2.04 - The Fourth Betrayal

It is another evening in Switzerland and another player has been executed. After a long hiatus, The Mole has struck again.

The players are in the confessional and talking about their fallen colleague. Dorothy says that she is sad and will miss Lisa and Rob says he hates the fact that she is gone but he seems to be more distracted by a fly buzzing around inside the confessional with him. Katie is upset at the number of lies that the players are telling but Elavia thinks the game is a "crazy, surreal experience".

Rob kills the fly.

The next morning, the players meet Anderson at a dam for their next game; which will be apparently the best Mole game ever held by a dam site. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.) He tells them to select one player who can be trusted and four players who like to hang out. Al is selected as the trusted player and Bribs, Darwin, Elavia and Heather decide to hang out.

Anderson now tells them what the game entails. There are four questions on the side of the dam, each color coded. The four hangers-out will have to rappel down the face of the dam to the questions, then give the answer to Al via walkie-talkie. The answers to the questions will provide the combination to a lock.

Once he has all four answers, Al will have to rappel down the dam face first to a treasure chest that is located at its base. He will use the answers provided to open the lock on the chest. If he succeeds, the contents of the chest, 35 thousand dollars, will be added to the pot.

Al is suddenly uncomfortable; it seems he doesn't like heights. His fears aren't helped when Anderson leans over the edge of the dam and comments "It's actually quite frightening".

Bribs decides to do the rappel first and decides to go for the Blue question. (The first three players can each look at one clue; the fourth player can look at the fourth clue and also can double check the other players clues and answers.)

As Bribs rappels down, it appears that the challenge is a bit more difficult than it originally appeared. The questions are not in line with the route they are descending on and so the players have to swing to one side or another in order to get to their questions. Still, Bribs easily gets to his question and calls up to Al "Blue, 4".

Heather goes next. She announces that she is going for the Yellow question but isn't able to get to it. "This is impossible!" she notes at one point. She eventually gets to the Red question and tells Al "Red, 9".

Elavia starts for the Green question but misses it and tries for the Yellow. She is having trouble and is bouncing around against the dam. Al calls advice down to her, suggesting that she get the flats of her feet against the dam. Meanwhile, Bribs and Heather watching from the ground comment how hard it is to get to the Yellow clue. Eventually, Elavia gets a glimpse of the question but really can't read it before she has to descend. She reports "Yellow, 2" but admits to Heather that she really couldn't read the question and is just guessing.

Darwin goes last and first goes for the Green question. He gets to it and then checks the Yellow. He had intended to check the other questions as well but gets his finger tangled in his rappelling equipment. He eventually gets it free but drops too far down the dam to get the other two questions. He calls up "Green, 2" and "Yellow, 1".

Al now has all four answers, including two different answers for the Yellow question. Anderson pulls him aside and tells him all four questions, giving him the opportunity to change the answers if he wants. Heather sees Al and Anderson talking and is afraid that Al is being offered an Exemption.

Al decides that Bribs' answer is wrong and that the correct answer for the Blue question is zero. He also decides that Darwin is right on the Yellow question since Elavia took an Exemption instead of swinging in that game. He decides to go with Red 9, Yellow 1, Blue 0, Green 2.

Now, Al has to rappel down the face of the dam head first. The others worry about him because they know he doesn't like heights and Al says at one point "If I die now and this is the last view I get... I love you Robin."

Fortunately, he gets to the treasure chest without incident. Unfortunately, the combination doesn't work.

Everyone gathers around and Anderson tells them they had the Yellow and Blue questions correct but that Red should have been 8 and Green should have been 1. Heather and Darwin were wrong. He shows them the money in the chest, points out that this is the only time they will see it, and slams the chest shut.

Later, the players are talking about the game. Heather feels dumb for getting her question wrong and Al is upset that he went through the rappel for nothing. Darwin is suspicious of Heather for not knowing Bribs birthday since the two of them had been spending a lot of time together but admits that he is Al's roommate and didn't know Al's birthday himself. Patrick and Rob also express suspicion of the players.

At dinner that evening, Anderson tells them that they are leaving Switzerland. Next stop, Venice, Italy!

The players spend a day relaxing in Venice, exploring the city and at one point feeding the birds in a square. (Rob is lying on the ground covered in birds.) Heather comments on how nice it is to be able to spend a day relaxing away from the game.

