It’s an unwritten rule that the final episodes of The mole are the most fascinating and this year is no different. Close to the final, the game is played hard and candidates are given few opportunities to make mistakes. Usually the three players already know who the mole is, so it is a matter of gathering as much information as possible and ending up in favorable positions. As a viewer it is a little easier to keep an eye on the actions of all the remaining players and for the mole himself a nice challenge awaits to sabotage enough while there is a threat on him (- spoiler alert, it! -) being hunted.
For the semi-finals, the series moves to the Sicilian capital Palermo. There, Bernard and Senne immediately experience that taking a step into the world can cost a pretty penny. They make a trip together to the puppet theater where Charlotte and Michaël will perform for two hours. Along the way they have to pick up a Pinocchio doll, although they pay about a euro for each step they take. There is a stake of 6,000 euros at stake and good consultation is necessary to cash in as much of it as possible. Let that be a talent that Bernard and Senne did not immediately seem to have in recent episodes.
When the duo arrives at the puppet shop, quiz questions can point them to the correct puppet. Bernard immediately takes the lead, but gives the wrong answer several times. It is quite possible that the two gentlemen will test each other again to see who the mole is, although it goes quite far. Hundreds of euros have already been lost when Senne notes that there is also a lift in the store. When they finally collect the Pinocchio puppet, more than a third of the bet has already been lost. It is an understandable move to play a dice game that can earn electric scooters, but that ultimately costs the duo 1,400 euros. Not immediate change.
The duo’s last stop tells us something about their game strategy. There are several addresses on the roof of a cathedral, only one of which leads to the puppet theater where Charlotte and Michael perform. They can find the right answer by counting the steps of the building and Bernard entrusts Senne with that assignment. When he later descends the stairs himself, he no longer checks the transmitted number. Of course he has to remember the Italian address, but at the same time he gives a lot of power to Senne. After all, it would be perfectly possible to make a wrong calculation and walk to the wrong part of the city. It is therefore somewhat surprising that the candidates arrive at the theater on time, even though they only collect 820 euros. If the mole made the trip, he didn’t play badly. Especially because he now has to make more of an effort to stay in the shadows.
A little later, Charlotte and Michaël treat the day trippers to a puppet show that also raises money. For every movement they perform correctly, they receive 500 euros. What is special is that Michaël works like an accomplished craftsman during the preparations, but fails when the curtain goes up. Of the moves for which he alone is responsible, only one succeeds. Charlotte does a lot better and they raise another 2,000 euros. A fairly high amount, although this is due to the contribution of just one competitive player.
The Mole Booklet The morning
Quote of the week
“I’m a crack at that, at selfie things,” says brand new vlogger Michaël, alias Mikey Mo, into the camera. His enthusiasm is so contagious that it almost seems as if he means it.
Most ostentatious sabotage
Correct answers to quiz questions can speed up the difficult journey to a puppet theater, but Bernard consistently chooses wrong answers. Does he not trust Senne or is his competitiveness simply taking over? The result is that a lot of money is lost.
The mole
Michaël is a player who is always in the right place to make tests fail. If he doesn’t reveal himself as a mole next week, we would still like some explanation about those remarkably well-timed failures.
Bluff
In the second part of the episode, the makers of The mole everything goes out of the way for what can easily be called one of the best tastings of the season. Despite all the visual bravado, the program is still at its best when candidates simply sit together at a table and bluff at each other. In the second game, spectacle and lies are ingeniously interwoven. In a dilapidated parking garage, the four candidates sit down with Gilles De Coster to talk about the 24 hours they each spent separately. No one knows what the other did, but they all tell a story about their adventures. If a majority correctly estimates whether it is true, 1,000 euros goes to the group pot. If that is not possible, the candidate will be asked 2 passport questions. Not inconvenient for those who want to get a ticket to the final.
The stories are all as unlikely as they are funny. Michaël jumps off and tells us that he swam to the Italian mainland. As a cold-blooded player, he suddenly appears very confused, although that can be a perfect way to secretly deceive the other candidates. After all, his story is not correct, but Bernard and Charlotte estimate that he is telling the truth. They may also be confused by Michael’s behavior, although it does give him two pass questions.
Senne surprises the group a little later when he tells them that he asked to go back to Belgium to take a bath with Bernard’s mother. It is almost impossible to come up with something about an unknown house that another player knows like the back of his hand, but the story turns out to be true. Funnily enough, only Bernard believes that the makers could do something like that, which means that Senne also goes to the penultimate elimination test with two pass questions.
The icing on the cake of the test remains Bernard’s interrogation. He confesses that he went to play football with Romelu Lukaku in Rome and a little later the Red Devil actually walks through the screen. The footballer does not immediately have any major analyzes of the course of the game, although his nonchalant attitude is very amusing. Not much can be seen of the precise course of the interrogation, although it is noticeable that Michael very explicitly launches a counterattack. He says that he saw on television that Lukaku had a match, so he couldn’t just be with Bernard. It is a falsifiable argument and therefore perhaps not the most suitable to use, especially if Michael is the mole.
In any case, no one believes that Bernard is telling the truth, so he also enjoys the benefits. Only Charlotte, who rode a mountain bike from Etna, has to pass the elimination test without any questions. They could possibly have saved her, because at the end of the episode she has to pack her bags. Next week the mole will show his true face and there are still many questions, although we already know that it will be male. Curious who it will be.
