LAST EDITED ON 07-19-08 AT 01:13 AM (EST)

Previously on The Mole: Well, since we just finished an action-packed hour of reMOLEhash, the recap is not only redundant, but also superfluous too. However, Jonderson needs the air-time, so let’s take a peek:

Craig POs everybody else when he assigns rotten transportation. Everybody thinks he’s the Mole.
Clay and Paul have a tiff in the van. Clay throws a lemon at Paul and bolts. The other van breaks out into song Paul Free!
Kristen is the Mole’s latest victim. This leaves Nicole as the last woman standing (well, she’s still sitting with the group, but you know what I mean).

»Cue Theme Music«

12 Strangers ~
10 Weeks ~
1 Winner ~ taking home up to a half million dollars.
But one of them is being paid to deceive the others and sabotage their missions.
That person is THE MOLE.
The player that figures out who is The Mole, and does the best job of tracking and remembering their every move, wins the money. Can you figure it out?
WHO IS THE MOLE?
VICTORIA – EXECUTED
MARK
BOBBY – EXECUTED
MARIA – EXECUTED
NICOLE
PAUL
ALEX
LIZ – EXECUTED
ALI – BRIBED
CLAY
KRISTEN – EXECUTED

»Cut to commercial«

We start the festivities with a confessional by “Dr. Diva”, the ‘last woman standing … no, last PLAYER standing’. Someplace in America, 200 diabetics go into insulin shock.
Paul adds his own confessional, griping about Nicole. I get the sense that there might be a wee bit of sexual tension between these two.

»Cue the map«

Mendoza, Argentina
Jon congratulates the “final six”. Again, Nicole proclaims herself the “Last Woman Standing”.
Zoom in on LeGuarde Vineyard. Home of the finest Malbeck on the Planet (I’m no vinophile, so for all I know, this is analogous to being the finest quart of month-old low-fat in the back of the store, but I digress…)
Clay thinks vineyards should smell like fine wine – he doesn’t realize that grapes grow in dirt, (along with fertilizer).
Jon: “The pot is at $177,000. We need three runners and three thinkers.”
Mark leaps at the chance and proclaims himself a runner.
Craig, realizing that speed is not his forte, claims a thinker spot. He’s joined by Nicole and Paul. Alex and Clay drift over to the runner side.
Jon asks for a communicator from the thinkers team. Paul insists that “I’m the loudest.”, so he gets the job. (Nicole rolls her eyes. Sure, loudness is definitely a Paul trait, but she could have made it sound nasty. Now all she sees is Paul’s evil intent.)
Jon asks for the best athlete from the runners. Mark raises his hand (he is, after all, a teacher, so the raising of hands comes as second nature).
“This mission is ‘The Grapes of Cache’. The task, find seven bottles of wine hidden someplace in the vineyard. Each bottle is worth $10K to the pot, for a potential payday of $70 grand.”
The rules are simple: The thinkers will be given brainteasers (finally! Something cerebral!). The correct answer will correspond to a latitude and longitude location within the vineyard. Paul will use a cell phone »insert product placement opportunity« to tell the runners (Clay and Alex) where to look. Clay is worried, because he doesn’t get technology. He can’t even use his VCR at home. He still has a VCR? What's wrong with this guy? Is he still living in the 70s!
Be careful, because if you pick the wrong answer, you’ll be looking in the wrong place. Paul cannot help solve the brainteasers, but Mark can.
Meanwhile, Mark will be the "timekeeper" by running on a treadmill. Every time the runners find a bottle, the treadmill will go faster. Once Mark stops, the mission is over.
Mark, “I’m in control.”

Jon sits back, enjoying a glass of Argentina’s finest mildewed grape juice.

Question One:
From the following list of words, choose the word that does not fit:
Ice, Cheese, Chocolate, Plastic, Wood

A) Chocolate
B) Wood
C) Ice
D) Cheese

Nicole, “I like plastic” (not noticing that ‘plastic’ is not on the answer list – is this a hidden clue?).
Mark, at a leisurely walking pace, “Ice, cheese, chocolate and plastic are congealed. Wood is a solid.”
“I like wood.” Craig offers. Something one should never say in front of a class of middle school students, btw.
Paul sends the first coordinate. Clay repeats it, but skips a digit. Paul, “I have my work cut out with Clay. We’ve had problems.” Oh yea? Nobody’s noticed that… Paul then reminds Clay that there are TWO coordinates.

Question Two:
Which number should replace the question mark?
14 4 9 2
13 7 4 5
11 4 5 3
22 5 9 ?

A) 5
B) 3
C) 8
D) 2

Craig quickly finds the pattern. (14+4=18; 18÷2=2) So 22+5=27; 27÷9=3. Answer is B.
Meanwhile, Clay and Alex are still hunting for the first bottle.

