aradia22
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AH and Beth Reisgraf def still have IT and I love that an entire episode was dedicated to them. Gives the fans the inside look of what their relationship specifically to each other looks like, but I am going to address the elephant in the room. I understand who Parker is, but the fact that they don’t kiss AT ALL is a little Side eye worthy. They allude to them having sex, they talk about how deep their feelings are for each other and how attached they are, they are def attracted to one another…so the fact that they don’t kiss after having an emotional moment at the end causes me to ask some uncomfortable questions. This is the kind of stuff I’d expect in an 80’s to 90’s show when you have a black man and a white woman in a relationship on tv.
I have to agree with this. I don't know the freevee vibe. We have had romantic sideplots for Breanna and Elliot, but maybe freevee is going for a more family friendly vibe that only alludes to intimacy. "Layers." I do think it's a little weird. I liked that Hardison and Parker were more playful this episode because they felt more like their old characters. But even the way they danced down the hallway could have been hotter if they'd choreographed something for the actors. The date night on the roof also lacked romance and intimacy. The direction doesn't help. The camera work isn't doing anything sexy.
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Justin was IMMEDIATELY suspicious from the first scene in the car. No mystery there. The collusion with Farmingworth made it a little more interesting.
I don't think Aldis and Beth quite have the chemistry they used to (it might be the writing as well) but I loved seeing an episode where they tried their best to recapture the magic. It was worth the attempt for the moments that worked.
Parker's outfit looked a little too much like knockoff Fashion Nova to pass at a society event. I'm less harsh on the extras but there have been some really awful costumes across the board this season.
"I'm proud of me. That's all that matters."
I agree that Mason looked very young for 13. Even for a guy who stays short, he was pretty little. The focus on Mason made it feel more like an episode from the original series.
Glad to get an update on Emily.
Best episode of season 2 so far.
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She'll just take the mark out with a champagne bottle (it's a miracle that didn't kill him, lol).
I think TV shows tend to undersell how much force and blunt force trauma is needed to actually kill someone with one blow.
Also, I appreciate that while no one died, we had a gun last episode and the champagne bottle this episode. Some stakes!
QuoteI have to admit that I'm actually liking the time between new episodes. (So far, at least, lol). Having also grown up on network television, there's still a big part of me that finds waiting week to week more "normal" than having all of the episodes dropped at once* - and it helps make the season last longer, since we have to wait so long between seasons. Then again, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to the modern digital age 😄
I am young enough to have not wanted to watch ER while it was on but old enough to remember appointment TV. I like to be able to binge-watch because I don't think most shows are great at planning out a season so this way I can push through the weak filler episodes until I hit a better one rather than getting discouraged from finishing a season after some boring episodes.
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Visually, the bad guy in this one was cartoonishly evil. Almost like that character on The Boys. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I didn't think e-sports had these issues. They seemed to be conflating it with youtubers and twitch streamers a bit. The parts about fame and psychological manipulation felt more in line with that. There was some alpha/hustle culture stuff in there too. I feel like they piled on the racism and hair-sniffing to make him more hate-worthy and distract from whether this set up made all that much sense. I think this is how they would have written an old episode about traditional sports with steroid use and a coach/team owner who was a failed jock. It doesn't quite map correctly with all this new context. Basically, I don't think the writers understood the world. Tam was also giving me echoes of Bao in The Golf Job.
The Hardison references were cute in this episode.
"I'm going to be ThiefPuppy21. No! ChihuahuaBandit17!"
Giving Elliot a proper opponent was fun even though there wasn't a lot of interesting fight choreography.
Even though I didn't think the writers grasped the context of the subculture, I do think the overall structure and the evolution of the con worked better. They had a mark who was actually getting around their tricks, we had sufficient focus on who was being hurt, and the stakes were at an appropriate level. Also, a bad guy monologuing always means it's going to get caught on tape. There was also a good payoff for things like the ninja run and the t-shirt cannon.
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The anti-single use plastics message was a bit heavy-handed here, but in this environmental climate it probably needs to be.
