CorbinErikFrederiqueKathyKimMichaelStephen
Celebrity Mole - Episode 1

Confessional clips from each celebrity, as well as snippits of games to come begin the show.

Our new host, Ahmad Rashad goes over the rules of the game and the contestants: Stephen Baldwin, Frederique Van der Wal, Corbin Bernsen, Kathy Griffin, Michael Boatman, Erik von Detten, and Kim Coles, each giving a statement that they are indeed the Mole.

As the title indicates, the game is in Hawaii.

Ahmad greets the celebrities with a warm "Mole-loha" and asks if they are ready for the first game. He asks for the four strongest players and three who just want to "hang out."

Where have we heard that before?

Ahmad dumbs down the rules for the celebrities and describes this game. Kim, Kathy, Corbin, and Erik are the "strong" players, and Stephen, Frederique, and Michael will "hang out."

Overlooking a ravine is a zip line that the three hangers will hang from. On another line is a bag of money that contains $10,000. The hangers have to take water from the waterfall, climb up and dump it in a bucket at the top of the second line. If the bucket fills, it will drop and the money back will lift.

Kathy: "I was completely in shock. I thought this was going to be Celebrity Mole, with like fakey, easy, celebrity, half-easy games. I didn't know anybody would be trying to get buckets from a waterfall. This is ridiculous."

I'll concede that point to anyone who feels the need to loathe this show.

The four strong players will be in these places: at the top of the falls, two players will operate a crank, moving the player back and forth. Another will be on a joystick, which moves the player up and down. A spotter on the valley floor will give instructions to them.

Each hanger has six minutes. Stephen is the first hanger to go. He directs the player on the joystick.

Kim: "I was the puppeteer for the beginning of the game. That was good. 'Cuz I loved putting Baldwin up and down, up and down."

Stephen keeps telling them to go down and finally stop! He has a bucket. He fills it with water. Up up up! He is hanging upside down in the waterfall. Despite numerous times shouting up up up! Kim doesn't move him up until Corbin tells her to.

Stephen is too high. He has to go down to hit the bucket at the top of the second line.

Corbin: "Kim kept doing stuff that was suspicious to me. She had a problem with the joystick. How hard is it to figure out? Am I the only one around here that has brains?"

Stephen continues to yell at Kim. The purple bucket is full, but Stephen waits to fill the blue one instead. Up up up! Corbin and Erik crank him up.

After 3:46, the bucket fills and the money sack raises into the air.

Stephen: "That was tough! And let me tell you, man, when you're on that thing, the hardest thing was fighting hypothermia. And all I'm really trying to do is just to keep my head above water, and just try to focus on the air, you know what I'm saying?"

Stephen grouses at the other players and complains about the difficulty of his task.

Ahmad says another $10,000 can be won. Frederique is the second player, but for the $10,000 to be won, she now has to beat Stephen's time of 3:46. The strong players also have to change positions.

Frederique: "Standing first on the board and saying, okay, here, what you're going to do was nerve-racking. At the moment I was thinking...I was weighing things. Like 'I'm a mom, now, should I?' That really wasn't good."

Corbin and Kathy are now on the crank and Erik is on the stick as Kim has moved to the spotter position. Frederique yells repeatedly to be moved down. Stephen yells up to Erik to take her down further.

Kathy: "I was a cranker, and that was miserable, because Bernsen yelled at me, and he turned into super veiny hockey dad.

"So that was really freaky. And then I had to stop for a minute and feel sorry for his wife."

Stephen keeps yelling at Erik. Frederique says she's there, don't move. Stephen yells up to Corbin and Kathy to move her further down.

Frederique's first dump into the bucket atop the other line goes all over the place, about 50% making it into the bucket.

She is caught under the water and can't move. The time runs out.

Frederique: "I definitely think that Corbin was sabotaging something there. I said to give me some lead way. There was a bucket full right under me and I couldn't reach it."

Michael has the chance for another $10,000 if he can now beat Stephen's time. The strong players must rotate once again.

Michael: "What I was experiencing was, you know, fear, and I did have a question about doing it because I had this conversation earlier with my wife about doing certain stunts. I was given very specific orders. So that was a big part of it, was looking and going 'Okay, is this something that I can do? Am I going to get in trouble for doing that? No, that looks fun. I think I really oughtta do that.'"

Go!

Michael is off. He doesn't yell to the crankers, but Corbin does. He goes straight to the buckets, grabs one and fills it. Kathy says she can't hear Corbin, but the crankers still take Michael up. His water makes it into the bucket.

Stephen and Corbin continue to direct traffic. Michael fills another bucket and they take him up. He fills the bucket, it drops and the money bag rises in 2:22.

