Television shows usually don’t get resurrected after years on the shelf. To do it twice, well, that’s rather improbable. Yet here we are, 2-3 years after the second Celebrity Mole with the fifth season of The Mole. How did it fare?
One of the most important things about The Mole (moreso than other reality shows) is the host. Anderson Cooper was great at this, and it has served him well on CNN. Ahmad Rashad would have been a horrible host for regular joes, but for D-Listers, he was the perfect foil. I suppose all those years of hosting Inside Stuff helped him out. So how did Jon Kelley do? Well, I don’t think he was given much to work with until the end, and he’s trying too much to be like Anderson. He’s seemed kinda stiff so far, but to be fair, we only got to see Cooper’s wicked sense of humour in season two, so Kelley has some time to grow into the role. Assuming that ABC doesn’t pull it like The One, that is.
Game 1: Jumping the Falls – getting bags were Nicole, Marcie, Bobby, Mark, Liz and Clay. Out of those jumpers, only Bobby and Clay had real money, earning them $20,000.
Game 2: Scavenger Hunt – Nicole was voted biggest whiner, and thus got to pick the teams. Mark was seemingly well suited for this task based on his role as a history teacher, but really, do you think he’s actually smarter than a fifth grader? Anyways, the team got 3 of 5 right for $15,000, so not too bad a haul. No one really stood out as an obvious Mole here, but this was a task where the Mole could really just sit back and let everyone fail. And as the whiner, Nicole was sent to Exile Island given an exemption, although this wasn’t confirmed until the Execution ceremony.
For the record:
Scavengers – Marcie, Alex, Clay, Bobby, Craig, Victoria
Appraisers – Kristen, Liz, Mark
Timekeepers – Paul, Ali
So based on the game, here’s my first take on the question: who is the Mole? Well, out of the four seasons, we’ve had three good looking women and an old guy (who may not be good looking, but I think being a retired Admiral ) So based on that, I’m gonna say that none of the following people are NOT the Mole: Marcie, Ali, Kristin, and Victoria. Nicole is definitely acting mole-like, but her act is really over the top and it remains to be seen if she’s acting like a princess just to draw suspicion her way. ?
Liz would be a really good choice for Mole, IF she can pull it off, but she reminds me of Kate (season one) and I don’t know if she’s got the ability. The reason that Bill worked so well was that as a retired military man, he had this aura of truth about him, yet because he was military, it made him uniquely qualified for the tasks required for the Mole. Just ask Chef Robert Irvine.
Paul’s probably doing the right thing by trying to point people to who he thinks ISN’T the Mole, but he’s being a bit too Boston Rob about it, and the only guy who can pull off a Boston Rob is, well, Boston Rob. BTW, early coalitions (that we see) don’t usually amount to much, which to me means that this one won’t be lasting very long.
Anyways, the quiz portion was, once again, tough, and seriously requires STUDYING to remember all the details. I mean, the first and last are usually the same, and on initial viewing I didn’t catch all the details. Had they asked who had what journal, my answer would’ve been “guh”?
And going home… Marcie. Once again, the major coalitions of the show (Steve and Jim, and Kathy and Eric) weren’t obvious (or at least editied that way) until near the end of the show, so this one ending this early is not a huge surprise, although you’d think that this might have played out a little longer.
