Trip

I just finished watching the most recent Belgian "De Mol" for the second time, and my god what a great season. Perhaps my favorite season of any Mole anywhere. Looking on Wikipedia, I see that Poland ("Agent") and Finland ("Myyra") also have currently airing Mole seasons. Anybody have any idea whether someone might surreptitiously be making English subtitles for either of those? Also, the Belgian recapper is expressing strong doubts about subtitling next year, and the Dutch recapper seems to be getting more and more burned out. Any chance someone knows someone who could do this if necessary? I for one would be more than happy to help pay for the translation.

This Belgian season is really great. The boat challenge in episode 4 may be my favorite challenge from any season of any Mole.

At least we had a Mol who actually DID things this year, unlike, say, Thomas.

So I'm about 75% on Merel, 25% on Sarah, and it better not be either Sinan or Niels. Niels has put too much in the pot and did that shady thing with the joker that should be outside of what moles are allowed to do; Sinan has barely participated, which would make him the lamest mole of all time. Sarah has moled a lot, sometimes fairly obviously (I don't buy the dyslexia thing for a second); if it is her, I'm going to be a bit disappointed that the mole wasn't more subtle. Merel has been on my list since the beginning, and the last episode clinched it for me. Production obviously needed two kandidaten to leave in either episode 7 or 8, and the easiest way of doing that is to have the mole pull the two-red card, since there was no guarantee that a candidate would pull it.

I think it's a combination of boring challenges and bad casting. There have been a number of challenges where I was sure there would be some sort of twist, and then there just ... wasn't (the first box-pulling challenge, for example). And seasons where almost everyone is deliberately moling are less fun to watch, in my opinion, though I understand that's optimal strategy.

This has to be the most boring season of WITM in many years.

I'm working on the "it's time for a female Mol again" theory. Since I don't think there's any way it's Nikkie, that leaves Sarah, Merel, and Evelien.

Minority opinion, I guess, but I honestly thought Aquaria was the worst of the night. That evil outfit was disjointed as hell and needed to be simplified to make any sense. And her "read" of good Aquaria was so weak! It was just random potshots rather than really getting in deep, the way they insisted everyone else do.

Have just watched the reveal. Anyway, I thought that was a very good season, just as WIDM was this year. Looking forward to seeing more details about the sabotages next week!

Really liking this season. Between this and the recent season of WIDM, it's been a good Mole year. Re the phone call in episode 7: could anyone tell me what the specific notes were that were whistled? Am wondering if they spell a word (probably in Flemish or something) that's a clue to the actual Mole. It's hard to believe that "the sound of the Mole's whistle" was supposed to be the big giveaway hint that Gilles was suggesting was there.

Just watched episode 5 of season 6 of De Mol, and my absolute last suspect got eliminated. As usual, no help at all. At this point, I think my suspect list, from top to bottom, is Pieter - Pascale - Lloyd - Joke - Baha. I really only suspect the first three. Lloyd was my #1 until this episode, but I can't figure out why the Mole would have taken $1000 from charity to get unnecessary jokers, unless Belgian moles are just real assholes. Even if I'm wrong about Pieter, I want it to be him. I'd love a drinking, swearing priest to be the Mole.

Looks like Natalia's YouTube account has been suspended. Can't find anything on Daily Motion. I'm starting to panic -- I'm really enjoying this season and don't want to give up on it! Does anyone have any leads on where we could still get subtitled episodes?

I believe Natalia is still planning to post links on YouTube to DailyMotion and/or a place where you can watch it directly.

I still think Ellie Lust would have been a great, semi-menacing host in the Anderson Cooper vein, but I'll be okay with Rik.

Art is leaving WIDM! He's changing networks, so they're looking for a new host. :-(

Has anyone else watched episode 1 of the new season of Belgium's De Mol yet? The opening is utterly awesome, and I got one of my biggest laughs ever from a Mole episode when you-know-what appeared in the bullring. I'm starting to think this may actually be the best version of The Mole, even over WIDM.

"Brianna Cracker" is one of the best drag names I've ever heard. Cannot BELIEVE she changed it to the horrible "Miz Cracker".

So Jan was ... a pretty good Mol. A great Mol is the perfect balance between "not bringing in money" and "not being suspected"; he was great at the latter and okay at the former. (He brought in the least of the three finalists, but still maybe a bit more than he should have.) I did love his cocky attitude, though; much more entertaining than the take-no-chances moles of the last few seasons. And the walking-by-in-the-park thing was awesome. And I was happy to hear that Jan's dive into the river was a molactie in exactly the ways I described above. :-) Still sorry it wasn't Olcay, though.

