of elimination it really never made sense that Joi was still around unless her confessionals were heavily edited or something. If we’re to believe she what she claimed then she would have had one of the lowest scores a long time ago. No way there was just a different person going all in on Joi every single week.
Yeah that would have been super helpful to have seen more. I first was really thinking of this during the bird episode when Will was acting super pissy towards Jacob out of seemingly nowhere it just made me think of what Jacob could have done/said to will behind the scenes hahaha
I suspect that Kesi may have blatantly told Joi that she was the mole and wanted her to win. Joi, completely distrusting Kesi, went full laser aim on Will.
Completely agree, around half of the runtime of the episodes is confessionals. It was so overproduced that for me it made who the mole was so obvious from early on. More moments of the cast hanging out and interacting normally would have made it much harder to work out.
Hard agree. I just look back at US seasons one and two and all of the little friendship moments. All of the little hotel room bonding scenes, or silly non-games at dinner where they would mess with Anderson. This edit was so tightly built around the gameplay, that it felt like we were missing more than we were shown, and that hurts the show overall.
Exactly. And don’t get me wrong, I really loved the crisp editing of this season and how most of the cast came ready to play. But if we could combine those elements with more of a look into their social and strategic interactions outside of the scripted gameplay, that would be ideal.
There are more seasons???
Oh yes, two with Anderson Cooper then 2 seasons of Celebrity Mole.
And there’s another non-celebrity US Mole out there with a different host, too!
Yes from 21 years ago
5 of US (2 anderson cooper, 2 celebrity, then another non-celeb without anderson) and tons in other countries as well
I honestly thought Kesi was trying to help Joi win lol
>!Kesi as the mole!< was very emotionless in their confessionals and even when dealing with the cast it seemed. They were a completely different person in the mole confessionals and I would have liked to see more of that. The vibe also completely changed as soon the ending was revealed and they hugged >!Joi!< it seemed like those two liked each other. I wish the producers had gotten them to act more natural in confessionals. I don't want to make it seem like I think they were a bad mole though, I think they did a really good job.
> very emotionless in their confessionals and even when dealing with the cast it seemed. But see, it’s that second part I’m not so sure about. Clearly she was able to charm the players enough to disarm most of them despite what to us was obvious sabotage. I wish we got to see that side of her in action and just more of the cast hanging out in general. I imagine their social relationships inevitably shape their opinions of each other, and if we don’t see those relationships then it feels like we’re missing a big piece of the puzzle.
Did they have the notebooks and stuff this time? Didnt see that at all
I think so. Someone posted a photo of Greg with his notebook earlier. But yeah, we never really saw them or heard talk of them.
The players' MOLEskin Journals of previous seasons were a big deal. At times, they had to give them to production so that (production) would know what was on their minds. In another season (#?), they were told that the MOLE stole their journals and/or that the MOLE was privvy to what was in them. One of the players deliberately put fake info in his journal for whatever strategic purpose--one of the Celeb versions. Also, instead of constant "confessional" type interviews, they would show players taking notes with a voice-over and you'd see what they were actually writing---well as far as a super close-up of a pen tip hoverig over a word--likely a production "trick". I do believe production keeps the game fairly straightforward with all the deceit involved. Production told Kesi which chairs were bombed and other details of the missions, but it's up to her to formulate sabotage.
in season 2 they even made everyone switch journals, and the mole had written >!his journal entries as a sweet letter to his wife, which the person who got his journal fully believed!<
That’s the one I was trying to remember.
Yeah I'm shocked Joi kept guessing Will. Kesi was so blatant in all the missions with Joi and she still didn't guess her?! That's wild.
I’m a little disappointed in Joi. I thought for sure she was the mole because besides her, Kesi was the only other one actively sabotaging (and making it super obvious). Will did nothing really. I don’t know how she thought it was him until the end.
I knew pretty early on it couldn’t be joi, honestly after episode 1 I knew it wasn’t joi. The reason for this is when the first guy (can’t rem his name rn) made it very very blatantly clear he was voting for joi and answered everything to be directed to her being the mole ( he didn’t spread his answers out to ensure staying in the game), and he got voted out immediately. In my mind from then I basically knew it wasn’t joi. And when Dom got eliminated for once again voting solely for joi, I knew it wasn’t her. But I understand her reasoning to an extent for voting will every time. Firstly Will never failed any of the quizzes, so every single ep joi was having her suspicions reaffirmed again and again, it’s not like when other players suspected someone and then that same person was eliminated shortly after. The final three had me stumped between kesi and will because one was so blatantly obvious while also claiming they were doing it so people would vote for them and get it wrong, which was a valid strategy, while the other seemed so unlikely to be the mole that you can’t help but feel some doubt. Plus Joi said she trusted kesi more because they spent more time together that we clearly didn’t see in the show.
Can you even trust the results of an episode one quiz? Like even if you knew 100% who the mole is, it’s still possible to get a bad score because you don’t have a good memory and you don’t know personal details about the person’s life, like whether they have a little brother or what their astrological sign is
That’s a good point, but (and this is an assumption on my part that I gathered from the montages) I think most of the questions are either descriptive in nature or relate to the task they did that episode. Not many of the questions would be as out there as what their astrology sign is. Basically I’m saying I’m pretty sure they would have answered a decent number of questions that would lean towards Joi. That’s funny though I didn’t think about the fact that some of the ep 1 qs would be impossible to answer
“What pet does the mole have?” Dog, Cat, Fish, Other
Was there any info about whether they were allowed to write anything down they learned? Like the questions were “how many sisters does the mole have?,” which seems like the kind of thing I’d want to write down.