Question Three:
Some months have 30 days, others have 31 days. In a single year, how many months have 28 days?

A) 1
B) 2
C) 12
D) 6

Craig and Nicole have no clue. Really. They don’t get it.
Mark saves them from national embarrassment by reminding them that “all months have 28 days.”
Answer C goes onto the chalkboard. No word from Alex and Clay.

Question Four:
How many ways can you read ABC off the diamond?
xxxxxXXXA
xxxxxXXABA
xxxxxXABCBA
xxxxxXXABA
xxxxxXXXA

A) 4
B) 6
C) 12
D) None of the above

Paul continues to gripe about not being able to help. Nicole works out the answer, but announces that she’s ‘guessing’.

»»Clay finds the first bottle. Jon hits some keys and Mark picks up the pace.

Question Five:
Which number should come next in the following sequence?
2, 6, 3, 9, 6, 18, 15, 45, 42, …

A) 39
B) 120
C) 126
D) None of the above

Mark immediately sees the pattern. “42 x 3” who knew history teachers could do math?
126 – Answer C on the board.

»»Bottle two goes in the bag. Speed increases.

Question Six:
Jim is taller than Kevin, and Walter is shorter than Jim. Which of the following statements would be most accurate?

A) Walter is taller than Kevin.
B) Walter is shorter than Kevin.
C) Walter is as tall as Kevin.
D) None of the above.

Once again, Nicole jumps in, “I have a feeling it’s C”. Mark, still clugging away, “You don’t know how tall Walter and Kevin are, just that Kevin is taller than both of them.”
Paul reminds us once again that Mark is doing all the figuring. Nicole is trying to sabotage the group – “I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.”
Meanwhile, back to the mission – the third bottle is found and now Mark is jogging. He’s been at it for over 19 minutes (thanks to the opportune little clock in the corner).

Question Seven:
Every morning at 9am, my wine cellar receives a delivery of 22 bottles of wine, all of which are stored in the cellar. Every afternoon at 5pm I remove 12 bottles from my wine cellar and give them away to friends. No other bottles enter or leave my wine cellar except at these two times. On January 1 at 8am I had 400 bottles in my wine cellar. On what date in January did my wine cellar first contain more than 500 bottles of wine?

A) January 9
B) January 10
C) January 11
D) January 12

Nicole quickly jumps in, “he gets 10 a day. So it’s 10 days.”
Jon, in a voice-over, tells us that the runners skip looking for bottles 4, 5 & 6 to find number 7. We see Clay and Alex searching, but no bottle is found.
Paul and Nicole continue their bickering. I get the image of a couple of 10-year-olds playing “yo mama’s”
“for a doctor, you’re not too smart”
“you’re about to kiss my a$$”
“that hairy thing?”

Meanwhile, Clay and Alex have scoured their area, and have no new information. Mark is chugging away. Craig is – just being Craig and standing around doing nothing.
Mark finally figures out the right answer. They forgot about the morning/afternoon shift. “When he gets the 22 bottles on the morning of the 10th, there are 490. Those put it over 500.”
Out on the farm, Alex is tired of waiting and wants to break open a bottle. »cue foreshadowing music«
Low and behold, Clay finds the next bottle.
Run Mark, Run!

The teams have now answered all of the brainteasers. Clay complains that the locations are too far apart.

Mark has been on the treadmill for 30 minutes, and they’ve got six bottles. Jon is bummed because the treadmill is maxed out.
Again, we get the word, the runners must return with the bottles before Mark carps out or nothing will be added to the pot.
Mark suggests that they hurry.

The last bottle is found, and Alex and Clay head for home. Mark is starting to sweat.

Craig is still standing around, doing nothing.
Paul eyes Nicole.
Nicole eyes Paul.
Jon drinks more wine.

The bottles arrive just in time -- $70K is added to the pot, and Mark needs a shower.
Alex looks for a corkscrew.
Paul tells Clay and Alex that Mark answered all of the questions.
Craig stands around, doing nothing.

Nicole proposes a toast: “to the money!”
»Cut to commercial«

In the hotel, Paul tells Alex about Nicole. Alex thinks she’s the Mole.
Mark, “I can’t believe Nicole is the Mole.”
Clay is suspicious of Mark.
Mark, “Everyone is suspicious in three acts of sabotage.”
Clay, “Everyone’s the Mole.” Brilliant legal mind at work
Cut to Nicole – “Nicole is the Mole, the Mole is Nicole! I am Molerific!”
Craig is playing up to Nicole, the tease.

Back to the boys’ room. Clay and Mark plot to get Alex boozed up during dinner so he’ll be slow on the quiz.

