Starts January 11th
Ten Dutch celebrities go on an adventure in China, completing tasks that will earn money for a pot which only one of them will take home. Unfortunately for the group one of them is a secret saboteur. To stay in the game and win the money, the remaining nine contestants but try to work out Who Is… The Mole?
Who are this year’s contestants? From left to right (not counting moody looking host Rik van de Westelaken in the middle):
- Buddy Vedder (presenter and actor)
- Johan Goosens (comedian)
- Miljuschka Witzenhausen (presenter)
- Anita Witzier (presenter)
- Nathan Rutjes (Footballer)
- Leonie ter Braak (presenter, actress and model)
- Jaike Belfor (actress)
- Tina de Bruin (comedian and actress)
- Rob Dekay (musician)
- Claes Iversen (fashion designer)
Here are quick links to where we start discussing each episode. For our Dutch and International friends: please don’t spoil an episode until the English subtitled videos come out.
Good luck!
Mole hunting season 2020 is officially open.
Mole hunting season so hyped
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
We’ll obviously be back podcasting it and barking up completely the wrong tree as always, and I’ll be back at the finale.
Are there many English only spectators at the live finale? I would love to go but can’t speak a word of Dutch, well I can just about manage ‘Wie is…DE MOL!’ audience chant I suppose…
I’m 99% sure I was the only one last year, but there was a fun warm-up thing where they dragged two people out of the audience to answer WIDM trivia questions. Even with the language barrier, I beat both people chosen. I don’t think it really matters that much – as long as you can tell the context, it’s just a fun experience to be there.
Huzza!
The mole hunt hadls begun, and I believe we may already have a clue. It has been pointed in the YouTube comments of one the adverts that the Chinese character for Mole appears at around the same time as Buddy, that might be worth keeping an eye on. Or maybe that would be too obvious.
Wij hebben een leider. https://twitter.com/WieIsDeMol/status/1213543052188536833
God, this looks good already.
Happy Mole day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xy98Q8w7o0
EPISODE ONE DISCUSSION STARTS
Well, it appears they’ve learned from last year. Great premiere.
Shameless self-promotion, but we’re doing our predictions pool again on the podcast but this time asking for your first suspicions as well. https://forms.gle/CGTu7g6QXKAXmg6D6 if you want to fill it in, I’ll be keeping an eye on whose suspicions are good throughout the series and you will have the opportunity to beat me on both this and Suspect List as well.
-Well you knew there were probably going to be a lot of callbacks since it’s the 20th season….great opening scene too.
-I think the happiness gate led to green exemptions and the wisdom gate went to black ones.
-Nice to get the fans involved by having them design the molgeld this year..
-Not a good start though for the team; €4600 possible and they end up with €170.
-You can totally explain any errors in the photo challenge by just saying the photographers miss understood their instructions or got the timing wrong- very easy to sabotage..
-I don’t think DM was in the Euro sign truck in the 2nd challenge; too obvious (since if that truck wasn’t parked they wouldn’t have made anything at all)
I got that impression too. I do wonder how much nostalgia there’s going to be, because there’s hints of at least one more challenge involving Mole history.
I think they’ll have callbacks all season, but not overwhelming (like the photos in the truck challenge- you could have used anything, but it’s a neat touch). Maybe they recreate a classic challenge (I don’t know what would be considered an iconic challenge though).
And here’s a pic of all the molgeld they’re using- they picked a variety of styles, from professional-looking to children’s drawings)
https://images.app.goo.gl/38c9AjxfDgTWHH697
I mean, I’m down for this if we get a classic Meet the Mole challenge again.
Is it confirmed that Rik already knows the mole from the start? Because for S19 he wasn’t informed and I think it has affected with the design of challenges last year.
I would also love to get a Meet the mole challenge this season. There’s actually a “hint” where they say that the Mole was one of the “soldiers” in that first task. That would be great for the reveal if that actually happened.
@Carl Hosts usually know who it is from the start now. The exception is that some of the earlier hosts (Glenn & Anderson come to mind) chose not to find out before they needed to.
@Michael
I think I read in one of the interviews of Rik last year that he only knew the Mole halfway in the season because he was new to hosting and he didn’t want to accidentally give hints to the other players.
But for this season I hope he knows it from the beginning.
I think the problem with the idea of recreating iconic past challenges is the show already does that every year anyway. Like look how often they’ve redone the control room challenge or the laser tag challenge or the “pick a prize from one of the baskets” challenge.
What odds that one of those notes was designed by the mole?
Got to, hasn’t it?
Do we know which contestants have children? I was thinking one of the notes was designed by the Mole’s child.
Specifically 20, since you know, it’s the 20th season? And that one most strikingly makes me think a child drew it.
Super fun opener, looks like it’s got some of its cinematic mojo back – incredibly shot opening ten minutes. Amazed that in 2020 so few went for wisdom over happiness on a show like this really. Does anyone still have their green exemption to play? It’s going to be really tough with several black exemptions still to play for.
No idea who The Mole is, but I’d be looking at the person pushing the idea of going for low valued notes in the market (does ep 1 always feature a local market?) rather than 10 x €250.
