Here we go again.
Dorothy: "I'm so annoyed that there's only two girls left. It's going to be a tougher game, I think. I really hope one of us makes it to the end."
Bill: "I'm just tired of not being in control. I've always been in pretty good control, and now I'm not."
Heather: "It's going to be a game of observation from here on out, and that's it. That's the only thing that's going to get me to the end. That's the only thing. That and an exemption, which would be really nice."
Bribs: "I've done as much as I can do to stay within my boundaries ethically and morally. I'm going to try my best to continue staying within those boundaries, but I realize now that you've got five players, four players are not the Mole. It's time to play."
The scene has now shifted to Rome. On a day of rest, the five go sight-seeing.
Al: "We have five players. One of them is the Mole, so everybody is playing the game harder, more deceiving, more conniving than they have in the past."
A few players are shown getting temporary tattoos.
Dorothy: "I've been without a coalition partner since Elavia left, and it's been pretty lonely since then. It really, really helped me to have someone to bounce ideas off of."
Bill: "I think at this point everybody is ready to play the games, cast their lots, and see how they come out. We don't need a lot more questions answered. We've sorta got our favorites picked, and we're going for them. Whoever's left in here by the next game is going to have to be real definitive, and obviously, you better be right."
In the van, Bribs says he's really curious how exemptions will be offered now. The price for the exemption, according to Heather, has jumped to $80,000. Bribs thinks it would be cool if someone won with no exemptions. Take your exemption offers and stick it.
Anderson meets the five at the town market. He asks for two players who like to shop. It turns out to be the two women, Heather and Dorothy.
They get a 200,000 lire shopping spree in one hour. 200,000 lire is about $100. They have to buy 10 items, and drive the hardest bargain they can.
In broken Italian, they try to find the best deals.
Dorothy: "I found it difficult to bargain with the vendors, partially because of the language barrier, partially because I felt they were getting annoyed, because we were trying to get some items for free, or some price that they felt was unreasonable." "I wouldn't say that we drove a hard bargain. I was feeling victorious that we'd saved 50 cents here and there."
The three men look on the whole time while they shop. Their shopping spree is complete, so they gather to show the others what they bought. The three guys now have to sell the ten items. They have to make a profit selling what they have. 200,001 lire will win the game and $30,000 for the pot.
Al: "Why do you pick eggplant in Italy when all they use is tomatoes in everything? Hatchets? Some REALLY ugly dresses. A big squeegee? What are you going to use that for?"
They have until the close of market to turn a profit, selling what they have to earn a profit. They study the dictionary to try to learn phrases. Their accents are hilarious.
It's going to be hard for them. Heather and Dorothy consciously picked out weird items. They'd be better at selling, or so everyone thinks.
Al: "After about an hour I said, 'We're not selling any of this stuff, we're not getting anywhere.' I think I sold the wire brush to a guy."
He sold the wire brush and two cacti for 7,000 lire. Only 193,000 left to go.
Heather and Dorothy both say they want 2 girls to make the finals. They form a tense coalition.
Heather: "We've been saying things back and forth, like 'We have to do something to make sure that girls stay, for the girls...you know, sisterhood.' We never really took each other seriously, until we both just sort of looked at each other and decided, 'Okay, what do you want to do about it?' Well, okay, let's do it."
Dorothy says to Heather's face that she's not the Mole, but needs to be convinced that Heather isn't.
With less than an hour left, the guys still have sold little.
Dorothy and Heather form a coalition, but they don't seem to trust each other completely. Heather says she would swear on her Bible that she's not the Mole.
Dorothy: "I needed Heather to convince me she wasn't the Mole. I think that since she approached me was enough in my mind to convince me."
Bribs: "After an hour or so, we realized there was no way in hell we were going to sell this stuff, we tried to start selling the items we had on us. Al put up his New York Mets hat. Bill put up his watch."
Al: "We start thinking, 'What about our brand-new Echo shoes?' Pretty popular brand here in Europe."
Bribs gets up on a stool to hawk his shoes.
With 40 minutes remaining, the players are barefoot, but have much more money. Al offers to sell a kiss for 2,000 lire($1), much to the hilarity of onlookers.
Bribs: "If I was an Italian woman, you'd have to pay me to get a kiss from that man."
With 30 minutes remaining, another costumer comes. He brings with him a test. He carries with him a "Romeo and Juliet" text. Under it, he drops several thousand lire on the table.
Al rushes to return it to him. Bribs says it was the right thing to do. The fact that he had it held under a Romeo and Juliet book, makes the players reflect back to Think or Sink.
At 1:00, the market is closed, and the game is over. They got 96,000 lire. They lost 104,000 lire. No $30,000, and no future in sales. But because they returned the money to the man, they got $10,000 for the game.
