The Mole: Selfish vs. Selfless
Who is the mole? No one knows. This episode, everyone is driven up to the Andes Mountains for the next mission where it’s cold and high altitude and they’re expecting physical activity. Paul introduces Mr. Lemonhead and says Lemon’s only have sour faces. Ha.
So Kelly greets our final 8 and Craig is already complaining about the cold. They separate into two groups – selfish (Victoria, Kristin, Nicole and Clay) and selfless (Alex, Craig, Mark, Paul). The mission is called Midas Rush. There’s 200 gold bricks that weigh 5 pounds each. There’s 250 bucks into the pot for each brick they carry up the mountain. Clay thinks he’s crazy. The whole team has to arrive at the same time to complete the mission. There is an exemption at stake for the winning team. Of course, the way Kelly worded it, they think it’s for the whole team – but is it? They have 50 minutes to complete.
The selfish team takes a minimal amount of bricks with exemption in their sights, while the selfless team takes as much gold as possible to get more money into the pot and they start walking. Nicole starts complaining right away saying she can’t do it and has to stop, and she tells us she wants to throw as much suspicion on her as possible so there’s less on the actual mole.
Craig’s team lets him pick the pace, and they stay together. He misses Bobby, because he feels he’s the weakest player. his teammates are encouraging though and they keep trucking on. They’re all feeling the altitude, and they see Kelly waiting and he says he forgot to tell them that they have to carry a scale too. One weighs 10 pounds, the other 20. The first team (Selfish) chooses their scale within touching it, and they grab the small one and go, picking the lighter scale. The Selfless team gets the heavy one and grab it and keep going. The Selfless team are funny, and working together, staying about 50 yards behind the other team. Craig is really struggling, but the team is true to the name and determined to finish together or not at all.
Team Selfish arrives first, of course, and they’re all proud and excited and bring 23 bricks with them. The other team arrives with seconds to spare, and they’re all impressed with Craig’s heart and drive, and they make it up top with 34 bricks and the heavy scale, which shocks the other team. HA. Take that you selfish bastards! That brings the pot up $14,250. Then they discover there’s only one exemption and the winning team has to decide unanimously who gets it, or forfeit. They say Kristin- but Clay pushes for himself to get it because he’s the one who hasn’t had one before. They cave and give it to him. Kristin is pissed, because she feels she deserved it. The pot is now at $143,250.
They’re dismissed but Craig is still not doing well at all, even down at the bottom of the mountain and he says he feels like he’s going to black out. He’s suffering from hypothermia because of the strain and the high altitude. He’s taken off in an ambulance, and everyone’s worried about him. Fortunately he makes it back to the cabin and tells his story. He says he hopes they don’t think he was trying to look like the mole, but they’re all thinking instead that they’re proud of him and he carried the most bricks but if he WAS the mole they’d be pissed. Ha!
More coalition talk, and Mark is writing every little thing down in his journal while most other folks are still on the observing kick. Craig misses dinner, as he’s still under watch of the doctors. Jon Kelly opens up the conversation by asking how important the journals are. They all say they’re important and needed, and Kelly takes them away from them. He disappears, then comes back and it’s a round of “Who said that?” For each correct answer, he’ll bump up the $144k pot by $2k. The questions are like who’s cool, who drinks a lot, who hated mission one, and so on. Nicole is all blinking and coughing and hand waving, and everyone is suspicious of her once again.
Desert time! They are told to enjoy their desert, then they’re going on a drive. They all groan. In the middle of nowhere, and Kelly tells them taking risks is a huge part of the game and he wants to see how daring they are. He asks them to sacrifice the journal. Clay wasn’t willing at all, Mark is thinking there’s an exemption in play but he’s not willing to give it up. Alex steps up and says he’ll give his up – and Jon Kelly has him set everyone elses on a table – and sets the table on fire. Mark is PISSED. He is visibly upset and keeps complaining about it. SO much for not being obsessed with your journal bud.
Because Alex stood up and offered his – he gets to keep his. Mark stomps off, and no one can find him for a while. He finally joins and everyone starts back to the cabin. Mark is all complaining that they may as well send him home now because he lost the journal. Wah, wah, wah. Craig gets to keep his journal too, since he wasn’t there in last nights mission. Which made Mark even more upset. Hah.
Time for the quiz. Once they’re all done, we find out that there was a tie, so the one with the slowest time between the two will be sent home – the difference was a mere 5 seconds, and Victoria is sent home.
Have YOU figured out who the Mole is yet? Do tell!