Pretty sure this was a new format for the test, yes. I was sorry no one took the "see the Mol" path because I really wanted to see how that would work (even though obviously they wouldn't have shown us what the candidate saw). It sounded to me, from Art's description, that the money would go into the pot if the person who grabbed it won the season. If that interpretation is right, the Mol could grab the money (for the viewers' benefit) because the winner wouldn't get it. (That said, I still don't think it's Ruben, and if it is, he sucked as Mol.) PRAYING that the Mol is Olcay because what a finale that would be.

After giving it some more thought, my new Mole order is Jan > Olcay > Ruben. If the Mole is Ruben: then everything is as clear as it seems: everybody since at least Stine, and probably before, has been voting for Ruben, and the one who knew the least about him has left. Either Olcay or Jan could win. Booooring, and bad mole, as I said. If the Mole is Jan: then Ruben wins, and Olcay will be the Freek/Jochem of this season who gets to the finals by doing better than all the others who also didn't know the mole. (Jan did do one very moley thing this episode: that whole business of diving for the tube -- and probably grabbing the wrong one, since nobody could tell -- then struggling to get back in the raft wasted a ton of time and probably prevented them from grabbing several tubes.) If the Mole is Olcay: then I honestly think this will be the season where nobody guessed the mole, since Jan will vote Ruben and Ruben will vote Jan, and the winner will be the one who accidentally hit her on the test the most. I'm actually hoping it's Olcay, because that ending would be great, and I can imagine it being possible that she committed a ton of mole actions that I missed. But I think I'm slightly leaning toward Jan, as I said.

I QUIT. They keep getting rid of the mole! If it's Ruben, he was a terrible mole, though in a different way than Thomas was last year: Thomas was terrible because he didn't mole much, Ruben because everyone suspected him. If it's not Ruben, one of the contestants has either been lying to the camera all this time, or has managed to squeak through to the finale despite being very wrong. And I don't know whether contestants typically lie to the viewers in the talking-head interviews about their suspicions and votes. I will say I was starting to wonder about Simone, even though I was firmly on her, because if she was the Mole then either a) everyone else was lying to the camera, or b) she had fooled EVERYONE. And as much as I am dying to see a season where nobody gets it right (which I understand happened in one of the non-subtitled seasons), I don't think this is it.

The editing is certainly trying to make it look like everyone is voting Ruben, even in the previews for next time when Simone tells Ruben she doesn't have enough personal info on him. And if everyone is actually voting the way they're saying in the voice-overs, his being the mole does make sense for why they're still around. And Stine certainly seemed to think everyone was voting the same way, in her exit interview. I'm still not buying it. It's just too heavy-handed; the editing would be trying to lead us another way. I suspect some of those voice-overs may be from other times during the series, rather than the current executions. (Or else the producers tell the contestants to tape some misleading voice-overs about their tests.) Simone has been in my top two candidates since day 1, so I'm sticking there. It definitely could be Olcay despite the amount she's brought in. Jan seems highly unlikely to me, but who knows, he could just be an ineffective mole like Thomas last year.

And for the third episode in a row, the departing candidate is someone who I knew with utter certainty was not the mole. NOT HELPFUL. She had actually been my prediction to win the season, because it's pretty common for someone who's obviously fake-moling to make it to the end, as others feel like they have to spend some questions on them just in case. At this point my order is Stine > Simone > Olcay> Ruben > Jan. I'm not buying into this whole "Could it be Ruben, COULD IT, COULD IT, MAYBE IT IS, HMMM" edit the show was pushing so hard this time.

Oh goody. Get rid of one of the few people I know it isn't. (Pro tip: the Mol is NEVER the youngest contestant.) I still don't have a clear bead on the Mol. I do think it's a woman but I'm not sure which. I'm still on the "Loes is moling too obviously" track, and sort of doubt Olcay, so I guess I'd focus most on Simone and Stine by process of elimination.

I feel reasonably confident it ain't Loes, because she's just being far too obvious. I also don't really suspect Emilio, who seems to be too fanatic. No strong suspicions otherwise yet. I do love that two seasons after Ellie Lust, we're still getting "etherdiscipline"!