Also enjoyed the truck tasks, I wondered if they’d have to reverse them in so it read correctly the other way round. Would have been very easy to pull off some extra photos on that wall, whereas the button task looked legitimately quite difficult.
*SPOILERS*
Buddy, Anita, Johan, Miljuschka, Nathan, Claes, Leonie & Jaike were all shown to have played theirs, meaning Rob & Dutch-Katy-Wix/Tina are the only two who could have anything.
I was also very surprised that so few people selected Wisdom… Maybe the quote they received from the host influenced their decision for Happiness instead of Wisdom in some cases.
I still have an inkling the years on the keys might have some significance . Or perhaps the quotes on the Wisdom papers actually had significance in relation to the Mole’s identity.
Yeah, nothing in WIDM is coincidental, so I would expect those key choices to mean something (especially as we know they kept the keys). I was disappointed they spelt out it was previous Mole years cause I made that connection!
I also wondered if the Chinese characters may have had clues toward the mole.
Apparently the ‘off air interference’ during the truck task was actually part of the show rather than just Marieke’s signal having a slight blip, so that is interesting…
Man, they threw money at that, to which I say: must be nice. I have a feeling that the local Chinese embassy may also have pulled some strings to make their province look good and throw a little soft power around. I’d love to see what Flemish Mole could do with counterpart opportunities.
The local market task feels a bit like a version of the increasingly demonstrated theory that you can get away with anything if you say it’s for a challenge for YouTube, and the fact that there are cameramen must surely make things look more official and plausible, making the confusing and transgressive behaviour more plausible. (Did the Chinese people understand English at all? It’s plausible some would in the biggest cities, but I’m not sure this is one of the many megacities in the country…) Otherwise, fab episode.
Wie Is De Mol watchers – The Suspect List 2020 has started! Will you be the person who works out who The Mole is better than everyone else?
Each week you get 10 points if you put The Mole at the top of your Suspect list, 0 if you put them at the bottom, and one point per place above the bottom you put your Mole. There’s also a bonus question worth 3 points each week, AND you can play a joker once throughout the season to double one week.
Success!
Week 1: https://forms.gle/tpRXmwfsYAxcdmvg7
Nikkie from last year has just posted a video coming out as trans.
Yes, I saw that and though I think the circumstances are disgusting – someone attempted to blackmail her – I hope by being out she’ll feel more comfortable, although ultimately it really doesn’t matter.
As usual, my standard ‘constructing a reaction post as I watch’.
That opening is amazing and wild. Imagine being one of the contestants walking up to that, it must be super powerful.
Normally I like to watch the episode once straight through and then go back pausing and taking notes and analyzing but since I’m late this week I’m doing the notes on the first viewing so this is taking forever and breaking up the flow a bit, but still, this show is so amazing and I’m so happy it’s back.
I laughed when Mil was discussing the market challenge, explaining how viewers designed the bills for this year. “That’s fun! [thumbs up]…. but difficult for us.”
Aww, I really liked Anita and I’m sad to see her go. But that was a great episode, and I’m enjoying the various lying already going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I36icvaT-E
EPISODE 2 DISCUSSION STARTS
Loved that 2nd task just for the comedic value…completely went off the rails from the get-go.
€6250 available, they only got €1400…not as bad as last week but still a lousy average…
With that average percentage of the amount available, we’d be headed for a pot €22,400 , but experience tells us that the last few episodes normally contain a few very difficult challenges worth a lot of money so expect less. Hopefully it ends up being more than the disappointing €10k of last year, does anyone know what the pot was up to by episode 3 last year to compare?
€3,500/€16,500 by the end of E3 last year.
Here’s Week 2 of The Suspect List! Success.
https://forms.gle/vsF8nyWZQiVWn4nF8
EPISODE THREE DISCUSSION STARTS
Have to say after an extraordinary first episode, not really feeling it with this series thus far – the challenges have been far from ingenious really (and not especially original), can’t help but think the eight-way river crossing challenge probably could have done with some graphics. And the cast, whilst likeable as individuals, aren’t really doing it for me as a group. It feels like they’ve blown all the interesting ideas on that first episode.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still highly watchable (and as a China travelogue it’s excellently shot), but it doesn’t feel like we’re going to get anything like the peak few years before Art left. Rik feels like a more comfortable fit this year but he’s not got much material to work with. It’s sad that it feels like such a light starter to the Belgian main meal at the moment.
It doesn’t help that the three most distinct personalities were the first three boots.
This is a problem, the Belgian version has the excellent CGI graphics of what is going on in the challenges and a decent explanation from Gilles whereas the Dutch version always seems to be ‘here’s your challenge…success!’
Last week I know confused several viewers too because the eliminated contestant played their black exemption but despite throwing various exemption types out in Episode 1 they didn’t really bother explaining them and just assumed all viewers would be experts by now…
This week they even forgot to have Rik saying ‘prepare for test and execution’!
It’s good, just not great this year I think. You can really tell they’re actually *trying* but maybe they should look East and ask for a bit of help from GDC & crew. Their care & attention is second-to-none when it comes to this sort of stuff.