I feel like Breanna's uncompromising soapboxing felt true to the character, though I think it would have suited a younger character even better. She's just on the line for Gen Z. It's an industry/government regulation issue and not an individual consumer issue so reprimanding Harry seems like the behavior of a young fanatic.
The guy playing Wilde has a truly nondescript, anonymous face so I had to check if he was on the original series.
Harry was fun as the greaseball with the toothpick.
Another episode where the accents were all over the place. I did kind of like having a more brutish mark.
I feel like the episodes are too neatly plotted now. I mean, they're convoluted. But they've lost the sense of things really closing in on the mark. I realized it when Wilde was telling Hammond it was all a con. Those scenes played differently in the original series. Now it's expected that as convoluted as the plots are, it will be something that Sophie planned in advance. Zero concern when Wilde was shot. I thought bullet proof vest since blanks can still hurt at close range but I knew it was something.
QuoteThat being said, I really enjoyed the deeper dive into Sophie's past, specifically with the Charlotte Prentiss persona.
Co-signing interest in the Sophie backstory. I hope they're going somewhere with this. Also, please continue avoiding a romantic relationship between Harry and Sophie.
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The accents were ALL over the place this episode.
If you're going to make me choose between Breanna and Hardison, Breanna will lose every time.
"The plan is I'm a Swiss banker with narcolepsy."
Sophie being the muse of an aging rockstar was a fun way to work Brian May and the London basement thing
I know the budget isn't high but that "debut" being a dinner party at home was lame. The $5000 dress was also cheap as hell. They did better going minimalistic with Sophie though I can still tell how cheap all the costumes are.
The Tohd jokes got very silly. OK, episode. I feel like they forgot about Bradley for much of it to focus on the jokes. There wasn't a lot of actual conning.
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Producer Tom Kirdahy has just announced the world premiere of HERE WE ARE, the final musical by legendary composer Stephen Sondheim.
The musical, formerly known as Square One, features a book by Tony Award nominee David Ives and is inspired by the two films The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel by Luis Buñuel.
Direction of the new musical is by Tony Award winner Joe Mantello. Executive Producers are Sue Wagner, John Johnson and Jillian Robbins.
Co-presented by The Shed; Artistic Director Alex Poots, President and COO Maryann Jordan, and Chief Executive Producer Madani Younis.
The strictly limited engagement will begin September 2023 in The Shed's Griffin Theater. Ticket on-sale information and casting will be announced soon.
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From the articles posted above
QuoteJoi: I have a health and fitness/inspirational [Instagram] page where I share my story of becoming an airline pilot; I’m a fitness enthusiast, fitness influencer. Casting reached out to me; they were very impressed with my page. I couldn’t say no to an opportunity like this.
Will: “Mine was the old-fashioned DM slide on Instagram. It was basically just a casting producer. I remember the line. He was like, I’m looking at a sheet that has you written all over it, from head to toe. It’s everything they’re looking for. And he was like, I can almost guarantee this is for you. And I was like, Say less, let’s rock!
Kesi: “So I never had an Instagram until recently, so no one slid into my DMs. I am historically a software developer, and the day after I quit my job, one of my really good friends from high school messaged me and said, Hey, like, show? I think you’d be great on it. And I remember sitting with my brother and laughing because the juxtaposition of these two occurrences seemed supernatural in a way. And I was just thinking, You know what, why not? I have the time. As Joi said, life is about being bold and taking risks, so I took it.”
Greg: “I was actually the only person who auditioned through a flyer. Everybody else was recruited—either through social media or a mutual friend. I had been laid off from my job, and was doing freelance marketing on Reddit—that was one of my domains—and I saw the flyer on Reddit. I made a video and I heard back within 24 hours.”
Greg: “I definitely knew what The Mole was. And seeing The Insider flyer, you could do a quick Google search and realize that it was The Mole. I was taking it at face value, and I didn’t know that the show would be called The Mole until I was in Australia. Because I didn’t get the final word that I was cast until two or three weeks before the flight, I’d already gotten hold of the season one DVDs, and of course on Reddit, everybody has all of the files for all the international versions. So I had that with me, but I wasn’t going to watch everything available.”
