Usual crap...Ahmad is an ok host, but these narratives just plain suck.
Keshia: "Tracey is suspect number one on my list. Why is she suspect?" (hiccups) "Oh my God, I have the hiccups, number one on my list because everyone who she coalitions with gets executed. "
Tracey: "I got a new dress for the dinner tonight. Got it in town. It's very cute. Very islandy."
I have given up trying to understand this woman. She's almost as bad as Griffin.
Angie: "Maybe I'll go skinny-dipping tonight. Maybe that'll get me an exemption. Well, it didn't work last time, did it? So maybe I won't."
Dennis: "I will be here 'til the duration of this game. The focus is there, the will, the desire, and the admiration is always alive."
Mark: "Now, my strategy, I'm going to tell you guys my strategy in this whole situation. They will think that I am the Mole after tonight. I'm going to do some Mole stuff. I'm with - whoever the Mole is is going to think I'm the Mole."
Ahmad welcomes the players to Eco Park at Xcaret. He says when you're sunnin' and funnin' in Mexico there's nothing like a refreshing margarita. He has all the fixins for the margaritas with him, except the tequila.
This game is called Tequila Shooters. Across from where Ahmad and the players stand is a cantina with 40 bottles of tequila on a table in it. There is a very narrow bridge spanning the distance. The players have to go across the bridge, grab a tequila bottle, put it on the tray, and walk back. They can only take one bottle at a time, and while on the bridge, they cannot touch the tequila bottle with any part of their body.
There's one more catch. This game brings back the executed players Ananda, Corbin, and Stephen. They will throw dodgeballs at the players as they walk back and forth on the bridge.
Yikes, I guess we know what "executed and must leave the game immediately" means now.
Each bottle the players still in the game bring back will earn $500 for the pot. Each bottle the executed players can prevent them from bringing back will earn them $500 to split.
There is a ten minute time limit.
Ananda, Corbin, and Stephen swim out to their spots to pelt their former teammates. Corbin takes a spot by a giant slingshot.
Dennis: "When I heard the three "banditos" came out, I'm like, 'Oh, no, I just had a feeling. They're gonna really give it to us.'"
The executed players are called the "banditos."
Angie: "Corbin got over with this slingshot, and I was scared."
The time starts and the balls fly. Stephen and Ananda are opposite Corbin so the ball supply is constantly replenishing itself.
They all make it across without being hit, but no such luck on the way back. All five players lose their first bottles.
Back for a second try. Mark very clumsily drops his bottle on his tray and is out.
Almost half the time is up. Keshia and Dennis have lost another bottle each.
After five minutes, fully half the time limit, Tracey has finally brought the first $500 bottle back safely.
Angie takes a couple of hits in the legs but also makes it back with a bottle.
Mark: "These big ol' size 14s wasn't going in front of one each other as quickly as I wanted to. It was difficult. They was throwing at your head. "I just could not walk and hold that tray at all. I couldn't do it."
Keshia, Angie, and Dennis come back with bottles again.
Tracey: "Mark gets out, takes three steps and basically goes, 'I can't do this, man.' And he throws them over, and then maybe walks a few steps and then stops, really halting the game."
Mark takes a spill to the floor, and Dennis and Tracey bring back another bottle each.
One minute to play.
Keshia: "Then when there was like a minute to go, I was like, 'Mmm, I'm good. I did my contribution to the team.'"
Ahmad shouts one minute! One minute! And then notices that only Dennis and Tracey are going back. Stephen nails Tracey right in the head with a ball. She falls off the bridge and into the lagoon.
Tracey: "True coalitions fade quickly when you're executed, because Stephen rammed me in the head and knocked me into the water with a ball. That's like a mini concussion. I mean, you get that big ball in your head."
Dennis: "They was out wanting blood. I think they was just out for revenge. They was trying to knock your head off."
Dennis blocks a barrage of dodgeballs with a bottle down on his tray and sneaks another $500 in just before the end of the game.
Angie: "They weren't shooting for those tequila bottles, they were out for us. That hurts. Do you see that bruise? That is from one of those balls. A war wound."
Tracey: "It was fun. I mean, it was just, it was one of the most fun games we've done."