WIDM often feels like we the viewers are missing out on a lot of things that happen, like it’s not always transparent about what’s going on. For example, in the hovercraft challenge, I feel like there was an extra bit of explanation in there the contestants got that we didn’t see.
In the Belgian version, Gilles repeating in voiceover something you just saw him say 2 minutes sometimes gets a little annoying but it’s preferable to the way Challenges are explained in WIDM.
How much you want to bet that the tea set was also valued at €1500, and the offer was just a diversion? At worst? Maybe its around €500. At best? €2500-3000 maybe?
Decent average this week though- €2100 won out of a known €4750 possible (since we don’t know about the tea set).
I do agree they needed some sort of diagram for the hovercraft challenge- I think it was designed for a likely loss.
Three women gone in the first 3 weeks…I know WIDM is usually gender-agnostic when it comes to how well people do or not, but still, a little disheartening.
The “path of prizes” challenge next week….that’s a pretty classic challenge, and it’s usually interesting to see who goes for money (if available) and who goes for jokers and/or exemptions…
The entire challenge was valued at €2,700 as per the graphic.
The title card for the challenge (at 36:20) said 2700, so that’s what I’m guessing the value for the set was. If that’s true, then the Mole would definitely need to make sure the gamble wasn’t taken (and the value remained hidden), otherwise they could be outed for trying to keep the extra money out of the pot.
Three weeks in, and I’ve got to say, I’m pretty dang good at becoming very suspicious of the person who gets eliminated immediately after I lock eyes on them. Luckily the eliminees have been people who I’ve voted at low slots so far, but it would be nice to have a hunch that stuck to someone who was still in.
OK- only had time to scan thru the ep, so must have missed it.
so €2100/€5950- and a total €3670 out of €16500 so far, so they’re about at the rate they were at last season…
sorry €16800 not €16500- so about a 22% success rate.
Here’s The Suspect List, Week 3:
https://forms.gle/dnV3KJfemqzFmbGv9
Success!
I love Jaike. Her advice for hiphop dancing was hilarious.
The choice between the guaranteed money and the value of the box was cruel, but brilliant. My immediate thought was the box, obviously, but in hindsight I think going with the guaranteed money is probably the safer move.
Ah damn, I’m sad she got eliminated. I enjoyed the episode though.
EPISODE FOUR DISCUSSIONS START
christ my formatting consistency is all over the place this season
Not my favourite episode of the season this week. Something felt a little flat.
You see that’s interesting, I thought it was one of the stronger ones – Bullshit In A China Shop could well have come from Belgian Mole if I didn’t know better – actually quite a strong, potentially funny idea. Car parking pretty standard WIDM comms task, but finally it feels like there’s some team interplay that’s felt a bit missing from earlier eps.
I hope everyone starts referring to Johan as No-yuan.
FInally they get a good week- but they still only got €3650 out of a potential €8910 (though I think that second assignment they did about as well as they could in getting 7 out of 10- getting 9 or 10 for the 4-figure amounts would have been really difficult).
I like the doublethink of the exemption task- You know only 4 out of 7 have to pick the exemption to get it, so if you were really confident in your test, you might want to help the pot or pick up a joker for yourself- if the execution goes ahead anyway, the odds are only 1 in 6 you go (And I don’t know if DM would pick up the exemption or not- taking the exemption keeps money out of the pot, and they may have been told to so only 3 of the other 6 have to pick the exemption to get it- if they picked money or a joker, it means 4 out of the other 6 need to pick the exemption, and I think production wanted this to be a non-elimination)
I did enjoy how the preview confirms that the giant letters challenge from the credits that was clearly based on that one Super Mario Odyssey moon is appearing in the same episode as literal Super Mario World.
I think this is the first time I can remember a team picking up money in a Walk of Temptation, I’m sure a historian will be round in a minute to tell us the last time it happened.
You rang?
The team in Art’s season picked up a little bit of money (I vaguely remember whoever was first taking some and then being pissed there were other prizes available?), and I think someone on the awful Australian revival did too.
WIDM watchers: The Suspect List Week 4 is now available here…
https://forms.gle/6jzREghQJXy1v6ts9
Success!
It begins!
https://youtu.be/VG9a951vOQU
Also, our first vague hint for Belgium is out! https://www.instagram.com/p/B8VwX2mnsni/?igshid=y3n7ni45ln63
…But it can’t be that easy, right? They know how fanatic the fans are. They know that we can all pick apart the characters frame by frame and see what was written on every fan that was opened. And that the fans will spread it as soon as they find it out, and that there won’t be much point to watching the rest of the series. They know better than to exactly tell you what the hint is.
I think there’s a catch here. If I were to throw a guess out there, it’s that all of the candidates’ names were written *multiple* times on the fans, but as Rik says, the Mole’s name will appear on *one* of them. It seems like the sort of slick wordplay that allows them to tell the truth while still being wholly misleading. Everyone can see the name of their prime suspect (perhaps even followed by “is the Mole”), but if they don’t see that it appears multiple times, then they’re out of an important clue that completely eliminates candidates from suspicion.
