Half the team is gone, but almost all the men are still here! Kristen leaves behind five men and one woman...and five contestants and one Mole...
After a week off, we're back and better than ever!
Nicole: "Doctor diva is the last woman standing, and, um, although I'm proud to be the last woman standing, I'd much rather be the last player standing."
Paul: "Mainly right now, all I want to do is out-survive Nicole. I think that she is everything that this game is not supposed to be."
The setting is still Mendoza. The players meet Jon by a vineyard. He congratulates them for making the "final six."
Nicole: "Well now, being the only woman, it's more of a matter of pride. I don't want to let a bunch of men beat me at this game."
This is the Legarde vineyard. This vineyard is known for producing the finest Malbec on the entire planet.
Clay: "I would think that, coming to a vineyard, it's gonna be this pleasant aroma of bubbly wine. But actually, you know, it actually stinks. It smells bad."
Jon tells the players to split themselves into two groups - three runners and three thinkers. Understandably, Mark instantly says runner, and Craig instantly says thinker. They're joined by Alex and Clay, runners, and Nicole and Paul, thinkers. The runners are subsequently told to pick out their best athlete. Alex suggests Mark, and Mark it is. The thinkers need their best communicator. Paul says if it's a matter of loudness, that means him.
Nicole: "Paul raises his voice as loud as he can, 'Oh that's me! I'm the best communicator!' And I go, oh great. There goes Paul's mouth one more time."
This mission is called The Grapes of Cache. They must find seven bottles of Malbec hidden in the vineyard. Each one they find is worth $10,000. The thinkers will have to answer seven multiple-choice brainteasers. When they do, they must give the answer to the communicator, who will have a set of GPS coordinates corresponding to each answer. He must relay the correct coordinates to the runners, who will have a GPS tracking system and must find the bottles.
Clay: "Technology is not my strong point. In fact, my wife fixes the VCR, anything, sets up the computer."
They must trust that the answers are correct, because if they're wrong, the coordinates will be wrong, and they won't be able to find the bottles at all. The timekeeper for the mission is Mark. He'll be running on a treadmill. If he stops, the mission is over. Each time a bottle is found, the treadmill will speed up. Paul may not help the thinkers work out the puzzles, but if Mark has the breath, he may.
Nicole and Craig unveil their first puzzle, Alex and Clay head off into the vineyard, Mark's treadmill starts, and the game begins.
Mark: "I am in control of the game. As long as I am on the treadmill, we can find these bottles. It's a burden, because anything can happen and you end up being responsible for failing the entire mission."
The first pace for Mark is quite slow. He hardly even needs to walk.
The first question is:
I'm trying to represent these exactly as they were on the card, hence the awkward spacing.
From the following list of words choose the word that does not fit. Ice, cheese, chocolate, plastic, wood A. Chocolate B. Wood C. Ice D. Cheese
Nicole wants to pick plastic, but that's not one of the four choices. Mark says cheese, chocolate, and plastic are all cold and congealed, and only wood is naturally a solid. They choose the answer wood.
Nicole: "After we come up with the answers, we're keeping a tally on the board. And the communicator is to communicate corresponding coordinates."
Clay and Paul are the ones communicating early on. Clay seems to have trouble making sense of it.
Paul: "I have to communicate to Clay, who I've recently had some problems with. We have to work together, to some degree, to make some money."
The next puzzle is:
Which number should replace the ques- tions mark? 14 4 9 2 13 7 4 5 11 4 5 3 22 5 9 ? A. 5 B. 3 C. 8 D. 2
Craig successfully solves it. The first and second numbers in each row are added together and then divided by the third number, meaning the answer is 3.
The third is:
Some months have 30 days, others have 31 days. In a single year how many months have 28 days? A. 1 B. 2 C. 12 D. 6
Mark: "To me, that's just a, it's just a common sense, you shouldn't have even thought about it for more than 2 seconds. Craig and Nicole answered questions, you know, if one of them is the Mole, that's a prime place to really screw things up."
Question number four is: How many ways can you read ABC off the diamond? A. 4 B. 6 C. 12 D. None of the above
XABA
ABCBA
XABA
xxxA
Paul: "The hardest part of this mission was having to sit in the background, and not being able to help. I saw these two very 'smart' people taking questions that should be relatively easy for them to answer, and taking an awful long time on it. And I thought it was a little suspicious."