Avori: “I got reached out to through some contacts I had in the gaming industry, and I had no idea that it was The Mole. It was one of those things like, Are you down for adventure? Do you like playing in-person games? I was like, Yeah, that sounds great. But I’m so busy with my gaming stuff, not now.
Good Lord. They really were casting all the pretty people. This makes me like Greg more.
SpoilerWill: “I see that question a lot from people who watched the original shows, and the mole journals used to be—we had them. It had the mole logo and everything. I promise you: People were very, very diligent about these things. But thanks to Joi here, part of my game strategy was—I figured out pretty early that Joi was voting for me, so I stopped taking notes…”
Joi: “That messed me up!”
Will: “…because I know Joi was like, Will doesn’t take notes. Will doesn’t need to because it doesn’t matter; Will’s vote doesn’t count. So there’s parts where I’m like, Damn, what was Kesi wearing? I can’t write it down because Joi’s looking at me. I’m waiting until Joi’s not around to [ask people]. I stopped using my journal, because I knew that was a big thing for Joi.”
It's good to know they did have journals.
SpoilerGreg: “If I was zeroing in on exactly what I thought I needed, it would have been helpful. I wanted to see for sure if Joi actually was a pilot, and when I looked in the dossier, I was like, oh, there’s pictures of her at work, she is a pilot. You could see where people went to college. One thing that I thought that was weird that in the dossier it said Kesi spoke Mandarin fluently, and that was something that when she was asked about it, she really downplayed it. And I never heard her say a single thing in Chinese.”
Ooh, now we know what was in the dossiers.
QuoteWill: “I’ll address something because it hurts me to do it. Believe it or not, guys, I love Jacob. Our relationship is so perfect because we’re so similar. … Showing our love is messing with each other. A lot of people, unfortunately, think I despise him. He was one of my favorites there. I had an absolute blast with them. The whole cast was amazing, but the one dynamic that I think might get shifted when you watch is people thinking I hate this poor guy. I don’t; he’s a good guy.”
QuoteWill: “I’ll speak personally, and it’s a thanks to all the people who took care of us in Australia that probably don’t get appreciation. There were so many things behind the scenes that they had to deal with—especially with me being so difficult. I only eat chicken and rice for 90 percent of my meals, and we had people running in cars to grocery store. The people on the ground who made everything possible, I can’t think enough, they’re unsung heroes of the entire show for sure.”
QuoteKesi: “There were so many offscreen moments that are pretty incredible together. There were nights we would be playing cards, or there were other nights or days we would go hiking. One of my favorite nights is that we caught this dance party together.”
I don't need it to be a reality show but if that's the dynamic they want, I'd prefer seeing hangout time to the talking heads. But it has to be genuine, not the stuff set up for production where they only discuss the game. Let me see the dance party.
SpoilerGreg: “My intuition was kind of split in two: I had game intuition, and then I had TV intuition. And sometimes they were at odds, and if they were ever at odds, I went with TV versus game—maybe to my demise. But I had a few different strategies going in. The first is to just be myself 100 percent of the time. It’s very mentally taxing to be questioning what is going on around you. So I didn’t want to put any effort into code switching: being one person and then another person. I was just myself.
Part of being myself is being the center of attention, and I knew that when I got into the jungle, and I acted kind of outlandish, I knew that it would send a message to the mole—and to the show—that look, when the mole is next to me, nobody’s going to be looking at the mole.
I saw in watching the show that strategy worked. Kesi was next to me for every single mission. Other parts of my strategy and preparing: a lot of meditating to just remain calm. It didn’t want to form any coalitions or alliances. I didn’t really want to discuss my suspicions with anyone, and I pretty much stuck to that.”
Greg: For that reason, I went through the quizzes as fast as I could. I just picked one person. I would say if you are studying for the quiz, with the understanding that you are only going for one person, and you take the time to get to know that person, and you also remember all of the questions that production asked about us— which I did—I would say my quizzes were highly accurate, but not always about the correct person.”
Greg is genre savvy in a good way.
QuoteAvori: “I know why I went home. Back in episode four, me, Sandy, Pranav, and Jacob were on the bank heist team, and we all worked together. During that mission, I developed a pretty close relationship with Sandy. Because the money was counted incorrectly, [Sandy] started to believe that I was the Mole, and she actually ended up going all out on me on the quiz that night.