Mark failed to get even one bottle back during the game. He says he'll make it up in the "bonus round."
Ahmad tells the players they got a total of 12 bottles back, a gain of $6,000. The banditos won $14,000 for themselves. They fade away, now truly gone (I sincerely hope).
The game is not over, however. If the players will participate in the Mexican tradition of eating the worm, they will double their contribution to the Tequila Shooters game.
Mark contributed nothing, so he is not given a worm. Darn.
The player has to chew the worm, show it to Ahmad and swallow for it to count.
Tracey: "Coming into this, the thing I've been most worried about is having to eat something gross."
Immediately, the women are grossed out and ask Dennis to do theirs for them, if that's allowed. Ahmad tells them it is.
Dennis has no hesitation whatsoever and downs the four worms in about thirty seconds after washing them down with a sip of margarita.
TEST PASSED - +$12,000 TOTAL - $105,000
The players go have a drink at the cantina, now that the tequila can come to them.
Angie: "Mark, I mean, he's trying to be obvious. Today, he didn't get one bottle. Not one."
Mark: "I didn't bring one bottle of tequila home. I don't drink tequila."
Tracey: "Dennis never takes any notes in his journal. Which is sorta suspicious. Would the Mole do that?"
Angie: "Dennis never has normal behavior no matter what he does. "Tracey, you just think she's such a good girl, there's no way that she could be the Mole."
Dennis: "Who is the Mole? Tracey. That's who the Mole is."
Ahmad tells the players that the art and culture of the Yucatan Peninsula are very special, and today they'll get a chance to participate in that heritage.
He tells the players to split up: three players who are "children at heart," one who is a chatterbox, and one who has a good eye.
Angie immediately volunteers for the group of three, and is soon joined by child stars Keshia and Tracey. Instantly, the chatterbox is Mark, which leaves Dennis as the good eye.
Ahmad then describes the challenge. In a galleria is a painting locked up that is worth $20,000 for the pot. To unlock it, a series of steps must occur. First, the chatterbox, Mark will be shown three paintings from the galleria. He must communicate via walkie talkie to the "children at heart," describing the paintings. Based on his descriptions, Keshia, Angie, and Tracey will finger paint replicas of the three paintings. The three replicas will then be given to Dennis, who must match the finger paintings to the originals in the galleria to unlock the $20,000 portrait of our host.
Ahmad offers one hint: be as detailed as possible because there could be similar paintings in the galleria.
They have only thirty minutes to complete all three phases of the challenge.
Mark, Keshia, Angie, and Tracey are shown getting wired up for the walkie talkie communications. Dennis patiently waits just outside the galleria.
The time starts when Mark first sets eyes on the paintings. Go.
He starts describing the first painting to Tracey. It's an autumn scene, with red leaves and small buildings in the background. It may be a farm, if that helps.
Tracey asks if it's a barn, and Mark does not answer. Tracey sets to creating a barn. Mark moves on to Angie. The painting she is to emulate is a woman's face. Mark suggests Keshia with her hair down as an example. Angie asks to confirm that it's a black lady. Mark says she's Spanish or Bolivian or something like that. A brown-skinned lady, and we can only see her from the neck up.
Now he gets on the horn to Keshia. Her painting is two vases. Both have white backs. He suggests the one on the right has Portugese embroidery on it. Pretty colors and little flowers. The vase on the left is taller. There are five apples on the ground around the vases and the one of the right has birds perched on it.
WIth 24 minutes left on the clock, Mark comes back to Tracey. Tracey's canvas is covered with a huge red barn. After she hears Mark say that the buildings are just "little houses," she vainly tries to erase it, but it's pretty much already lost.
Mark now suggests to Angie that she paint Ananda with her hair down.
Mark tells Keshia the tall vase is like a stack of a nuclear power plant. She laughs at the absurdity of the description.
Ahmad reminds the ladies that they need to give Dennis some time in the galleria. All three of them have to hand over their replicas at the same time.
They've gone as far as they can, they're done and they head out.
Mark tries to contact Angie after all three of them are gone.
They arrive at Dennis outside the gallery. They describe their paintings a little, but stop when Angie suggests it might be against the rules.