…he said, while sitting back in his chair, not bothering to put any more effort into doing the research.
At least one of the fans contained “[EX-MOLE] is the Mole”.
More good tasks this week, the Big Letters twist is the sort of quite fun fillip that used to be the show’s stock in trade, really.
Here’s week 5 of The Suspect List.
https://forms.gle/5DEZwUfMtsedXtwRA
At the moment there’s no clear consensus at the moment about who Bother’s Bar think IS the Mole, but there is one very clear candidate that people think is NOT the Mole. I’ll give out this tidbit of info: 42% of people put Rob as the bottom choice on their Suspect List last week.
Success!
I’m utterly confused as to who it is, except Claes I always seem to forget is there for some reason, the preview for next week is a bit strange too as the end shot is Rik having just typed in ‘nathan’ on the laptop, maybe nothing but I don’t remember them ever showing such a specific execution shot during the next episode preview…
Interesting. I’ve been confident of my order for three weeks now.
As much as I’m not playing, this was the first week of the series where I decided that I was sufficiently convinced that I know who I’d pick… and my target was eliminated this episode. Hee! That’s why I don’t play… 🙂
Hello, long time lurker and first time poster here. I’m a huge Mole fan that also happens to be fluent in Mandarin. I’m going to post my thoughts of the ‘fan’ task as well as translations of any characters I was able to make out with my speculations at the end.
Thoughts on the task: Imo it’s impossible for native speakers, let alone Europeans with no prior knowledge of Mandarin. 5 groups in 5 minutes, with around 10 fans per group? I would estimate that it would take at least 3 seconds for a native speaker to parse the content of 1 fan, let alone 10. Then coupled with the fact that the fans are only open for 10 seconds or so and there’s lots of time wasting via tai-chi and running and the chances of finding the 1 correct fan (assuming there is only 1 correct fan) is close to zero. It’s basically like any other ‘Here’s a chance to identify the mole instantly’ task – Made just to tempt most of the contestants to forego the money and yet still receive no valid information whatsoever.
Next up are the translations of the fans and my speculations based on the task. SPOILERS obviously (and that includes the moles of previous seasons). If you do not want to know what the fans say or do not want to know the moles of any previous season for Wie is de mol, do NOT continue reading.
SPOILERS BEGIN HERE
————————————–
The timestamps before each translation are based on the YouTube English subtitled version. Names are directly translated using hanyu pinyin and included within quotation marks. Text in brackets are my own interpretation of what the fan’s text could be referring to.
41:01 – “Dan Ni Si” is the mole (Referring to season 8 mole Dennis Weening)
41:24 – Wie is de mol
41:25 – “Ma Ge Li Te” is the mole (Referring to season 15 mole Margriet van der Linden)
42:16 – This is ‘Wie is de mol’ (It’s basically the Chinese characters for ‘This is’ followed by the name of the show)
42:27 – Mole (This fan is in front of Claes)
43:47 – Someone is a mole
44:13 – “Yang” is the mole (Probably referring to season 5 mole Yvon Jaspers as I can’t find anyone whose name sounds similar to “Yang”)
44:42 – “Pa Te Li Ke” is the mole (Referring to season 11 mole Patrick Stoof)
44: 47 – There is a mole among you (Classic ‘duh’ statement that helps nobody)
44:54 – The mole is female
45:05 – “Ke La Si” is in ‘Wie is de mol’ (The name is confirmed to be Claes via the calligraphy lesson at the beginning of the task. It’s basically a sneaky producer tactic to make contestants think that this fan says “Claes is the mole”. However, the fan actually says that Claes is in Wie is de mol, meaning that he is a contestant on the show. That changes the meaning entirely and makes this statement useless in terms of new information. You’ll see more of this tactic as we proceed.)
45:20 – Mole (This fan is in front of Mil)
45:20 (The 2 fans at the back) – This is ‘Wie is de mol’ and Wie is de mol respectively
45: 46 – There is a mole among you
45:55 – Yvon is the mole (Same message as 44:13)
45:57 – Margariet is the mole (Same message as 41:25)
46:01 (Furthest fan to the left) – Botanical Garden (Probably the full name of this park they are in)
46:01 (Middle fan in the front) – Margariet is the mole
46: 01 (Furthest fan to the right) – “Ba Di” is in ‘Wie is de mol’ (Buddy is a contestant on the show, same trick as 45:05)
47:13 – “Nei Sen” is in ‘Wie is de mol’ (Nathan is a contestant on the show, same trick as 45:05)
47:16 – “Luo Ben” is in ‘Wie is de mol’ (Probably referring to Robert aka Rob)
47:33 – The mole is male
48:12 – “An Na Ma Li” is the mole (Referring to season 12 mole Anne-Marie Jung)
48:25 – “Yang” is the mole (For the third time)
48:35 (Front fan) – Anita is in ‘Wie is de mol’ (Anita is a contestant on the show, same trick as 45:05)
48:35 (Back fan) – “An Na Ma Li” is the mole (Same as 48:12)
48:40 – There is a mole here (the fan is in front of Rob)
48:54 (From left to right):
1st fan – Margriet is the mole
2nd fan – “I Feng” is the mole (Probably referring to season 7 mole Inge Ipenburg)
3rd fan – Buddy is in ‘Wie is de mol’
4th fan – Knowledge is power
Speculation: So assuming there are viewer clues hidden in this segment, we saw fans advocating for both genders (“The mole is male” and “The mole is female”) so that doesn’t help us at all (and technically, if the producers are including past moles in the mix then neither of these statements are lies as they could be referring to past moles).