Not everyone can get away from the game though. On a bus ride, Patrick attempts to talk to Al and Myra about strategy. Al brushes him off, saying that he will tell Patrick his favorite color if he wants to know but that he won't discuss strategy with him and that he won't tell him who he thinks the Mole is. Everyone within earshot laughs.

The players arrive at their hotel in Vicenza and, as they are checking in, the desk clerk hands Darwin an envelope which contains a telegram from "La Talpa", Italian for "The Mole". He quickly shows the telegram to the other players and they quickly take notes.

Patrick seems very interested in the telegram and winds up keeping it. He is convinced it is an important clue and, according to Darwin, he spends several hours analyzing it.

The next morning Katie reads the telegram to Anderson. He doesn't seem particularly interested and simply tells all the players they are going to Villa Trento.

As the players start to board their bus (all carrying identical Mole™ shoulder bags) two young women come up to them and ask if they will help them change the tire on their car. Myra jokes that all of the men fell over themselves getting off the bus to help. As they walk around the corner, Katie watches them go and comments "They aren't coming back."

The players quickly fix the tire. At one point, Bill picks up the back end of the car but dents the fender where he is leaning against it, much to the amusement of the other players. Patrick comments that they got a hug and a kiss out of it and Heather comments that Patrick tends to make a lot of off-color jokes and offensive remarks that bother her and many of the other players.

On the bus, the players discuss the incident and Heather reveals that she doesn't know how to change a tire. Katie seems a bit upset and wants to know if they can find a couple of "hot guys who need their pants fastened". Bribs insists that they were just "two innocent, extremely beautiful girls that just needed their tire changed."

The bus stops at a gas station and, while there, an old woman approaches them and asks if they will help her change her tire. Everyone is now suspicious but they pitch in and change this tire as well. (Bill doesn't try to pick this one up.) Myra comments that they weren't about to let the guys get away without helping her after helping the other two women and someone questions why the woman would approach a group of tourists for help instead of the gas station attendants, who would presumably know how to fix a tire. This causes Al to remark that "...we just drive around Europe and help out ladies who have a flat tire. That's our gig."

Eventually, they arrive at Villa Trento where Anderson meets them and admits that the women with the flat tires were part of what he called the "Morality Game". Since they helped the old lady as well as the two young women, they gain 35 thousand for the pot. He also reminds them of the line in the Mole's telegram about a "second helping".

He then pulls aside the six players who were not involved in the Treasure Chest Game the previous day and asks them to select three "Smart" players and three "Dumb" players. Bill, Dorothy and Rob become the Smart players while Katie, Myra and Patrick are the dumb ones. Katie is somewhat upset at being labeled a "dumb" player.

Anderson leads the three "Dumb" players inside and explains the game to them. There are 11 brain-teaser type puzzles in the room. They have to select five of these puzzles for the "Smart" players to solve. For each puzzle they solve, 10 thousand will be added to the pot.

He also offers them a choice. If they can select five puzzles that the Smart team cannot solve, then the three of them will get Exemptions. If the Smart players solve even one puzzle, then they lose the Exemption but the 10 thousand still goes into the pot.

However, if the Smart players solve all five puzzles, then the Smart players will each get an Exemption.

The three discuss the situation and, at Katie's urging, decide to go for the Exemption. They look around the room and select five puzzles.

Once they are done, the Smart players are brought in and Anderson explains the situation to them, including the Exemptions. They have thirty minutes to solve all five puzzles. If they get one wrong, then they will have one minute to come up with another answer to that puzzle.

The Dumb players are now outside and watching the Smart players on a monitor. Anderson asks Katie why she went for the Exemption and she responds that she thinks it is a good move for her at the moment. Patrick interrupts to ask her who she thinks the Mole is.

Meanwhile, the Smart players are working on the brain-teasers. Rob comments that Dorothy is good with words and that Bill is good with numbers and math. He also admits that he doesn't know what he is good at but does contribute the answer to one puzzle.

Time is up and the players have to submit their answers. The first question asked how many gallons of paint would be necessary to cover a set of blocks and Bill correctly answers 18. The Dumb players lose their Exemption.

The second question was a math problem involving a fisherman buying supplies and asked how much money he started with. The players answer 52 and are told they are wrong. Anderson gives them one minute to come up with another answer.

The players discuss it and, just as time is called, Dorothy tells them to guess 90. They do so and all are stunned to learn it is the correct answer! Bill and Rob congratulate Dorothy and they go on to the third question.