Nicole says C. Craig asks if she's sure, and she says she's good at guessing.
Alex and Clay have finally found the first bottle of wine. Wood was indeed the correct answer for bottle number one.
Clay: "When we find that first wine bottle, we're pretty excited. The only hindrance is, each time we find a wine bottle, the difficulty of Mark on the treadmill increases, hence the likelihood that he'll stay on longer, decreases."
Paul gives them the next set of coordinates, and Jon speeds up Mark's treadmill.
The next puzzle is: Which number should come next in the following sequence? 2, 6, 3, 9, 6, 18, 15, 45, 42... A. 39 B. 120 C. 126 D. None of the above
Mark again has the answer very quickly, noticing the pattern is times three, minus three, times three, minus three.
They've found the second bottle. 3 was the correct answer for the first numbers puzzle. Jon ratchets up Mark's treadmill again. Paul gives the runners the next set of coordinates.
The sixth puzzle is: Jim is taller than Kevin, and Walter is shorter than Jim. Which of the following statements would be most accurate? A. Walter is taller than Kevin B. Walter is shorter than Kevin C. Walter is as tall as Kevin D. None of the above
Paul: "Nicole claims to be a very smart individual, yet Mark was answering most of the questions. I think she's trying to sabotage the group. I don't just her as far as I can throw her."
They've found bottle number three. All months do indeed have 28 days. Mark's speed increases; he's been running for almost 20 minutes.
The last question is:
Every morning at 9 a.m., my wine cellar receives a delivery of 22 bottles of wine, all of which are stored in the cellar. Every afternoon at 5 p.m. I remove 12 bottles from my wine cellar and give them away to friends. No other bottles enter or leave my wine cellar except at these two times. On January 1st at 8 a.m. I had 400 bottles in my wine cellar. On what date in January did my wine cellar first contain more than 500 bottles of wine? A. January 9 B. January 10 C. January 11 D. January 12
The runners haven't found the bottle. The answer is wrong. Paul erases the answer from a chalkboard on which Craig and Nicole have been working.
Paul: "Nicole had left an answer on the board that was wrong. So I decided to erase that answer, and just get it off the board, and I don't think she took kindly to that."
Paul and Nicole trade some pretty childish verbal barbs.
Nicole: "And of course Paul has to go on a tirade. I'm used to it now. Shoo, shoo little man."
Paul: "I wanted to see Nicole go home since day one. She's just a thorn in my side."
The runners are waiting to hear from Paul again, but he seems too busy fighting with Nicole. Mark chugs along on the treadmill, with a frustrated look on his face.
Mark says the answer is A, since he goes over 500 that day but then falls down again.
The runners get some new coordinates, and find another bottle. 126 is correct for the second numbers question. Alex suggests they get a little Moley and either break the bottles or drink them.
Clay: "Alex has this propensity to booze up. The trust would come in is if he tried to drink them on the way back!"
Mark's treadmill increases even faster. Paul relays the next set of coordinates.
He's read them wrong, and has to clarify. He says it's because Craig, Nicole, and Mark changed their answer on the question.
Nicole: "Paul blamed his mistake on us. That's a little suspicious for me."
Mark's been running for 30 minutes. The next bottle is found - there are 12 ABC's in the diamond - and the speed increases yet again. The runners get some more coordinates.
Clay: "If you find one bottle way over there, the next wine bottle was in the complete opposite direction. So I think it was designed to kind of get you scattered and flustered."
They've found number six - we don't know if Walter is taller than Kevin. Mark's treadmill is now as fast as it's going to get.
Paul gives the next set of coordinates, and it's a long way away. Alex and Clay wonder how Mark is. He's puffing along, after having been running for over 47 minutes. In order to win any money at all, Alex and Clay must return before Mark stops running.
Alex thinks they're in the right place.
Indeed they are. They've found bottle number seven; January 9 it is. Now they must race back to the start position to add the $70,000 to the pot.
Paul, Craig, and Nicole nervously watch on as Mark continues running. They're powerless at this point and must rely on him.
Alex and Clay make it back. Mark was running for over 53 minutes. The mission is won.