TEST PASSED - +$20,000

TOTAL - $20,000

Ahmad presents the players with their Mole journals, identical to those used in Mole 2. He continues to "review" the rules of the game.

Kim: "My strategy for now is intuition and observation. I've been taking notes. And it's hard because you don't know what to take notes on. Particularly because the structure of the game is that you play the quiz and it's on you. It's on you, whether or not you stay."

Michael: "My suspicions shifted to Erik because he was too quiet. And you know, I wrote it in my journal, Erik's too quiet."

Corbin: "Kathy's kinda becoming my least favorite player because either she's the Mole or she doesn't care. I'm not getting enough out of her."

Stephen thinks the thumbprint logo on the journals is a clue.

The players arrive at Kahua Ranch and grill one another for potential quiz information such as most embarrassing moments.

Frederique's was farting in class.

Corbin: "Fred sorta sat back and talked about farting. I can only imagine how delicious that would have been to be sitting right just in front of her."

I hope he's kidding.

Stephen's moment is that he was dropped off by his girlfriend at home, thinking it was late, and convinced her to...you know...in the car, but he was caught by his sister from inside the house.

Kathy's was...bleeped out. Some guy she was (bleep)ing and his sister beat the (bleep) out of him...yeah.

The players also have a challenge at the ranch. A surprise awaits them.

Kim: "There was nothing but joy coming over that hill. We were like, 'What's gonna go down?' and we just started laughing, to see Ahmad in the hugest hat I have ever seen. The hat was just as big as Texas."

Ahmad: "Come on dowwwwwnnn!"

The game is blackjack, Mole-style. Ahmad will use cards, but the players use a live deck of sheep.

Ahmad tells them to break into three teams of two and leave one person out. That one left out is Stephen. He gets to stand with Ahmad behind the table.

Erik: "When Ahmad, uh, said, pair up into groups of two it didn't occur to me that we were seven people at first and there would be a man left out. And so then I turned to Frederique, but Stephen just was always kind of withdrawn. Like he never even tried to join a partner. I don't know, I just found that a little suspicious."

Corbin and Kim are Team 1, Michael and Kathy are Team 2, and Erik and Frederique are Team 3.

Ahmad will deal himself a hand. Each team has three minutes to beat his hand by wrangling two sheep from the pen that have a higher value (each sheep wears a cape with a number on it). Each team that does wins $5,000.

Ahmad's first hand is a 3 of clubs and a jack of diamonds. The players have to beat thirteen. They go about getting the sheep, which is rather hard.

Frederique and Erik get a 9.

Michael: "Corbin is falling, and Erik is literally diving. Kathy is spinning and talking to herself and having some sort of Wonder-Woman moment."

Erik and Frederique get an 8 for 17. They have won.

Corbin gets a 10 for his team. As he tries to add a queen, the 10 escapes and Corbin gets cut. Kim seems to have opened the door to let it out.

Corbin: "I suspected that Kim is the Mole. It was only reaffirmed when she let one out. I'm not convinced that was a complete accident."

Kim: "I really didn't mean to let the sheep out. What was I going to say? 'Stay in there sheep, we need you, 'cuz we wanna beat Ahmad's hand. I couldn't control the sheep! What was I going to do? I wasn't gonna touch it!"

Michael: "I looked at Kathy, and at one point, she was literally herding nothing. She was herding mosquitoes for all I knew. She was just sort of standing there."

Erik and Frederique win $5,000. They now get the opportunity to make more. If they beat Ahmad's next hand, they'll win $10,000. A six of clubs and a five of hearts, for eleven.

For three minutes they go about herding, but just the two of them this time.

Erik gets a 10 in the pen. He pursues a 5 with difficulty.

Corbin: "I especially liked watching Hansel and Gretl chase sheep. Two of the most beautiful people on the face of the earth chasing sheep. It actually made my arm feel better."

Erik adds an 8 to their pen. The $10,000 is won.

Erik: "I guess my strategy coming into the game was make people think I am the Mole, because then when they're taking the quiz, they would get many questions wrong and, I would end up having a higher score than them. But as I was doing the sheep blackjack I found myself really playing that strategy 'cuz I was really, really trying. So, um, I guess I could say my strategy's changing a little."

Stephen, the odd man out, gets an opportunity to double the money. They will release the "Mole sheep," one with a black cape where the "deck sheep" had white ones. If Stephen gets the sheep, he will double the $15k and earn an exemption for himself. But if he misses, the $15k already won is lost.

Stephen: "What was the most interesting part of that moment of decision was scanning the faces of all the other players, while I was pondering what I would do. Because if I don't do it, I could be the Mole. But what I like is if I do do it, I still could be the Mole.

