For the second to last time, we go again.
Bill: "The name of the game is getting to the final three and then winning. If I can do that by squeezing out exemptions I will do that."
Heather: "If I do make it past this round, I'm scared to death that Dorothy will beat me. And then I'll just be like, 'Why?' Why in the world did I form a coalition with her because everything that has happened so far I could have done on my own."
Dorothy: "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm still here."
Al: "I've been lucky in life when it's come to my family, you know. When it comes to this kind of stuff I've never really been lucky. Maybe this is the one. Maybe this is the one I've been waiting my whole life for."
As the day begins in L'Aquila, Italy, the final four are given the chance to interview one another. The men interview each other and the women interview each other.
Dorothy(after Heather asked how it felt to be one of the final four): "Well, I'm not going to lie, it feels wonderful to be one of the last four peeps. Quite a surprise, I have to say."
Heather(after Dorothy asked if she was a good liar): "Am I a good liar? I think I'm an excellent liar. I've gotten away with a lot of deceitful things in my life."
Dorothy(after Heather asked her if she was the Mole): "Of course I'm not the Mole!"
Bill(after Al asked him his strategy on the next quiz): "I prefer not to answer that question. I'll ask you the same thing - how are you going to do it?"
Al: "Bill asked what I was going to do, I said I was going to lay it all out there on one person. Heather asked me what I was going to do, I said I was going to split it up, you know. Never show your hand."
The scene moves to Calascio. At breakfast, Anderson tells them the game will become harder and harder. There will be one exemption in this round of play, the final exemption. Anderson stresses that the game will get very hard.
Dorothy: "At this point, with the numbers of players so small, an exemption is very important."
Al: "I would drink an entire bottle of my foot wine for an exemption right now. That's how bad I would like to have one."
Kathryn Price, season 1's Mole shows up to give the final 4 players a surprise present. A special delivery from the Mole, old Mole and new Mole.
Bill: "When Kathryn, last year's Mole showed up, it was a major surprise to us."
She asks them if they want to see the contents of the box. It's a preview of the treats to come.
Al opens the box.
It is maggots in the box! Once a Mole, always a Mole.
Needless to say, this grosses everyone out totally. Kathryn has the consideration to leave the box of surprised with them. Bill digs into the box to see if there is any clue, anything interesting in the box.
Bill: "Al was very vocal in saying 'I'm not eating any bugs. I don't care what I do, but I didn't come here to eat bugs.' And actually, it turned into, 'Would you eat a bug for $100,000. Hell, no, I wouldn't eat a bug for $100,000.' Well, I've gotta tell you I've eaten quite a few bugs. I'd probably eat one of those for $100,000."
At 2 AM in the morning, we see various rooms in Anderson's fun house. They look quite haunted. We see a number of blue-eyed dolls, and a saxophone in the back of the room.
In his craziest insane voice, Anderson explains that three of them will have to spend the night in Anderson's fun house. His mother built the house for him when he was very small. He hopes they have as much fun as he does.
Anderson: "Do you like my dolls?"(excellent evil horror doll voice! It had to be everything Anderson could do to keep a straight face).
Heather: "The dolls frighten me because I assume that the dolls would be involved somehow in some sort of weird game we had to play."
There is a game tonight here in Anderson's fun house, high card. At stake is $100,000, and sleeping arrangements for the night.
The last player standing gets to go back to the hotel and have a pleasant night's sleep. For the others, they have sleeping arrangements in Anderson's fun house.
Anderson(looking to the dolls): "Don't we girls?" "Stop looking at me like that you harlot!"
Everyone bursts out laughing. Anderson takes a moment to compose himself(no small feat if you ask me).
Each player has a chip, for $25,000. He deals each player a card. A high card winner can eliminate another player, or add their money to the pot. Eliminated players have to go sit with the dolls, Anderson's girls as he calls them. But they like to watch, so the players have to sit behind them.
Dorothy: "I'm not looking forward to spending the night in Anderson's fun house because I suspect something else is going to happen."
He deals the cards. Bill has a 2, Al a 3, Dorothy a queen, and Heather a king. Heather adds her chip and Al cuts the deck, and the game goes on. Bill has a 10, Al has a queen, Dorothy has 2, and Heather has a 7. Al adds his chip.
In the next hand, Bill has a queen, Al a 10, Dorothy an 8, and Heather a 9. Bill adds his money.
In the next hand, Bill has a 5, Al has another 10, Dorothy has an ace, and Heather has a 6.
Dorothy wins the hand. She is the last player left with a chip. She stares at Al, and that makes him quite nervous. She adds her money.