But before she took that quiz, she and I had a conversation—a very in-depth conversation—about how I told her I was extremely suspicious of Kesi, and that I was going to put some answers for Kesi. But Sandy, not believing or trusting me, told me that she was going all out on Kesi on the quiz. She said, I’m gonna go all in. I’m voting for her. If I go home, that’s who I’m going for.
I trusted her good words throughout the remainder of the game—which is funny because, in my dossier, it says I trust people’s good word too much, and that’s my weakness. That’s ultimately what led to me going home: I truly believe that Sandy went for Kesi on her quiz.
But as it turns out, Sandy actually went all-in on me. So through the remainder of the game, I kept going back and forth in my head: Kesi is really suspicious, she keeps doing this. Then I was like, nope, Avori, don’t let yourself go there, because Sandy went out voting for Kesi.”
Aha! So that's why Avori lost.
QuoteGreg: “I single handedly put [$10,000] in the pot across two different missions that you didn’t get to see. That would have been great because I’m proud of the fact that I’m smart, athletic, agile, and can get it done. I would have loved for the audience to see that.”
WHAT? Confused about this. Did they lose that money?
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Interesting that Joi spent more time on challenges with Kesi and still did not know she was the mole. Will never seemed to be with Kesi. He wasn't on the train or with the pigeons or the ice blocks. Yet Will figured it out when Joi had her right in front of her face and didn't. I believe Will must have suspected Kesi early and once Casey left he went full on her. At least that is what we can suspect since they didn't show enough in the final episode/reunion to let us know. Joi bragged that she picked the mole on the first night. I think that was her problem. She came up with some reason she thought it was Will. Then since he didn't go home she just had tunnel vision on him and never got to the correct mole.
I wanted Will to say to Joi that she owed him $25K at the end. She did say she would put it all back. For that reason I was glad Joi didn't win. Will deserved it. He did put most of the money in the pot.
With the way Will gets frustrated, I think he was lucky to get Kesi on the bank heist. No way he suffered through that for an hour without getting furious with her and it was the first task where her Mole behavior was BLATANT. I continue to be confused how Joi lasted until the end if she was convinced it was Will. Will and Kesi appear to have nothing in common besides maybe age. I agree on Will deserving it and being thankful Joi didn't win.
QuoteTechnically, Joi did that. She added $15,000 to the pot single handedly (by not taking the exemption) and I swear she contributed to another $10,000 (I think the Mountaineering mission).
But Will had to BEG her not to take the exemption. That doesn't count for me. I will give her credit for the $10,000 for Mountaineering especially since she said she has some fear of heights.
QuoteSo much this. This absolutely bonkers decision could never have been matched. It's how I was certain Joi wasn't the mole, they'd never be so obvious to basically empty the entire pot!
Truly, what is wrong with her? If I look back at every decision Joi made (except for things like the pigeon task) I just... can't even... She was so bad at the game.
I do think Kesi made a lot of obvious moves as the Mole but she rarely lost more money than was earned. With Mountaineering, she lost $10,000 but they still made $20,000. She did take the exemption and make them sleep on the floor but technically that wasn't losing money they already made. She was trying though like with the prison break, bank heist, 2 truths and a lie, pigeon task, etc. Other players were able to throw her off with the others but with bank heist she was totally in control and didn't even let them get one box. I'm not convinced that Netflix isn't cheap and perfectly happy to only give away $100,000.
QuoteI remember in the previous versions that there would be hints as to the Mole's identity for viewers at home. Granted, some of the clues were REALLY stupid. In particular, I remember the season where Anderson ate an apple because apples are from Washington, the home state of the Mole. Or the one where if we enhanced the brightness on our TV screen, we would see the constellation in the sky which is the Mole's sign.
I keep coming back to the quizzes but I feel like as an audience member, I know very little about the contestants. The questions meant almost nothing to me unless they were about clothing or which team the Mole was on during challenges. Like, I think Osei said he was from Brooklyn in episode 1 and Sandy mentions she's from Texas. No clue about the others. Who has children? Joi. Anyone else? I have no idea. Pets? No one said anything about pets.