THE GRAPES OF CACHE - +$70,000
TOTAL - $247,000
Paul: "Mark I thought was amazing. Not only did he keep the pace for the group, and kept the time going, he answered most of the questions."
Alex seeks a bottle-opener.
And indeed, in the next scene, they are drinking some wine together. Nicole raises a toast - to money!
Back at the hotel, Alex asks Paul about what happened on his end of the mission. Paul says Nicole was pretty much worthless in answering the questions, and hopes she doesn't guess all the time with her patients.
Alex: "I definitely think Nicole is the Mole. Right now, for me, she's my A #1."
Paul says Nicole went along with each correct answer Mark gave, and jokingly said she knew it, too, the whole time. He he feels sorry for Nicole's patients. Paul: "There's just a lot of things that just doesn't fall into place with her. I'm starting to believe that she's not really a doctor."
In their room, Mark tells Clay he can't imagine Nicole's the Mole. They talk through their suspicions a little bit. Clay says Nicole, and everyone, are still suspicious, and he's not quite sure what to do on the upcoming quiz.
Clay: "I certainly have moments that it crossed my mind that Mark is the Mole. I'm always suspicious of him, and even the information that he gives me. I don't trust that. What I rely on in this game is my gut. So if it turns out Mark is the Mole, I wouldn't be surprised."
Mark thinks everyone could be implicated in at least three sabotages.
Mark: "Everybody here is very good at pretending to be the Mole, or being the Mole."
Now Clay says everybody's the Mole.
Alex raps to Craig and Nicole that Nicole is the Mole. She doesn't seem to mind hearing that suspicion.
Craig: "I have my suspicions that Nicole is the Mole. I thought she would be either around till the end, or she would be leaving earlier, because she doesn't take any notes."
Craig bemoans the fact that so many women are gone, and says all the "good" ones have been eliminated. Nicole takes a little smirking offense to that.
Mark says his quiz time is slow, and suggests that he and Clay try to ensure that Alex drinks a lot of wine before the next quiz. Clay says he's been trying this, and they definitely need to try to slow him down and get him to mess up.
Clay: "Alex has not had an exemption to date. And he's still here. Which puzzles me a little bit. Because it begins to make me think, is he the Mole, or does a bottle a day make Alex perform better? I don't know."
The players drive to their next challenge.
Mark: "We were driving, driving, driving, we keep thinking, what are we doing, what are we doing, and then we come around this corner, and there's a gorge with this bridge across. Craig instantly turned white."
The players meet Jon. This mission is called Swing Out. The bridge they're on is about 90 feet above the Mendoza River. Each player must walk out on a wooden plank beside the bridge and bungee jump off it. They'll have with them a bag of mate, a popular tea drink in the area. Below them is a target. If they can throw the bag of mate in the middle of the target, they'll win $10,000 for the pot. There are concentric squares around the middle, valued at $8,000, $6,000 and $4,000.
Nicole: "The first thing that comes to my mind is, absolutely not. I'm not jumping off of anything at all, no matter what. "I just wanted to go last because I really needed to think about whether or not I was really gonna do it."
The players decide their order. Nicole calls out "Last!" before the rest of it is decided.
Mark is the first to walk the plank. He gets his bag of mate and heads out. But before he is to jump, Jon asks if he's interested in earning an exemption. Mark says yes. Jon tells him, therefore, to guess how much money will be won by the entire group in this mission, and if Mark's guess is the closest to the actual total, without going over, he'll win that exemption.
Craig: "We see Mark out on the platform, and he's out there forever. And I was like, why are you taking so long, just go!"
Mark says that three people won't even go, and of the three who will, he thinks $10,000 will be won in this game.
Mark jumps back. After bobbing around for a few seconds, he tosses his bag, but it just barely misses the target.
Mark: "The feeling of that drop is amazing, in the stomach. And it seemed everything was going in slow motion. And so I just tried to fling it towards the target, and I missed. That was about the craziest thing I've ever done."
Paul says that finding wine bottles shouldn't be worth more than bungee jumping. He calls Jon a sick individual. Jon says he tried the jump himself, earlier, and hit the bullseye.
Paul: "Climbing on that platform was probably the scariest thing I've done."
Jon gives Paul the exemption offer.