Ahmad welcomes Dennis to the gallery. He explains the rules. Dennis must place each painting where he thinks it belongs and hit a red button. If he's right, the $20,000 portrait will be opened, but if he's not, a buzzer will sound. He can make as many attempts as time allows, but he must get all three right at the same time to win the game.
He has six minutes to match them up.
He makes his first attempt and has none right. He asks Ahmad if he had any right, but Ahmad can't tell him that.
Second attempt. All three are still wrong.
Third attempt and still no correct matches.
On his fourth attempt, Dennis correctly matches the vases, but the other two are still wrong.
On his fifth attempt, he has the vases and the face in the correct place, but the landscape is wrong.
On his sixth and final attempt, he moves the face and does not place the landscape correctly.
TEST FAILED TOTAL - $105,000
Mark emulates the three women's responses to the failure in the game and predicts that they will blame him for it.
All five players are brought into the gallery. Ahmad places each painting correctly, noting the dark-to-the-point-of-having-no-color face that Angie made and the not-so-small-building that Tracey made.
The players notice that in the money portrait Ahmad is wrangling a Mole. There's a mole in the portrait. There's also a Mole in the room.
Mark: "I told Angie to paint a face. She painted Mick Jagger, on drugs, looking at himself in a broken mirror. Or something - I don't know what that was."
Dennis says the birds on the vase painting gave him that one, even though they really do look more like squirrels.
Ahmad asks where the players went wrong. The women all point at Mark.
Mark: "Tracey painted a house with flowers and - she got into Little House on the Prairie."
Tracey tries to defend herself saying that Mark told her it was a barn, which he in fact did not say.
Dennis: "Dennis Rodman could be the Mole, but...Tracey. She's ahead of him. She's right there."
Keshia: "Well Angie just kept painting. So it just looked like a mishmosh of paint by the time she finished."
Wow, after all that effort...
Tracey: "We sucked! We didn't win any money."
Mark: "It's good for me. It's good. I want them to think I'm the Mole."
At dinner, Ahmad mentions that this is the first round of the game in which no one has an exemption. He raises a toast to the night's executee.
Tracey: "I don't think until you see that person get executed, you feel safe about them. And that's the truth of the game."
Dennis: "This one is really crucial. This is really crucial now. If I get past this round, I will win this game."
Now the quiz. This time, questions 1, 3, 4, 6 (though question 6 appears as question 7 on ABC.com's posting of the quiz - I have gone with ABC.com's posting here. What I have as question 7 was aired as question 6), and 10 are the ones aired.
1. Is the Mole male or female?
Dennis: "Besides anything suspicion about the game, I think Mark was really not trying to play. I don't think he had any intentions to hold any tequila bottles to try to walk across."
2. In what order did the Mole first run across the bridge at the start of the "Tequila Shooters" game?
3. At the end of the "Tequila Shooters" game, how many worms did the Mole eat?
Tracey: "If you do the deductions, Keshia is another person that I have thought of, and she's been on my list."
4. Did the Mole earn money for the pot during the "Tequila Shooters" game?
Keshia: "Let's see...Mark, he didn't get one bottle of tequila across. How about that?"
5. At the beginning of the "Still Life" painting game, what color(s) did the Mole's top contain?
6. Was the Mole wearing tennis shoes during the "Still Life" painting game?
7. What was the Mole's role during the "Still Life" painting game?
Angie: "It was great sabotage. It was phenomenal because Dennis didn't get it right. I mean, at one point he did have all of them in the right place but not at the right time."
Mark: "Dennis Rodman and Angie, those are my two suspects, and I told Angie to paint a face, but I didn't tell her to paint a moon on the side, and things on the side."
8. At tonight's execution dinner, how many seats from Ahmad did the Mole sit?
9. How many dogs did the Mole say they have?
10. Who is the Mole?
Now the execution. Click the pictures below. If a green screen appears, that player remains in the game. If a red screen appears, that player has been executed and must leave the game immediately, I hope.
Again tonight there is a tie for the lowest score, so the executed player is the one who took the longer time of the lowest scorers.
Click here for my recap of the semifinal round.