Next morning – back to the vans.
We stop at a bridge (well, really two bridges, but we’re only using one.)
Clay tells us that when he saw the bridge, Craig turned white. Quite a feat spotting that chromatic shift there, Clay-o

Jon, “The next mission is "Swing Out” and is worth up to $60,000. All you need to do is bungee jump off this bridge.”
One other twist – players have to toss this bag of tea into a square, green target. The amount hit is the amount added to the pot.
Paul is first on the plank, but doesn’t like the idea that hunting wine bottles is worth $10,000 more than jumping off a bridge 90’ over the river.
Just before he leaps, Jon announces “would you like an exemption?” Naturally, Paul is interested. The deal – whoever guesses how much the team earns, without going over (what is this, TPIR?) will get an exemption.
Off goes Paul, and his tea bag is just short.

Clay is next, he closes his eyes and jumps. “Chocolate Bear”’s toss is in the water.

Craig is third. Jon warns him not to look down. Craig tells us that “I don’t dangle” First he likes wood, now he tells us that he doesn’t dangle. The man is a font of straight lines.
And as Craig plummets into the abyss,
»Cut to commercial«

McDonald’s
High School Musical
locals
Bank of America
Honda
McDonald’s again

»Back to the action«

Craig is still falling! OOOOOOOOOO!
Craig stretches the bungee cord to its maximum, and a scant two feet from the river bend, he rebounds skyward.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
His toss is miles off target.

Next victim leaper is Alex. While Jon is explaining the exemption to him, his ears quit working.
Alex does a nifty reverse collapse dismount and hurls hurly-girly to the river. The tea bag flies out and lands…

in the $4,000 range.

Nicole is the sixth and final contestant. She debates bailing out. Jon’s exemption offer is oh so tempting. Off she goes.
And misses something awful.

Out of six leaps and tosses, only one hit the target. $4 grand goes into the pot, which is now worth a whopping $251,000.

With the team reassembled, Jon reviews the exemption guesses:
Mark - $10K Craig - $20K
Paul - $12K Alex - $15K
Clay - $14K Nicole - $28K
Everybody was over. No exemption.

Back in the hotel, we see Nicole writing in her journal. This is news. She now claims protection from the Mole, since she’s written in her journal.

At dinner, Clay offers Alex his glass of wine, claiming “cough medicine, can’t drink.”

»Take the Quiz« (and you don't need to go to abc.com)
1. Is the Mole?

A) Male Alex, Clay, Craig, Mark, Paul
B) Female Nicole

2. In the “Grapes of Cache” mission, did the Mole solve any brainteasers?

A) Yes Craig, Mark, Nicole
B) No Alex, Clay, Paul

3. Was The Mole wearing a collared shirt during “The Cache”?

A) Yes Clay
B) No Alex, Craig, Mark, Nicole, Paul

4. In “Grapes of Cache”, which group did the Mole join?

A) Thinkers Craig, Nicole, Paul
B) Runners Alex, Clay, Mark

5. At wine and cheese after “The Grapes of Cache” mission, starting from Jon, where was the Mole sitting (going clockwise)?

A) First Craig
B) Second Mark
C) Third Paul
D) Fourth Alex
E) Fifth Nicole
F) Sixth Clay

6. In the “Swing Out” mission, how many players jumped off the bridge before the Mole?

A) 0 Mark
B) 1 Paul
C) 2 Clay
D) 3 Craig
E) 4 Alex
F) 5 Nicole

7. In the “Swing Out” mission, where did the Mole’s exemption guess rank from highest to lowest?

A) First Nicole 28K
B) Second Craig, 20K
C) Third Alex, 15K
D) Fourth Clay, 14K
E) Fifth Paul, 12K
F) Sixth Mark, 10K

8. In the “Swing Out” mission, how much money did the Mole earn for the pot?

A) 0 Mark, Paul, Clay, Craig, Nicole
B) $4K Alex
C) $6K Nobody
D) $8K Nobody
E) $10K Nobody

9. In “Swing Out”, how much did the Mole guess to win an exemption?

A) $10K Mark
B) $12K Paul
C) $14K Clay
D) $15K Craig
E) $20K Alex
F) $28K Nicole

10. Who is the Mole?

A) Alex
B) Clay
C) Craig
D) Mark
E) Nicole
F) Paul

After the break, it’s time to find out who the Mole’s next victim is going to be.

A quick shot of a wine cask – with the number N20 Is this another hidden clue?

Alex is first on the monitor.
EXECTUED

Shocked looks all around, mouths agape.
Looks like the wine ploy worked.
Mark tells us that he was glad he didn’t go first.

Next week on The Mole – REUNIONS! (trapped in an Argentine subway!)

Deceiving players since 2001