The word ‘mole’ was in front of both Mil and Claes. In previous seasons, we’ve seen viewer clues where the word ‘mole’ is in front of the actual mole. So does it mean that it’s either one of these two?
Or… are they both red herrings and the real mole is actually Rob, because the fan “There is a mole here” is right in front of him and is the only time this string of characters appeared in the entire task? Or does “There is a mole here” refer to the group in general and thus makes it another useless piece of information?
Either way, based on this task alone, I would pay more attention to Rob, Mil and Claes in the episodes to come 🙂
END OF SPOILERS
——————————–
Extremely interesting, thanks very much for this!
“Yang” would be “Jan”, wouldn’t it? Because they’re both pronounced like English speakers would pronounce “young”?
Obviously a few of these have to be red herrings because there’s no way they would give us some of this information, unless the producers really didn’t think anyone would translate the Mandarin. But that’s hugely unlikely, as we often say on here everything happens for a reason in WIDM. Maybe they made clues that could point to every contestant, and then edited it so we only see the ones that either apply to everyone who made it to the finale, or none of them. For example, the fact we got to see “the mole is female” means we might be heading for an all-male or all-female final. This is just a random theory I thought of.
Retrospective applause; you called it! Very satisfying.
€1100/€4750 this week- I don’t know if they could have done much better (the 3rd task especially seemed to be made to make no money- even if it’s limited or irrelevant, a lot of people would take Mole info over a small amount for the pot. The first task with all the switching made it easy to sabotage- you could have palmed one of the slides at the projector or pulled a wire at the radio to make completing those tasks impossible. DM probably knew the W,D, and M were the key letters at the 2nd task- either pick them up early so they may not remember where they were or try not to get them at all)
I loved the laser challenge, even if they sucked at it. And the twist on the letters challenge was brilliant in the way that this show excels at. And so was the fan challenge. I loved all the challenges in this episode.
I’m kinda annoyed about it, but I know I’m going to have to go back and watch that entire scene repeatedly to try to spot it. On the one hand, in the age of the internet surely they wouldn’t just show it? But on the other hand, maybe!
.. oh I just scrolled up and saw the translations. Now I have a debate, because I’ve made a point of avoiding online speculation because I want to figure things out on my own, but also that would save me a lot of trouble… hmm…
Also I really respect Nathan. Both for going for the team, but also for knowing the game well enough to realize that the likelihood of actually figuring out the mole was probably close to zero.
I’m kind of glad Johan got eliminated – I liked him a lot, but he was so clumsy and useless in challenges I had begun to suspect him, so that eases my mind a bit. 😛
And now for something precisely related… Episode six.
Those challenges were all fun. Laser game next week!
Also, on a purely podcast note – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AT ALL OF LOGAN’S TEAM BEING GONE BEFORE FINAL FIVE.
Ah, poor Claes, I quite liked him.
They were fun challenges, especially the map maze one (that the envelopes would be blank on Nathan’s run through I wasn’t anticipating, and is an amusingly evil twist).
I’m not sure I *love* tasks which are all or nothing, involve all the team AND precision, the phone task was a fun idea that was basically impossible to win with someone only having to move a position one metre out.
When was the last time in WIDM the team got split and had to do separate tasks? It’s just struck me that it doesn’t seem to be much of a “thing” here.
Assuming we aren’t counting that episode in Oregon where three players got kidnapped and skipped a challenge, the last time they did a split challenge was the fake mural/pixel art pair of challenges in 2011.
Here’s Week 6 of the Suspect List.
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Buddy could be De Mol!
Mil could be De Mol!
Rob could be De Mol!
Nathan could be De Mol!
Leonie better be De Mol because I’ve been backing her since Week 2!
In fact Nathan can’t be it because he never did give Rik that €200 back…
€830 out of €5500 this week- though the first task I think was unwinnable…and did anyone figure out how the groups had to be set up in task 2 to get the max? I sort of figured there would be a twist in the 3rd task- and not having the words on the envelopes when the money was on the line was a good one..(and I think this was one of the “knock a lot money off the pot” ones- especially if each bad envelope had minus 500 in them and the 5 good ones only had €300 each, but they didn’t take as many envelopes as they thought)
I assume the system for Task 2 was simply “If you’re in the right place, you’re worth 500; if you’re in the wrong place, you’re worth 10” with one person instead being “If you’re in the right place, you’re worth 0; if you’re in the wrong place, you’re worth 10” – that person (possibly the mole?) expected to be the one sent up to collect the prize.
At that point it basically becomes a form of Mastermind to isolate who goes where.