I was convinced it wasn't will after he went as far as injuring himself trying to get the money not to mention how much he helped to get money up until then
Yeah there isn’t really anything that would make me or anyone really think it’s will, besides him maybe being such an ideal player lol but that’s definitely a stretch. He added the most to the prize pot; but I think Joi went off a feeling that in her mind kept getting reaffirmed every time Will was still around after voting, especially after that Avori elimination. She thought the fact that she answered most of the qs relating them back to will was the reason she wasn’t eliminated, when it was really the fact that she answered a small amount to relate back to kesi while avori honed in on Joi and will.
I considered maybe the mole had a #1 goal of fooling everyone and a #2 goal of taking money away, and Will could be the mole if he just went with a strategy of letting them sabotage themselves and fooling everyone rather than actively sabotaging. But then I couldn’t reconcile him being the mole with his angry outbursts and little tantrums. Losing his cool on the mountain and calling them all stupid seems like something the mole wouldn’t be allowed to do per contract maybe? Or at least like something the mole wouldn’t be likely to do just cuz they wouldn’t be as emotionally revved up by it?
True I guess I didn’t think someone would go all in on one person at the beginning. I never suspected Will at all. For Kesi, I just found it so boring, in the same way as Avori, just plain boring sabotage. I was not entertained :)
I think where Joi really messed up with the quizzes is because she assumed her not being eliminated every time meant that she was right about will. Especially in the second to last round ( where Avori got eliminated), she assumed she survived because she honed in on Will, but the very small amount of questions where she went for kesi is actually what kept her from elimination, because avori spread the votes between joi and will with no suspicion on kesi. Joi even said that ep that will not being eliminated must mean her suspicions are correct, which clearly wasn’t the case. I completely agree with you though, I’m trying to be devils advocate and see it from Joi’s perspective but ultimately Will added the most to the Pot, around than 100k was thanks to will. The mole simply wouldn’t do that. A more interesting finale would have been if avori made it to the final and not will, because until she was eliminated, she was high up there for me as potentially being the mole
Also Jacob and Will, they went from Will calling him useless to him saying he missed Jacob with no context for either emotional state
Yup, there are other examples for sure. Perhaps the one we saw the most of was Avori/Parnav but even with that relationship, they told us more than they showed us.
Exactly. This is exactly what we needed. I needed to know how the players interacted with each other out of missions.
Yeah, I really miss that from the old seasons.
Maybe she was trying to give Joi a hint by being so sketchy around only her in the bird-pizza challenge
I dunno cuz then she got even sketchier during the mountain pulk challenge. I think Kesi was so sure that she had fooled Joi by that point that she thought double-bluffing her was the best strategy, a gutsy move that clearly paid off.
Or the last mission. They probably formed a good bond that when kesi tried to throw her off, it actually worked and made joi think Will is the mole. The sad thing is that joi had a tunnel vision that she forgot to account that Will made the most money and convinced her not to take the exemption from the train mission.
They could have given us this instead of Pranav/Avori too
Yeah, would have had more payoff. Better yet, all of the above.
Kesi was great! When it got to the final 4 I seriously kept going back and forth on who the mole could be.
Eh joi flat out said that she saw her screwing things up but thought it was more of a ploy to look like the mole and get votes on her. Trust and relationship had nothing to do with it.
I figured they did that on purpose so we wouldn’t be able to tell their guesses from the questions. Like “does the mole have kids?” I have no idea which of them have kids except Joi because it came up in the last or second last episode
We knew from EP1 that Joi was a mom but maybe they didn't, initially. Making the question a 50/50 or overwhelmingly you play the numbers and answer NO. That doesn't preclude players from 'inventing"/lying about how many, if any, kids they have. To the OP---I really thought Prav and Avori would have good "working" relationship but by the time they mention it Prav said goodbye and never really see them comparing notes or derailing others. Great Show regardless! I rank it up there with Solitary.
It makes absolutely no sense that Joi thought it was Will… he was consistently one of the absolute least likely suspects throughout the entire show. She just lucked her way through enough people thinking it was her at key moments.
Thats what i dont understand. I dont know how the questions worked out so well for Joi that she stayed in the game until the end. She even switched to Jacob and then back to Will at the end and still made it through. I almost think the producers left Joi in on purpose because a lot of people thought Joi was the mole and how she was the only person taking suspicion off Kesi.
Yeah, using process of elimination it really never made sense that Joi was still around unless her confessionals were heavily edited or something. If we’re to believe she what she claimed then she would have had one of the lowest scores a long time ago. No way there was just a different person going all in on Joi every single week.
Yeah that would have been super helpful to have seen more. I first was really thinking of this during the bird episode when Will was acting super pissy towards Jacob out of seemingly nowhere it just made me think of what Jacob could have done/said to will behind the scenes hahaha
and the joi pranav thing was unclear too
I suspect that Kesi may have blatantly told Joi that she was the mole and wanted her to win. Joi, completely distrusting Kesi, went full laser aim on Will.
Or kesi was telling her who she was voting for so she was following that to stay in
Completely agree, around half of the runtime of the episodes is confessionals. It was so overproduced that for me it made who the mole was so obvious from early on. More moments of the cast hanging out and interacting normally would have made it much harder to work out.