TEST PASSED - +$10,000 TOTAL - $386,000
Bill: "Some of the items they bought I couldn't have sold to my mother, and she loves a bargain."
Heather and Dorothy continue plotting.
Santo Stefano, a village with narrow maze-like streets, alleys, and tunnels, outside Rome is the site for their next game. The players gather on top of an ancient lookout tower as Anderson explains. The game is worth $50,000. An evader will be chosen. They must retrieve five of nine green thumpbrint Mole cards within thirty minutes. If they can, they win an exemption. They must also avoid a tracker. If they are caught by the tracker, $50,000 is added to the pot, and no exemption.
The evader wears a backpack. To capture them, the tracker must rip off a green flag on the back of the pack.
The evader was chosen by the players answering "Who would you like to see, other than yourself, win the pot?" Heather was chosen. What the others don't know is that she will have a walkie-talkie, just like the others, and be able to hear what they're saying. He also gives her a map of the village, including the locations of the thumbprint cards.
The tracker was decided with the question "Who do you least suspect of being the Mole?" Al was the choice there. But he gets a personal incentive also - if he can catch Heather, $50,000 is won and so is an exemption for Al.
The other three players are lookouts, and stay on top of the tower. They must help Al locate Heather.
Al: "I thought to myself, 'Boy, I'm not fooling anybody in this game, and how the heck can I win?' I also thought to myself, 'I'm fooling all of them. This could be easier than I thought.'" "At this stage in the game, an exemption is worth, you know, a free pass to the next round. And that's gold."
One of three lookouts must find Heather in the streets below before Al can move at all.
Heather: "This is a lot harder than I anticipated. The map is very hard to read, and most of the corridors are very small and narrow and crooked. And I realize, pretty fast that the thumbprints are definitely in the tower's view."
Bill tells Al that they can see thumbprints, but no Heather. Everything is on hold until Heather shows up.
Evading the eyes of Dorothy, Heather picks up the first thumbprint.
And the second.
But Bribs and Bill both spot her. They tell Al to take off. Heather, hearing this, runs also.
Bribs continues to track her, and give directions to Al. Bill says they can't currently see her, but can see thumbprints.
Al hadn't moved! He didn't get the message!
He moves now.
Heather: "As soon as I hear that they've spotted me, I am flustered, I am nervous, I run to the next location. I grab a third thumbprint, but I feel totally helpless."
Heather grabs a third thumbprint. Dorothy yells directions to Al. Al and Heather wind up within feet of each other. Heather gives up. Al anti-climactically rips the flag off.
Heather is drained.
Al: "I watched Heather just melt away. I felt terrible, but the game was the game. And it was like the wind just came right out of her sails. And she just pretty much just gave it up."
Heather thinks this was her one chance to get an exemption. Bribs yells down an apology to Heather. Heather wants a (bleep)ing exemption.
Al: "I felt terrible. I said 'Boy, she's on the verge of cracking.' Not even just for this game - I think it's the entire game."
Al's exemption is revealed.
Dorothy: "If any player is anywhere near as confused as I am, I think it might be Al, and knowing that he isn't vulnerable to be executed in the next round, it makes me really scared."
The game, however is not over. They can go again, with the same rules. Heather again gets to be the evader, with an exemption chance again. Anyone can be the tracker, and this time they won't be able to earn an exemption. It's double-or-nothing, for $100,000. Majority rules, whether or not they go again.
Heather, not surprisingly, votes to go again.
Dorothy votes no.
Bill votes yes.
Bribs votes yes.
Al votes yeah, even though a 3 vote majority had already been reached.
They pick Bribs to be the tracker this time.
Bill: "My entire adult career has been judging people and judging people's capabilities. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Bribs could win the second game. There's none whatsoever"
Heather: "I believe that most of the players voted yes because they didn't have confidence that I could do it."
Al is torn between empathy for Heather and greed for the big, big bucks.
Bribs: "I feel confident enough as the tracker to be willing to have two exemptions going into this next round."
Heather: "I know where some of the thumbprints are at this point, so I have an extremely different strategy."
The game now begins anew. Bribs can't move until the lookouts see Heather.
After 12 minutes, they have yet to see her. She gets the first thumbprint, without being seen. Dorothy notices the missing thumbprint, though.
Al tells them to rotate around, and switch stations.
Al: "I'm up in the tower with two people I don't trust, and I think either one of them could be the Mole. Nobody on my watch is going to let people slide around. So everybody rotates."
Bribs looks bored at his start position.
Dorothy sees her. Bribs takes off. Heather gets the second thumbprint. They direct Bribs to her.
Heather gets the third thumbprint. Bill calls further instructions.
Heather gets the fourth thumbprint.