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The finale was a little lame. Drones are scary when they're military drones. It was another good location but the actual challenges were meh... especially with them barely trying to secure the canisters.
I am truly baffled how the people who seemed to suspect Kesi the most (Greg, Pranav, and Avori) got eliminated.
I am satisfied with Will winning. He was one of the contestants who worked the hardest at the challenges. He deserved it. At least it wasn't Joi. Though I call shenanigans on her making it to the end without producer intervention.
Noticing Greg in the dress in the finale, I think there's an advantage to casting a woman or someone who is genderfluid as the Mole for some of the clothing questions. You do want a range of contestants but it probably also helps to have some people who have things in common with the Mole. For example, maybe they all live in different states but a few are from the South and a few are from the Northeast. From what I could tell about the quiz, they were asking some narrow questions like what is the name of the Mole's childhood pet?
QuoteThey showed some very obvious plays. I wish she had done some more subtle plays so we could have been surprised as the audience.
lol, she was not subtle. Maybe it's worse being in the audience because you can always see her reactions (which not all the other players can) but it's very obvious when she throws. Her "oops, ay yi yi" on the train and the "oh my God" during the suction cup task. TAKE ACTING LESSONS. Jesus.
QuoteOf course you can find things with hindsight, but she wasn't given nearly as much screentime as the other finalists. So we had no opportunity to clock her early. That is just no fun.
I got her from the Bank Heist which is episode 4. You could have noticed her missing the dinghy with Avori in episode 3 or wasting time on the prison break in episode 2. Yes, it's harder but early on, I think you're trying to split your votes between a couple suspicious people anyway. From episode 4 onwards, she couldn't have been more obvious to me.
QuoteAlex actually was a good host so wouldn't mind her returning.
Solid host. She called them all "beautiful" a few too many times but otherwise, I think she struck a good balance of teacher energy and friend energy. Also she seemed to get into it making her voice kind of smoky at certain times when she had to read something out.
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I liked him in the beginning but I wish he didn't turn into such a pill during the talking heads. He didn't just play the best physical game, I think he played the best perception game. He's the one who recognized Jacob as sweet but kind of dim and not the mole. He clocks Avori as smart but playing too hard to throw suspicion on herself which makes her almost as dangerous as the mole but not the mole. I think he sees Kesi as a good competitor which is why he suspects her of being the mole because he doesn't trust her "mistakes."
I love competence. With Pranav, Greg, etc. gone I'm all in for Will. Joi says she wants this but I will never forget her throwing away $25,000. That's a full prize pot in other games. He hasn't been so unlikable that I've started rooting for anyone else. If Joi wins this, I will throw something.
QuoteThat price pot is a joke. If this gets a second season they need to do something, like cast people who are smart and not just hot. Because if everybody is trying to be as suspicious as possible and throwing away all the money in the process, that just gets annoying.
I feel like they could also have more partial wins. I think it's very easy to manipulate the size of the prize pot by the values you assign to each component of the challenge. Like, after a rough challenge, you could make the individual prizes on something like the train challenge worth more so they can pick up a lot by getting at least some of the pieces. But I'm also not convinced that Netflix isn't cheap and fine with this as long as people keep signing up for the show. That, or they need to keep it to easier challenges because people are not going to sign up for 90 minute runs and other grueling physical tasks and sleeping in the freezing cold for weeks for such small sums.
QuoteI still was surprised that Joi made it through. She was so determined it was Will who I never suspected. Will wanted the money more than anyone.
I wonder if we're being manipulated by the talking heads and Joi is splitting her vote more than she lets on. Otherwise, I am baffled. What do Will and Kesi possibly have in common?
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I find Will very unlikeable as well. He does seem to get the most confessionals. He gets too angry at the rest of the contestants.
I think Will is too individualistic. He belongs on a physical challenge show where you just power through the tasks. Arguably The Mole is also a show for individuals because only one person wins and you can't trust the others. BUT you do have to work with people while they're still there on the team challenges. And Will is (to some degree understandably) frustrated by how bad the others are at challenges. I feel like a lot of the season has not been intentional sabotage (only Avori and a few others seem to have tried that strategy). They're just incompetent. I do think Will has gotten more unlikable in the last episodes of the show. Maybe the frustration is coming through more or maybe the editors are keeping in more of the bad stuff.