Now it is down to eliminations. Bill has a 6, Al another 10, Dorothy a 2, and Heather a 5. Al has the high card. He eliminates Dorothy.
Next hand, Bill has a 4, Al a 7, and Heather a jack. Heather has the high card. She eliminates Al.
In the next hand, Bill has an ace. Just for formality's sake, Heather turns over her 5. Bill gets to go back to the hotel, but the others have to face their horrible sleeping arrangements in Anderson's fun house.
Al quizzes Heather on some right-or-wrong, this-or-that questions, to the mild amusement of them both. She denies being the Mole in his last question.
Al: "I was just trying to feel her out, see if I could get anything out of her in light of the circumstances. You know, all alone, late at night, weary people. I was trying to use those things to my advantage to see if I could drum up any new information but I reallt didn't get a whole lot."
Dorothy is led to her room first. It is a big box inside a room with an insanely bright light. She has to stay in the box for 30 minutes. If she can't, she can leave at anytime but the $100,000 is lost.
Dorothy: "I think this is some kind of torture device, somewhat like what people do to criminals in an interrogation. It's a small room, really, really bright lights, you can't see anything outside."
Anderson leads Al into his room, with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. He shows Al a bed, stripped of any mattresses. He has to be on the bed all night.
Bubbles start coming out of the ceiling, but they're just tiny bubbles, says Anderson.
Anderson leads Heather to her room, and her roommate.
A giant python, rather large even according to Anderson. The door has to close or she'll get out. The python is very lonely, and very happy to see Heather. Heather has to stay in the room until Anderson comes to let her out.
We go back to Dorothy's room. Out of nowhere, a bunch of bugs fall in from the top of the box.
Dorothy: "I do not like bugs. They are SO gross! They definitely gross me out."
Al looks bored in his room. Now the song "Tiny Bubbles" is playing, loudly at that.
Dorothy: "I'm trying to concentrate on now throwing up and not thinking about the little cockroaches that are crawling everywhere, and just trying to keep cool. I knew the most difficult part for me in this game was going to be not losing my cool in a small space."
"Tiny Bubbles" is repeated over and over for Al, different versions of it: fast, slow, forwards, backwards, loud, quiet, and many others to be sure. He stage-whispers "Paul is dead!" during one of the versions.
Al: "I hear it forward, I hear it reversed. And it's loud, then it's soft, and it stuttered, and it stops, and then it starts again from the beginning."
Heather is across the room from the python looking very frightened. The lights go out. We can still see them thanks to a night vision camera.
Heather leaves the room. No way she's staying in a pitch-black room with a giant python. With the lights on, she was scared to death. She is all right with giving up $100,000.
TEST FAILED TOTAL - $486,000
Anderson looks in the box and is grossed out by the roaches. Dorothy also is still quite disgusted.
Dorothy and Heather pensively meet each other back in the High Card room. Heather tells Dorothy what happened, and that she gave up. Dorothy tells Heather of her room as well.
Heather is a little surprised that Dorothy did not get a special offer. She asks Dorothy about hearing "Tiny Bubbles". They feel bad about Al, since he is still in his room.
And at 4:15 AM, Al is still plugging away. He is getting drunk-like from the lack of sleep.
Al: "It was a disaster. It was, you know, speed up like the chipmunks, then really slow, like Don Ho had done some drugs. It was just unbelievable."
At 7:00 AM, Al is still on the bed. He gets rather creative with his reactions to the song.
Dorothy sleeps. The sun rises. At 8:00 AM, "Tiny Bubbles" stops, and Anderson's fun house is closed.
Al goes back to the High Card room to find the girls sleeping. They are surprised he didn't get an exemption offer. He tells them he didn't get a wink of sleep. He thinks they slept all night there. He wants to know about their arrangements. He tells them about the Tiny Bubbles room. Heather tells him about the python room.
Al: "Oh, I can't believe $100,000 is gone. What I went through is worth so much more than $100,000."
Al says he's so tired he's shaking. They again ask about the exemption. They're all afraid the exemption went to the one who slept in the hotel.
Anderson comes in at the breakfast table, singing "Tiny Bubbles". He asks Al about the words. Al knows them, but doesn't care to repeat them. He dislikes Don Ho any way he was served up.
The final exemption will come in the next game. It will test an important Mole skill, the ability to lie. Bill will act as a human lie detector. They have to tell him what room they slept in. Two of them will lie, and one will tell the truth. If Bill can tell who is lying, he gets an exemption, and no money is added to the pot. If they can deceive Bill, he gets no exemption and $50,000 is won.
Al suggests since the girls are more familiar with each other's stories than they are with his own, they swap theirs and he tell his.