Bribs: "Out of breath, completely exhausted, but I still see a bunch of the thumbprints there, and so I'm trying to replay the map in my mind, and where all the other thumbprints are located. I knew that she probably had four."
Heather: "I take the fourth thumbprint, and I'm not spotted. I do it very carefully, and I realize that in order to finish the game, I have to get one more thumbprint." "So I just take my time. I listen on the walkie-talkie. I see if I can get a feel for where he is." "I know Bribs is coming straight for me, so I just hide behind a wall. If Bribs would just turn the corner, he would find me, immediately. But I just hold still and I wait and wait and wait."
Bill: "Heather has four thumbprints. We can see the other five. It's a matter of 'How can we out-guess Heather?'"
Anderson informs the lookouts 9 minutes remain.
Heather: "I'm looking down the corridor and I realize it's right there. Even if they spot me, Bribs won't get me in time."
Just before getting the fifth thumbprint, Heather collides with Bribs, within arms reach of the fifth. No exemption.
TEST PASSED - +$100,000 TOTAL - $486,000
Bribs: "I think that Heather thought in her mind that the game was won. She had the thumbprint. She had the exemption within arm's reach."
Heather: "I'm furious when he tags me. I'm so angry and furious, because I tried, I gave everything I had, and I failed again. To have two chances at an exemption and fail both times is not a good feeling."
It's a really good day for the pot, but a bad day for Heather.
Bribs: "The thought that was going through my mind was not that we won $100,000 in one game. It was that I prevented Heather from getting an exemption."
Back at the hotel, the men go to bed, while Heather and Dorothy begin to share information.
Heather: "Dorothy is an extremely intelligent person, and I pinpointed her, besides being the Mole, as being somebody that definitely had a great chance of winning."
Dorothy: "I haven't told many people, completely, truthfully, what I've done on the quiz. My strategy throughout the game has been to tell half-truths anyway because I think people will just assume you're lying."
Heather: "If I am executed tonight, I will be so angry. I will be kicking myself for months probably. Because I was that close, to staying around."
Al says at dinner it's wonderful to have an exemption. Bill says saying "Almost half a million dollars" makes it real how big the pot is.
It seems from their talk that they all know who the Mole is.
The quiz:
1. Did the Mole sell their shoes during the buy and sell game?
2. What role did the Mole play during the evader game?
Heather: "Even though Bribs hasn't done anything to sabotage the games, I still find him extremely suspicious."
Bribs: "As a player, obviously Heather wanted the exemption. But she could easily fake that she wanted the exemption. The feeling I got, at least, was that she really, really wanted that exemption. If that wasn't the case, then she's a helluvan actress."
3. In what position did the Mole get off the van at the Fontana di Trevi in Rome?
Dorothy: "I think Bill voted to play the game again, because, if he is the Mole, it doesn't matter to him whether or not there's another exemption."
4. What was the Mole during the buy and sell game?
Bribs: "After seeing all the items that they had purchased, and after knowing that we would have to sell these items, I was extremely suspicious."
5. What kind of socks was the Mole wearing during the evader game?
Bill: "Al missed the cue. He was waiting for the command 'Go.' And I assumed he was on a dead run."
6. While in Rome, the Mole got a henna tattoo on what part of their body?
Bribs: "I thought that I'd be a lot more confident about who the Mole is. Not to say that I don't have a very strong suspicion, but I thought that I'd be dead set going into this execution."
Heather: "If I am executed tonight, I will be so angry. I will be kicking myself for months, probably. I had a nightmare about the evader game, and I kept replaying the scene of me reaching for the thumbprint and Bribs grabbing me."
7. In which position was the Mole interviewed today?
8. If the Mole could live in any other country where would it be and why?
Bill: "I assumed he had a reason (to rotate around the tower). I mean, you don't rotate willy-nilly. And, as it turned out, he did have a reason. He suspected Dorothy of deliberately not seeing Heather."
9. What is the Mole's favorite game?
Heather: "Dorothy could be playing me. She still could be the Mole, and I still could be the fool. She's played a great game."
Dorothy: "I think Heather could be the Mole as well. She, like Bribs, is charming, plays the role of a player really well."
10. Who is the Mole?
The five players gather for the execution. They have done well, says Anderson, making it this far in a difficult game. He hopes the executed player feels no shame in having to leave.
Click the pictures below. If a green thumbprint appears, that player is still in the game. If a red thumbprint appears, that player has been executed and must leave the game immediately.
Al is safe from execution.
After the execution, Anderson asks each of them if they are the Mole. Two flatly say no. One says no because of the Mole Killer can. The last says one of the first three must be lying.
Who is definitely NOT the Mole: No-one
Who may very well be the Mole: All four of them.
Click here for the recap of the eleventh and semifinal episode.