Whether there was an actual logic to what ‘right’ was for each group, I’m not sure… although I feel I really ought to analyse how many umbrellas each group of locals had!
That makes sense to me with the values that were shown…
someone posted this on the comments on YT
if you do the combination right, its supposed to be Buddy – Rob – Mil – Claes – Nathan – Leonie, and Nathan should be the one cashing out because he is worth €10 and everyone else is 500€ (€2500 for the pot!)
I’d have to watch it again, but wasn’t there a moment when the people in spaces 5 and 6 swapped and that action caused two 500s to be replaced by two 10s? That wouldn’t fit with Nathan belonging in spot 5 and being worth at most 10.
*FACE PALM*
I may have just had a breakthrough about The Mole’s identity!
I was going to post a question because of a theory I had… and then it hit me that the very first task in fact answers my question. I thought there’d be something up with the first task that was significant. It hit me there *is* something significant about the first task. Although it may be more significant for the contestant than it is the viewer :).
Am I allowed to post theories here? If anyone has a similar theory my comments above should make a lot of sense!
Yes of course!
Well, I thought I had a good start to a theory… but I redid my research and realized it doesn’t apply to anyone… but there still may be something here…
In Episode 6 one of the words was “Rat” which I thought was odd. But then I looked up Chinese Zodiac and realized that 2020 is in fact the year of the Rat. And a rat is quite similar to mole. So I thought the Mole might be whoever is a rat in Chinese Zodiac. I looked up everyone’s age and just assumed that since Nathan was a multiple of 12 that he was in fact a rat (and I suppose he could turn his hair into a rat tail).
And because the entire season is in China I thought it’d make a lot of sense to utilize the chinese zodiac to some extent.
But then I thought “wait a minute, they’re filming this in 2019” and was wondering how conscious they were of the idea this is considered De Mol 2020 despite it being filmed in 2019. But then I realized the very first task really highlights the fact that this is considered the 2020 year in terms of categorizing the seasons. The fact the first task has to do with the years of all 20 seasons made me wonder if there really was a distinct connection between the years and the chinese zodiac that will be brought to light at some point…
But I double-checked my research and realized Nathan is in fact not a rat, but a pig (although it was the year of the pig during filming, but rat makes too much sense to = mole).
I just made my submission for this week and used my Joker. Even though I’ve had this person at the top of my list since week two, this was the first week I’ve felt convinced of them. However, I probably spread my votes on the bonus questions a little too wide, so even if I’m right, I probably wouldn’t podium anyway.
You know the production clue I desperately wished had happened? Imagine if, in the hunt-the-phones game, the (sadly few) moments where the music cut down and you just heard the ringing of the phones, you could hear the phone just a little bit more in your left or right speaker on certain shots… but the Mole was shown facing the wrong direction (ie the sound was coming from the left, but they were facing right, or vise versa). I think it would’ve been a lovely clue, and it’s possible it made it into the original broadcast but didn’t make it into the youtube upload (does youtube supports stereo sound?). At the very least, I couldn’t tell a L/R difference in my headphones.
I’m not sure I figured out the Mastermind game in the second challenge. I feel like I could safely place three colors, but I’m not sure how the other three worked. Even if the Mole had some sort of “perma-wrong” status, any way that I placed the last three would require *two* of them to be misattributed at some point. For what its worth, the three I was stuck on have been my top three for most of the run, so that backs up another batch of conspiracy theories in my mind.
There was something weird about the way Rik said “*five* candidates and *one* mole” in the intro, apart from the weird cut. That seems like a production hint to something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Are those really his hands? Yep, I’m studying Rik’s fingers. I’ve hit peak Mollote.
Really enjoyed this episode. Nathan continues to be a delight, he is having so much fun it’s adorable. Especially in the Mastermind challenge.
The editing in the phone challenge was sublime – the combination of the vast wheat field and the moments of utter silence were brilliant.
SEVEN.
Argh a mind f*ck execution!!!
Have to say, despite some early misgivings this has turned into a really fun series.
The lasergame felt like it’s missing a rule though, there ought to have been some bonus or penalty for shooting the mole/getting shot other than the game just ending.
Week 7 of The Suspect List is available here:
https://forms.gle/sxMMProTZRSvXunh7
One thing I REALLY want to know – the execution and test laptops are all Surface books (or Surface book 2), which I have. It is an excellent laptop, and it’s got a screen that detaches from the keyboard base. HOW DO THEY HAVE A DOUBLE SIDED MONITOR. I WANT ONE FOR ME!! I’ve googled and can’t see any way of having a double screen. Hmph.
Anyway, success…
I’m pretty sure I saw one a couple of years ago, but it looks like it’s no longer on sale. If you want to have your own test and execution, a fan has made software to replicate it. The instructions are all in Dutch but it’s pretty easy to figure out with a bit of guesswork,and you can even have a choice styles to replicate different Mole versions. https://koenvh.nl/en/projects/widm-exam
This is actually incredible! Totally downloading that when I get home tonight.
I really do with the Surface Book 2 had a dual screen sale hardware option. *wants*
[Beware… what follows is a serious (although not particularly good) attempt to meta-deduce the mole]
So, my partner and I were totally flummoxed by the result of this week’s elimination. We see in the test VT:
Nathan is on Buddy, Leonie and Mil.