I actually haven't disliked any of the contestants besides Joi for being a terrible player.
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INSANITY. Surely, they must be operating by game show rules right? This isn't like a dating show that production can manipulate as much as they want to. If Joi really does think it's Will, HOW IS SHE IN THE FINAL THREE? Also, how did this show manage to get all the smarter players eliminated? Were they just being too clever and splitting their votes? Do people really suck at answering questions on the quiz (even if they have a good guess of who the Mole is). I am truly baffled that we're left with The Mole (Kesi), Will, and JOI.
I felt bad for Will after the ice blocks. He was purple. Amazed that he didn't get frostbite. Why was he not wearing gloves. I do think challenge design has been good for the most part. There have been some tough physical challenges. They get them moving with fair but reasonably challenging time limits. The mental games and exemptions are a little Big Brother/Survivor but I don't think it's been too detrimental. I do wonder what the hell the plan was if they were only left with physically weaker players for some of the challenges.
Kesi was BLATANT this episode. You could maybe forgive throwing out some of the $1000 blocks (maybe) but her attempt to throw out the one $6000 block feet from the finish? Come on. COME ON. She's a terrible Mole.
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Evidence against Kesi: She screwed up the bank heist as the Mastermind which was definitely the easier challenge. She dropped the bag trying to grab it on the train. She eliminated herself and her backpack of money first in the mountain/hiking challenge. She tried to mislead the other two interrogators in 2 truths and a lie. She tried to lead Joi away from the pigeons.
When you add up all the evidence, the biggest thing is not just all these incidents but the way she reacts when all these things happen. I try not to read into things too much because neurodivergence but I assume they cast actor-y types and she's an awful actor. I will be very surprised if she's not the Mole.
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No... I wanted Greg to make it to the end! He suspected Kesi... what happened? I guess I'm counting on Will or Avori to figure it out then. Dom, Pranav, and Greg have been the biggest losses to me so far. I like people who try to play the game well. If this ends up being all the dumb people and the Mole, I will lose my mind. I wish we knew how well/poorly each contestant did on the quiz each week. They shouldn't know in the game, but I want to know.
Kesi is way too obvious trying to distract from the pigeons. They need a better actor next season. Even in her talking heads, I've started noticing how emotionally flat she is while the others express real emotions.
Jacob and Will are surrounded by photos on the wall... they keep talking to the woman behind the counter. Also, as the other team was figuring it out, why didn't they use their pigeon-based directions to get to Avori? Was it against the rules for one team to just copy the other team? Also, were there really no better clues than Avori calling the pizza place?
How cheap is Netflix? The prizes for some of their shows are kind of low. I am genuinely curious how much money they really want to give away for this show.
I don't love the dinner time callouts. Too much forced drama.
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I think Greg is right. Kesi is the Mole. Lingering shots with the tea cup. That super obvious line about people trusting her allowing her to lie. Kesi also feels like a good choice for a Mole that would fly under the radar for most of the game. Though OMG, that means Joi is just a terrible player.
Both paintings were trash to me. I hate that kind of modern art. I did think the shredder was a cool visual gag/reference to the real art world.
I will not be mad if they stay in Australia for the next season.
Kesi tried to throw them off and make them reserve judgment on Jacob and think Joi and Avori were both lying. The more episodes go by, the less she is even trying to hide that she's the Mole. It's been increasingly obvious since the bank heist. If the others weren't so incompetent, she'd stand out even more as the Mole.
Will calling Jacob useless made me cackle.
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Jacob and Kesi are the two that stand out to me, and I'm undecided about Casey. I think, this episode, they could have just been showing random footage of her taking appropriate breaks and talking to people, to make it seem like she was stalling on purpose. There's a lot of waiting around on shows like this while the cameras get moved, etc.
The producers will always be the most suspicious to me. Frankenbites would be so easy on this show.