This one requires that they identify which symbol comes next in a sequence. Rob correctly answers this one and they also correctly answer a question about which letter will complete four scrambled words.

The last question gives them a string of letters and they are told that the letters can only be used to form one word. The players answer "Stressful Minute" (isn't that two words?) and are told the answer is wrong. They again have one minute to correct their answer.

Bill keeps saying variations on the word "stress" but Dorothy starts with the sequence "trust... trustful... mistrustful..." and, again just as time is called, blurts out the answer "mistrustfulness". (Is that a word? Apparently so. It passes my spell-checker anyway.) This proves to be correct and again Bill and Rob are stunned by Dorothy's insight. They congratulate her as Anderson tells them they have won their Exemptions and that the pot has increased to 171 thousand.

Heather and Katie are both highly suspicious of Dorothy because of her sudden answers. Al is upset because the odds against him have gone from 1 in 10 to 1 in 7. Darwin is upset that three Exemptions were given out and Heather is upset because she hasn't even had the chance to win one yet.

Thunder is rumbling as we return to the hotel. There, we find thunder rumbling inside as well.

Katie had let Patrick borrow his old Journal back. She said that he told her that he needed to copy some information from it but instead he took it away and tore pages out of it. Katie is fairly upset about this, as are several other players that she talks too. All agree that it is a clear violation of the rules.

Patrick apparently doesn't think so. He comes to the table with Katie and the others at breakfast the next day and tries to explain himself. He tells them that he has nothing against lying or using guile to get ahead in the game. Darwin tells him that he will never get any more information from anyone else in the game and several other players agree but it doesn't seem to bother him. He leaves and Al and Heather comment that he has made enemies of the rest of the players.

Then, it is time for the Quiz.

During the quiz, we hear several players voice their suspicions. Heather suspects Elavia, Bribs suspects Heather since she couldn't remember his birthday and Katie suspects Dorothy because of her answers in the Smart/Dumb Game.

As the players arrive for the Execution, Anderson tells them that the producers are aware of Patrick's actions. Since tearing the pages from the journal was against the rules of the game the pot has been penalized by 5 thousand. It now stands at 166 thousand dollars. He then goes to his laptop and starts typing in names.

In a long sequence, Elavia, Bribs, Heather, Myra, Darwin and Katie all have their names entered and all get a green screen. (Darwin whispers "Oh my god" as the thumbprint comes up.) Then, Patrick's name is entered and the red screen appears. Patrick is executed. Rob and Elavia share a smirk with each other as he gets up and follows Anderson away. As he leaves, smiles and some laughter are exchanged among the other players.

Patrick tells Anderson that he is disappointed but not surprised, then gets into the car and is driven away. The other players talk about the earlier parts of the game with Patrick, before the journal incident. Darwin explains that Patrick had narrowed his guesses about the Mole down to two and if he had been correct he wouldn't have needed the friendship or cooperation of the other players anymore. Katie, for her part, says she is sorry things happened the way they did.

We end with a scene of Patrick leading the others in an Italian toast. "While we live, let us live."

Some will not live as long as others. The Mole is still out there.

Bribs badly misses his question in the Rappelling Game.

Heather misses her question in the Rappelling Game, even though others feel she should have known Bribs' birthday.

Elavia can't read her question in the Rappelling Game but guesses at an answer anyway.

Darwin misses his question in the Rappelling Game then gets his finger caught, preventing him from checking some of the questions.

Al gets a chance to correct some answers in the Rappelling Game but still can't get the correct combination.

Al mentions that he will tell Patrick his favorite color and a question about the Mole's favorite color appears on the Mole quiz.

Bill dents the first car in the Morality Game.

Patrick tries to mislead the other players on the names of the women in the Morality Game. (Of course, he is later Executed so can't be the Mole.)

Katie, Myra and Patrick try to throw the Dumb vs Smart Game in an attempt to gain an Exemption. (Of course, Patrick is later Executed so he still can't be the Mole.)

Bill, who Rob tells us is good at math and numbers, badly misses the Fisherman Puzzle in the Dumb vs Smart Game.

Dorothy comes up with not one but two last second correct answers in the Dumb vs Smart Game, gaining her, Bill and Rob Exemptions.

Dorothy is the only player to have received two Exemptions.

Patrick tears pages out of Katie's Journal. (Yet again, he is later Executed so can't possibly be the Mole.)

Be seeing you...