Rob is on Buddy and Leonie.
Leonie is on some combination of Rob and Mil
Mil is mainly on Leonie, with a side of Rob
and Buddy is fully on Leonie.
Looking at this, everyone who isn’t Leonie is on Leonie to some degree, which probably makes her the group’s #1 suspect (and both of ours, so). But, if she’s the mole we would expect Nathan to be going out, as he’s spreading the most thinly.
Maybe Rob didn’t do a good job on the spread, or maybe Nathan spread very unevenly, or something like that. But, it does also suggest some fun other possibilities.
1. Buddy is the Mole. Then Leonie or Mil had the red screen today.
2. Mil is the Mole, and Buddy beat Rob on luck, Rob had the red screen.
3. Nathan is the Mole, and aggggggg.
In fact, the only thing we can be sure(?) of, is that Rob isn’t the mole (since the two who we saw today are the two who don’t suspect him).
This has been the pushpin board. Thanks for listening.
[Beware… another seriously silly attempt to meta-deduce the mole]
So whenever they have a chance to have a “non-elimination” episode, they almost always seem to be able to pull it off. This time, there is a way to guarantee non-elimination. Have the mole be the first one up, tell them which card will be the green card ahead of time (with Rik’s cooperation), then ask them to spare the person getting the red screen. Then the remaining results can be anything and we only see green screens.
So…we have Nathan being first, picked a green card, and mysteriously chosen Mil instead of Rob to not see the screen. And…Nathan is the Mole?
Just throwing it out there. Thanks for entertaining my sleep-deprived thoughts.
I was mainly annoyed that Rik says in his intro that the mole has been lying low “literally and figuratively” and thought it was a subtle reference to Buddy, who is short, but then the lasergame happened and now it applies to everyone.
There’s no way Nathan’s the mole. Surely. To be honest, impressed that he’s turned out to be my favourite player this year despite his haircut.
I’m pretty sure at this point that Nathan is the mole, mostly based on decisions players made in the game.
Leonie and Buddy both can’t be the mole because they chose the money in the group exemption challenge in episode 4, also both brought in the most amount of money into the pot regardless by episode 6.
Rob reacted way too butthurt at the last execution to be the mole.
Trickier is the question why Mil isn’t the mole. My main reason is that I think her confessionals do not sound or look like fake confessionals given by the mole as the contestant.
And #1 reason for Nathan is that he chose the money in “Chinese fans in the park” challenge because only the mole doesn’t need to know who the mole is.
I’ve been considering Nathan high up my list from early on, although that’s in part due to something right at the beginning that I thought may have been a production clue and then tunnlevisioning myself right into seeing lots of ways he *could* have caused damage, and assuming all his confessionals’ goofy charm is fuelled by knowing he’s playing a double role!
But I can’t say I have much actual *evidence* for it in gameplay terms, I’m mainly reading this based on production decisions and editing, and they’re *good* at misleading. I’d like to believe that the breakdown given here confirms my suspicions… but we’ll see.
(On the subject of Rob seeming butthurt, I feel obliged to bring up that on the previous week – where Claes went – Leo went down my rankings significantly because, when she was waiting for her screen to appear and there were only a few people left, she looked physically *ill*. True, she’s an actress, but that looked raw to me.)
Quite accidentally, Nathan’s been at the top of my list since week 2. I was seeing more evidence of people *not* being the Mole, so there was more of a shuffle at the bottom each week. I had Nathan, Buddy, and Rob higher up on the initial weeks, and they never really got jostled out of position, so they stuck there. It was only last week that I decided to play my Joker, and I’m still not entirely sure on anything.
Now the final’s imminent, I thought I ought to elaborate on this further; the thing that made me a (complete buffoon for the entire series / genius savant [delete as applicable pending results!])
In the very first episode one of the pieces of advice – to Claes – is “Those who speak, don’t know. Those who know, don’t speak”. And in that first task, in the edit we got… Nathan says nothing at all. It’s interspersed with pieces to camera so we get to hear from him still, but actually out looking for the symbols by the wall? Completely silent.
(Since then I think the theory mentioned on RTV Warriors makes a lot more sense for how WIDM might do things with those pieces of advice… but that’s why I stuck with Nathan throughout!)
I had the SAME exact thought!
THE STANLEY PARABLE DEMONSTATION [sic]
No no no no no no no no no no!
Now, that’s a much better episode. Interesting that it’s left ambiguous if all the Final Four are going to the Final Test.
I’m watching the new episode right now and they just finished the tests and even before the executions I’m sighing and paused to type this. I’ve had Leonie as my mole since episode one, but the fact that EVERYONE is on her means it can’t be her, surely? Is this another situation like a couple seasons ago when Ruben was the only one who was right and everyone else thought he was the mole?
… yeah. I knew she was going to be eliminated. Welp. WELP. Yet another season of me completely crapping out in the Suspect List. If it’s another year where my second choice is it I’ll scream.