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I was sad to see Pranav go. I love competence. Also, what is this team of dummies going to do with one of the smarter players eliminated?
They were hoping to sleep in? You mean the girls sleep in a full face of makeup? Shut up, Netflix.
$30,000. lol, production must be worried about how little money is in the pot.
2 hour climb? I hate it. But watching from home, I'm enjoying how many different Australian terrains they're showing off.
I believe Will's frustration. I really don't think he's the Mole. I think he's a super athletic guy suffering through the incompetence of his teammates.
It looked VERY windy. I'm curious about the safety teams they had on hand for the repelling. I'm also surprised they did the final task. It would bad enough as a zipline and they let them pull themselves across? Bananas.
tbh, I had no idea who had money in their bags. It's impossible to know if production wants to keep the pot small or wants to make up for the players' incompetence and make the pot attractive enough for potential future contestants to sign up for future seasons. HILARIOUS that the Mole had no faith in Joi. Adding Casey, it seems like the Mole chose the weaker players. Also, Kesi volunteered herself to stay behind. SUSPICIOUS! If she's the Mole, she's playing the game way too hard. They need to make all the money they can.
I do not remember so many exemptions on the original show. Mole or not, Kesi dooming them to sleep in the freezing warehouse was SO MEAN.
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On the other hand, he's the one that sabotages the least so that's why I don't think he's the Mole.
I am convinced William is not the Mole. He's just a guy taking a leadership position who got injured during a task, lost his bromance, and who works SO HARD while other people sit by and lose money. I feel so bad for him.
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I enjoy a player like Sandy getting eliminated so you can confirm that no, it wasn't sabotage... just incompetence. It's tougher when the good players leave.
Oh my God. I would never volunteer for Team Foot but I would be FURIOUS if I were on that team and we didn't make any money from the challenge. Did they alter the rules? I could have sworn they said all the teams had to make it there for them to earn money.
Team Foot's challenge was way more difficult than any other team's challenge. I don't even know why they volunteered Avori. If you don't have 3 runners, put someone else on Team Car with the two highly sus people. I don't even... why would you put three people on the endurance challenge?
I liked the nasty food challenge. It kept things interesting and was a little silly but Christ, when it got down to Joi and William, I almost lost my mind. The prize pot is now $29,500. That's only $1000 more than when Joi lost them all that money. If she's not the Mole, I can't believe she even hesitated to get $15,000. Truly, if she's not the Mole, I will be speechless. If she's not the Mole, the people in casting need a real talking to.
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Jacob has that Aww Shucks attitude that makes him a good candidate for the mole. He keeps saying he is a small town boy that has never left the country. He doesn't know foreign currency or how to swim in the ocean. He plays under the radar.
I agree with this logic but, if true, the producers super overestimated the contestants. The rest of them are doing an excellent job losing money without his help. It's really hard to not think it's Joi. If production is as dumb as the contestants, then it's Joi. If they were smart, it's Jacob.
QuoteAnd I'm not liking the randomness of the eliminations and cliff hanger endings.
I hate it. I binge-watch anyway but it just means I have to watch an extra few minutes of the next episode before I take a break. Dumb. Just let people choose how much they want to watch. They did this for School of Chocolate as well but not for EVERY episode. Also, I hate the little recaps at the start of the next episode. I've started skipping through those parts and some of the quiz section and elimination.
QuoteBut I'm loving the locations that they're shooting the challenges at.
They're making amazing use of Australia. Good outdoor locations and good landmarks and they feel like they're genuinely being put to use for the challenges. It's not just a task you could do anywhere that happens to be filmed somewhere scenic.
QuoteOn the other side, why you'd count out all the vietnamese money instead of Euros or pound is beyond me. So if they fail this, I can't put that on anyone of them. They all screwed that one up.
I don't think they wasted too much time counting out all the money and it seemed clear that the more familiar denominations were not going to cover the total so they had to use some unfamiliar currency no matter what. Again, I'm impressed at how close they got considering.
QuoteI can't stand Greg. I dislike everything about him. The way he tries to purposely make it look like he is the Mole, the way he plays up to the camera, his hair, the way he talks. His descriptions of his dance moves or whatever he was doing to bypass the lasers was just so ridiculously over the top.