Dorothy: "For the game's sake, I don't want him to get it, because I want the $50,000 to be added to the pot since we lost the $100,000 the night before."
Heather: "I definitely have a knack for lying. I can pull it off."
Bill is shown a video clip of each room, except the "Tiny Bubbles" room. He doesn't know who is lying and who is telling the truth, or the outcome of the game.
He has 5 minutes to interview each player. It starts with Heather sitting down. She tells what Dorothy did last night, or at least about her room. Heather, though grossed out when they got the box of maggots, says she did it for money.
Bill: "My initial approach was try to forget any lies, and simply try to figure out, in my own mind, who appeared to be telling the truth."
Al enters. He tells Bill about the Tiny Bubbles room. He had to do nothing all night except listen to the crappy music and sit on the wire bed. Bill is suspicious since Al can sleep through his snoring, though not a song.
Bill: "The fact that Al couldn't go to sleep last night listening to Don Ho sing "Tiny Bubbles" was one of the funniest things I've ever - the more that I've thought about that, the harder I've laughed."
Dorothy tells Bill about the snake room. She says it was a boa, and not a python, for one thing. She said she backed out, like Heather did.
Anderson comes in to tell Bill the interrogation time is over.
Dorothy: "I wasn't sure if I fooled Bill with my story simply because he seemed to ask a lot of questions. He definitely had some questions regarding the snake and the way it was behaving."
Al, Dorothy, and Heather sit behind Anderson's girls again. Anderson reminds Bill of the stipulations of the game.
Bill reviews what each player told them. He doubts Heather could have lasted that long. Al can sleep through anything. Bill finds it hard to believe Al couldn't sleep through "Tiny Bubbles". Bill says he's never heard a boa constrictor hiss, like Dorothy told him, so he thinks Al and Dorothy are lying.
Dorothy of course was lying. Bill is incredulous that Al was telling the truth.
No exemption for Bill, and the money is won.
Al: "I'm really happy that he couldn't earn the exemption, that it's a level playing field. I'm not going to lie. If I was on the other side getting the exemption, I would be like 'Hey, hey, hey. Too bad for you guys.'"
TEST PASSED - +$50,000 TOTAL - $536,000
Al: "When you get down that close, and you are two executions away from earning the very large pot that we've put together, if you're telling me you're still playing for fun, you're full of it."
It is now time for the semifinal quiz.
1. During High Card, what room was the Mole in?
Bill: "No way in the world is a girl who's shown as much guts as Heather going to run from a snake. That's just sort of the final blow for me."
Dorothy: "I was disappointed that Heather left her room early and lost the money. I think the Mole would want to sabotage $100,000 out of the pot."
2. What was the number of the journal the Mole originally received?
Heather: "Dorothy could definitely be the Mole. She's extremely intelligent, and she has done a good job of making herself suspicious."
3. During High Card, what was the sum total of all the cards the Mole received (face cards equal 10, Ace equals 11)?
Dorothy: "I'll trust Heather up until this next quiz. And then if we both survive, it's going to be each person for themselves."
4. What was the Mole during the Liar game?
5. Who did the Mole eliminate during the High Card game?
Bill: "The Mole has got to sabotage the game. Dorothy, in fact, if you, if you try to add up the points, if you just go the negative points, Dorothy actually comes out ahead. She's had more little screwups, but she's also had more good saves, and good wins."
6. During the interrogation segment of the Liar game, did the Mole have their personal bag with them in the room?
Al: "I think Bill suspects Heather primarily. I think Heather suspects Dorothy primarily. I think Dorothy suspects Bill, to tell you the truth, and I'm, I'm kind of like, on the outside looking in."
7. Did the Mole have ketchup with their fries at the execution dinner tonight?
Heather: "I've suspected Bill from the beginning. Everything he does is just very...you can trust him. That's how he appears, is you can trust him. And that always made me suspicious."
8. How many times did the Mole cut the deck during the High Card game?
9. What kind of music does the Mole like?
Heather: "I'm almost positive that I'm leaving tonight. That quiz was the hardest we've ever taken, and there were questions on there that I had no idea. I just guessed."
10. Who is the Mole?
The final four gather to be trimmed to the final three. Anderson says they've all been anxious for the game to end, and for one of them it ends tonight.
Click the pictures below. If a green thumbprint appears, that player has made the final round. If a red thumbprint appears, that player is the final one to leave before the last round.
After the execution, Anderson again goes through the asinine "Are you the Mole?, Are you the Mole?"
One player appies the Mole Killer can to another, but nothing happens.
Only three players remain. A winner, a loser, and a MOLE!
Time for the final round. Click here to find out about it!