I’m trying to work out what the optimum strategy for that quiz was, answer your question as best as possible, throw out wrong answers for everyone else’s? Great unless everyone plays with that strategy. In conclusion: pass.
Re: is it the final next week, I thought it was interesting that it was for a green exemption and not a diamond one.
When was the last time someone got eliminated and they didn’t get New York City from The Bone Collector as their music?
Final regular episode next week, finale is Vondelpark in two weeks time. Interesting that Rik phrased it as “an exemption to the next round”, not “an exemption for the finale”, which suggests a mid-episode elimination á la 16 & 17. We shall see though.
Also, Belgie cast is out. Premiere is next Sunday.
https://www.vier.be/de-mol/ontdek-hier-alle-kandidaten-van-de-mol
We’ll be updating our Belgian Mole page in the next few days.
https://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?page_id=12841
Just noticed Natalia has kindly uploaded Episode 0 of this year’s series (Cafe De Mol) so I suspect she will be amazingly doing subtitles again for the main series somehow in amongst her busy life!
Hopefully we do get eng subs as Belgian version is prob my fav version but won’t watch without the subs
We’re more than likely stumbling through without on the podcast I think this year. I’m working on the assumption there’ll be no subs.
I tend to rip the subs to watch in VLC rather than do so via Youtube, and quite a lot of the sub ripping services have an option for machine translation; I’ve got half a mind to give that a try and see if it can at least give a decent foundation for what’s going on. Although that would still require finding Belgian subs!
ahhhh seems like natalia might be coming back as uploaded Café De Mol
Here’s Week 8 of The Suspect List. Enjoy!
https://forms.gle/hPFDXJx3AjcjqkY87
Success!
Well, I’m either doing very well this year or very very badly. It is the Harmstone way.
I spotted a visual clue so obvious it couldn’t possibly be true… And at the same time, it was my number two suspect anyway, so I’d be willing to switch to them for the last couple episodes… What do, what do.
The kerb?
Swhat I was seeing, syeah.
Oh, I had a faint thought that the kerb was something, but I mostly just noticed it because it said ‘smol’ like the internet version of ‘small’ and, well, Buddy is in fact rather small.
You know what else are small? MOLES.
But yeah, I think I’m chalking it up to the same thing. I had forgotten he was an internetsm’n, so it seems like another clever false clue like some of the tai chi fans.
A promo clip for the final episode is up on WIDM’s official Twitter account and towards the end it shows the four candidates ascending some steps dressed to the nines (as is usually the case before the final test) so that appears to clear up the issue with contestant logistics – it will be a final four.
https://twitter.com/WieIsDeMol/status/1234727455623172096
Oh the producers certainly seem to know how to get into our heads this season!
My rankings for the mole are literally :-
Buddy 25%
Mil 25%
Nathan 25%
Rob 25%
So thanks for narrowing down my options in Episode 9 🙁
Random thought, since it now looks like it’s going to happen this time:
Has any treasurer in the past made it through the entire series without being replaced or executed?
Didn’t Johan start as Treasurer though?
Oh, poo, possibly, I don’t remember a formal ‘exchange’, though. Was it very early?
I want to say it was in episode 2 or 3 that Nathan became treasurer? I do remember thinking it seemed quick that they changed.
The One With The Final Quiz
Vindicatioooooooon!
What a stunning finale pre finale episode, much better than last year just sat around on the beach…
I want to find a cheap method to get to Vondelpark next Saturday 🙁
I’ll be there! Staying quite close by this year (learnt my lesson from the trek I had after last year’s finale)!
Oh go on then, flights booked…so I’m there even if I am sleeping on the benches of Vondelpark!
Where are you staying? I’ve got my eyes on hotels near Schiphol airport as they’re cheap (and not a hostel), just not sure regarding the logistics of public transport from the airport to the centre (I have read that a taxi ride is big bucks however!)
Staying on the southern end of Vondelpark itself. There’s loads of trains from Schiphol to the centre – stayed out at Schiphol before going to the Belgie finale last year.
There’s definitely buses out that way – just not sure when they finish. I’ll be going that way for parkrun on Saturday morning anyway.
The final Suspect List is now here!
https://forms.gle/m7V2Ewf6j4UJ85uF7
Success!
I’m still 99% sure Rob is the mole. The main sabotages I remember were highlighted in this episode and the fact that he and Buddy are the only two people who in both the temptations walk and the Tai Chi garden picked to not go for the money.
The only reason that I have pause is that in episode 1, Anita said she suspected Mil, Leonie and Rob. Other people didn’t say they suspected Rob so I don’t know whether Anita got incredibly unlucky or the Mole isn’t Rob. If Rob isn’t the mole, I think Nathan is the mole. Buddy is just extremely fanatical, especially in the hovercraft challenge and Mil has clearly been set up as the winner of the season from about episode 2.
This food truck challenge is hilarious. Buddy trying to advertise is amazing, and the competing prices between the two trucks is amusing.
Rik outing Mil and Buddy’s alliance and Rob and Nathan being like “wtf?” was also pretty awesome. God this show rules.
I also officially have no clue who the mole is. Like Buddy, I still want to vote for Leonie.