I think I'm one of the few people who enjoys Greg even if I find him suspicious. But a factor in that is definitely hoping they're not playing into "the gay one is evil."
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It's sad that Dom was exactly who he claimed to be and got eliminated so early. He also had one of the few blue collar jobs of the contestants. I didn't find him annoying. I feel like people on this show are trying to have personalities but no one so far feels thirsty for fame. They are dumb AF for not bringing him back. He's a muscly guy which is good for physical challenges and he evidently wasn't much of a threat on the mental game because he went out early and he played honestly. I was impressed that he managed to narrow it down to 2 choices though. It sucks that no one gave him more clues. Melmore and Seattle are not very close. If he got anything more than the two E's, he would have gotten it.
I had zero faith in Team Cash. That's an insane challenge for these dummies. I mean, counting out money is already a challenge on a Netflix show (Awake, the late capitalism sleep deprivation show). And then they had to do conversions? Honestly, I'm impressed they were
Spoileronly $700 off.
Team Gold was dumb. I feel like they were mainly showing the last names on screen. I would have gotten Dorado and D'or no question. G. Locks as Goldilocks was trickier. I don't think it would have stood out except for being written in capital letters. To be honest, every time they showed Midas, I thought it said Midao so that's a handwriting issue for someone in production. Kesi seems suspicious for not picking up on a single one of those and/or not reading out every single name within 50 minutes. It's three pages of names. It can't take that long to read and someone else on the team would have gotten at least one of those.
It's a bummer to watch them suck at challenges.
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I also love watching everyone pat themselves on the back for being too moral to lose money from the pot by reading the dossier, and then immediately agree to lose money from the pot by betting on who read the dossier.
I think it made sense to not risk $10,000 but knowing that was lost, to bet under $5000 to save yourself. She said the average was $7000, but we know Joi brought the average up by betting an insane $25,000.
QuoteHost: "The team who pressed the button first... and let me tell you it was increadibly close."
Me: "That means it wasn't close at all and all in the editing."
I think it was at least somewhat close because neither team seemed to be getting it until hearing the clue to look inside the periodic table. I did like how many decoy passwords production set up for that task.
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JESUS CHRIST. If Joi is not the Mole, she is the worst player imaginable.
They're also pushing Greg but even people who are slightly sus feel normal next to Joi.
I did think the ideas planted in the beginning of the episode were fun. 1) The players are memorizing a lot of useless info about people who are not the Mole. 2) If you draw attention to yourself, you can possibly make someone else do worse on the quiz if they answer questions with you as a suspect.
The physical challenge was less compelling to watch (aside from William and Jacob being shirtless) so I actually appreciated how much they played up the dossiers. I do think the challenges seem appropriately difficult. Repeatedly diving is not easy. In hindsight, it wasn't great to search so far from the boat from the beginning. That seems to be what really messed them up. The plane part seemed easier but I think they said there were multiple dinghys so only finding one implies it was at least a little difficult.
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S02.E05: The Walk in the Woods Job
in Leverage: Redemption
The Orpheus Grove set was weirdly racially diverse for a secret society of rich people wearing white robes partying on a former plantation. I thought they went soft making it more like the Elks Lodge (which also apparently has a racist history) and going very goofy on the Blackwater guy. Yeah, he kept pulling out a gun, but I would almost say Fury (the e-sports guy) was more intimidating.
I didn't see Dr. Paul faking his death coming at all. It just felt like one of those Elliot plotlines and I've stopped nitpicking explosions on lower budget TV shows. Anyway, he was a good guest actor. The writing was solid this episode. They found good ways to weave him in and out of the story and involve him in the resolution rather than just relying on the con/robbery.
Finally, a mark being able to identify someone on the team they've seen twice. It did feel sloppy to use Sophie twice in such obvious roles so I'm glad it was acknowledged within the episode.
I know Sophie is the grifter but it's a little weird she still gets to play every ethnicity in this iteration of the show.
Harry doing his best impression of Elliot was funny. Basically the Christian Bale Batman voice.
The safe was pretty low-tech for Parker but it posed a different kind of challenge.