Paul: "When you're standing on the edge of a plank, and you're probably the most scared you've ever been in your life, that's the hardest to time to put together in your head a calculation, and figure out stuff." Jon gets his guess, but we don't hear it.
Paul jumps and screams out. The others cheer him on. Paul throws his bag, and it's nowhere near the target. It actually lands in the water, well clear of the target.
Paul: "Hitting the target was probably the hardest thing to do on this. I was backwards when I was trying to throw it. But by the time I saw the target, it was just too late."
Clay is the next to jump. He says he can feel the ten grand in his pocket.
Jon asks him if he's done this before. Heck no!
Clay: "I'm just thinking, do not slip. And while I'm thinking that, Jon finds it, I guess, a suitable time to tell me, there's an exemption on the line."
Clay puts in his guess for the exemption offer, and jumps.
Clay: "I have no idea why I'm out here. But I figured, when in Mendoza, do as the Mendozans do. Jump a bridge."
His eyes are actually closed. He opens them after a moment and throws the bag. He's way off.
Clay climbs back up to the bridge and says he thinks they moved the target. Nahh.
Craig is next. He's pretty afraid.
Craig: "I have vertigo, and this is a hundred times more difficult than Over the Falls for me. When I look down, everything spins, and I get real dizzy, and it's really hard to keep my balance. This is gonna be very hard for me."
Craig repeats that he doesn't want to do this. Jon gives Craig the exemption offer. He of course says he's interested, but naturally as well seems a little put off to do what he needs at that exact moment.
Craig: "This is the worst place and time for Jon to be talking about calculating numbers to me. I was like, quit talking to me. Let's go!"
The guess is in. Craig is free to jump on his own volition. He counts himself up to it and jumps, screaming.
Craig: "Even though I was scared out of my wits, it was important for me to jump. I've never been that scared of heights in my life. I can't even think straight right now, I can't even see straight."
The cable bounces him around as he screams in terror. His bag flies out in the meantime and drastically misses the target. Replays show that he very nearly hit the ground. The scream of terror eventually becomes a powerful roar for having conquered his fear. He says he hates Jon before coming back to the bridge.
Clay: "There's a moment, where you look at all three of us, and we're literally like (his jaw drops and eyes go wide)."
Alex is next.
Alex: "I just don't deal with heights well. I find my legs uncontrollably shaking. "At that point in time, his words are suddenly turning into, you know,
Alex gets the exemption offer. He "jumps," if you might be willing to call it that. It's more like he slipped off the back of the board.
Alex throws his bag, and hits the 4 grand target.
Nicole: "I went last so everybody else will test the equipment."
Nicole has a little spring in her step. She says it's good to keep your spirits up when you're facing probable death.
The five guys chat amongst themselves, debating whether Nicole will even try the mission.
Mark: "Nicole's a coin toss with me, on any given day. I wouldn't have been surprised if she jumped, I wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't jump. Whether just to look Moley, or whatever."
She gets the exemption offer.
Nicole: "I am petrified. Literally. Frozen with fear. But, I don't want to let a bunch of men beat me. Girl power. Solo girl power, as a matter of fact. "Lord, please do not let me die on national TV. "All I was thinking was, when am I going to stop falling? And it was the longest moment in time in my life."
Paul mocks what he thinks is Nicole's probable reasons for not jumping. But she does jump, and misses the target very wide.
Clay: "Out of all the people, she had the best form. I think she had the best chance, out of all the jumps that I saw. For me, for her to kind of miss the target might have been a little Molish."
Out of all the money on offer, Alex was the only one who hit the target. $4,000 is the mission total.
Mark: "The Mole could have been at work, and nobody would ever know. Just throw the bag away from the target - because everybody else missed, you'd never know."
Which is exactly why I hope this isn't revealed as a Mole sabotage at the end. At least four people who aren't the Mole missed the target.
SWING OUT - +$4,000
TOTAL - $251,000
The next matter of business is the exemption offer. Mark guessed $10,000. No exemption. Paul guessed $12,000. Sorry. Clay guessed $14,000. No soup for you. Craig guessed $20,000. Way too overconfident. Alex guessed $15,000. Ouch. He says he'd have given up the exemption, and Nicole calls him a liar. They both call each other the Mole, a bit flippantly. Nicole guessed $28,000.