"When I was singled out and I was up with Ahmad, I thought that I would be asked to perhaps participate with the sheep, but not for all the money and not for an exemption. So for me, it was...it was powerful. It was interesting."

Despite this seeming hesitance, Stephen decides to go for it. He has three minutes to get the "Mole sheep." The others are convinced he is the Mole, or so they say.

He has a curious strategy of "charming" the sheep, and not charging it. The other players shout tactics to him. He drives the sheep to a pack, but it escapes. He chases it down, grabs it, and gets it into a pen.

TEST PASSED - +$30,000

TOTAL - $50,000

Stephen now has an exemption for himself as well. He'll be sticking around.

The players are suspicious Stephen got an exemption doing something he was good at.

Michael: "I don't remember hearing much about, you know, the Baldwin Ranch on Long Island. But it all started to then come back to me, with the lunch. Early on we were all called out there to talk about our most embarrassing moments. So there we're all out there, and we can't find Baldwin. Where is this guy? So then Kim Coles goes into the little house to go get him, and then she comes out, and he's still not with her but she says he's coming. She says 'Oh, he was asleep.' I said 'Asleep?!?' and I just thought 'He wasn't asleep. He was getting advice on how to tackle this sheep. That's what's happening.' And that's when it started to me, I just started to go: 'I think this guy, I think he's the Mole, I think he's the one. I think that's him."

Corbin says he has a pretty good idea who the Mole is. Stephen says no one in their vehicle is the Mole. Corbin and Frederique, the other inhabitants of the vehicle, say they agree.

Stephen says that someone told him to come to his room.

Kathy: "I tried to get Baldwin to meet me in my room..."

Stephen: "...because she, quote, "had to talk to me."

Kathy: "And I swear to God I think he thought I was going to have sex with him."

Stephen: "And it wasn't what she said, it was how she said it.

Kathy: "He was like 'Sure babe, as long as you bring protection.'

"A coalition absolutely helps in this game. But on the other hand, the chances of getting into a coalition with the Mole are one-in-five. Especially today, when Baldwin has an exemption."

Shouldn't that be one-in-six?

Stephen says he has written the biggest thing he learned today in his journal. Sprawled in big capital letters: "THERE ARE NO RULES"

Night falls. The execution dinner begins, and players talk about the identity of the Mole. Kathy says whoever is the Mole is on her list and she will hate them forever. Stephen cracks up and no one else seems to react.

Kim: "It's scary not knowing what's next and what's going to happen. In addition to, Who's the Mole?"

Ahmad points out the quietude of Erik. Stephen wonders why Erik was so conservative all day, and spunky around sheep.

And now the quiz.

1. Is the Mole male or female?

Kim: "I'm pretty sure the Mole is a guy. But then I go, 'Wait a minute. What if my beloved Kathy is the Mole?'"

2. What color lei was given to the Mole after departing the helicopter?

3. Was the Mole or the Mole's team succesful in putting money in the pot in the Baa Baa Black Jack game?

Corbin: "I had suspicions about Kim. I was a little bit concerned about her letting the sheep out and causing my arm to get scratched up. She's sort of, real at the top of my list."

4. In what position did the Mole "hang out" during the On the Line game?

Erik: "When Frederique was on the line, I noticed that when she was in the ideal position, right under the water fall next to a full bucket of water, I kinda saw that she wasn't really moving, just kinda like hanging out for a second. I got a little suspicious there."

5. What did the Mole order for a main course at dinner?

6. How many other players were in the car with the Mole on the way to the ranch?

7. During the On the Line game, what color shorts or pants did the Mole wear?

Kathy: "That brings me to Bernsen. You know, he's the type of actor that he may have made a decision to basically play a character from minute one. And his character is the super-crazy, tense guy. I could be totally screwed, because I really don't think Bernsen's the Mole. And he could absolutely be the Mole."

8. The Mole operated the up-and-down controller in which round of the On the Line game?

Michael: "Right off the bat, I thought Kathy Griffin was acting reserved in a way that I don't recall her ever being. And I took that to mean maybe she's nervous because she's the Mole and she's not sure of what she's doing and she doesn't want to say the wrong thing."

9. What number journal is the Mole's?

10. Who is the Mole?

Corbin: "My first impressions of the game are: it's odd, it's disconcerting, it's sort of like life. Just when you think you have it figured out, don't try to make sense of it."

It's now time for the execution. Click on the pictures below. If a green screen appears, that player remains in the game. If a red screen appears, that player is executed.

Stephen is not vulnerable.

CorbinErikFrederiqueKathyKimMichael

Click here for the episode two recap.