So no one gets the exemption.
The next night, before the execution, Nicole has her journal out and makes a point of writing in it, for the first time.
Nicole: "The last quiz was a little bit more specific than previous quizzes had been. And I know Clay's writing all of this down, so I thought it would behoove me to see if I can get a little bit of that information."
Clay does indeed give her a little information from his journal.
Clay: "I think the information that I gave her might be the first information that Nicole has actually put in her new journal."
Nicole: "God, I used my journal, why?!? Watch me get executed, because I touched that journal!"
We see a city bus go in front of the restaurant where the players eat their execution dinner. Jon asks if it's sunk in that the pot is over a quarter of a million.
Nicole: "I'm pretty proud that I've gotten this far, you know, being the last woman standing. Even if I'm executed tonight, there's a small victory here."
Jon asks the players whose conscience is getting to them. The players laugh this question off.
Nicole: "In this game, you can't afford to have a conscience, you have to keep in mind that scruples must be waylaid for the game."
Craig: "Not using lies and deceit in this game is like not bringing a bat and a glove to baseball."
Paul: "My conscience is definitely not getting to me. As you look around, and you only see five people left, you never know where this game is gonna turn. And at this point in the game, nothing is gonna bother me."
Clay: "Mark and I had sat down and talked about, you know, during this dinner, perhaps buying Alex more wine than usual. We felt as though we need to find ways for people to be executed."
Clay offers his untouched glass of wine to the table, saying he took cold medicine and can't drink it. No one seems to take it.
Jon congratulates the players for adding a lot of money in this round. And now the quiz.
1. Is the Mole male or female?
A. Male
B. Female
Boo. Big time boo. Are they still gonna ask this if Nicole is eliminated before the final?
Paul: "I think if I'm confident, and I stick to my plan, that I'm gonna get through this next quiz. I'm not gonna change my game until we get down to five people."
2. In the Grapes of Cache mission, did the Mole help solve brainteasers?
A. Yes
B. No
Mark: "Craig could be the Mole. It looked to me like Craig was over-thinking the questions. No one's ever upset with Craig when he fails."
3. Was the Mole wearing a collared shirt during The Grapes of Cache?
A. Yes
B. No
Clay: "Paul could definitely be the Mole. Paul gave a wrong coordinate. I don't know whether that was his own doing, whether that was some Mole behavior, or whether just they simply got a wrong answer."
4. In the Grapes of Cache, which group did the Mole join?
A. Thinker
B. Runner
5. At wine and cheese after The Grapes of Cache mission, starting from Jon, where was the Mole sitting, clockwise?
A. First
B. Second
C. Third
D. Fourth
E. Fifth
F. Sixth
Craig: "I've done the math, and Mark has kept like $50,000 out of the pot, and I've got more notes on him than anybody."
Care to share that math, buddy?
6. In the Swing Out mission, how many players jumped off the bridge before the Mole?
A. Zero
B. One
C. Two
D. Three
E. Four
F. Five
Alex: "Nicole acted very kind of, 'oh, you know, I can't jump, I'm so scared of the edge.' And then she jumped with perfect form, like she's done it 100 times."
7. In the Swing Out mission, where did the Mole's exemption guess rank, from highest to lowest?
A. First
B. Second
C. Third
D. Fourth
E. Fifth
F. Sixth
8. In the Swing Out mission, how much money did the Mole earn for the pot?
A. $0
B. $4,000
C. $6,000
D. $8,000
E. $10,000
9. In Swing Out, how much did the Mole guess to win an exemption?
A. $10,000
B. $12,000
C. $14,000
D. $15,000
E. $20,000
F. $28,000
Nicole: "Alex could definitely be the Mole. I don't think that everyone has a good idea who the Mole is. Therefore, as long as I'm faster than they are, I get to stay."
10. Who is the Mole?
A. Alex
B. Clay
C. Craig
D. Mark
E. Nicole
F. Paul
It's time again for the execution. Click the pictures below. If a green screen appears, that player remains in the game. If a red screen appears, that player must leave the game immediately.
The executed player was the first and only name checked.
Who is definitely NOT the Mole: Mark
Who may very well be the Mole: Craig
Click here for the episode seven report.
