Praise for the Winner of This Season of 'The Mole'

Last week, Emma wrote fondly not only of this season of Netflix’s The Mole but also of the outstanding work of its host, Ari Shapiro (yes, the Ari Shapiro from NPR), and his “black-hole eyes” (he looks to me more like Slenderman crossed with an Oompah Loompah, only somehow unexpectedly hot). Now that more people have had the opportunity to watch the entire season, I think we have to give it up for the winner of this season, who played an absolutely exceptional game.

Spoilers

We have a fun game in our family for reality competition shows. In the first episode, we each choose who we think will win. Whoever’s choice makes it the farthest in the game gets to choose where we go the next time we get takeout. I end up overanalyzing the editing in an attempt to figure out a winner and always lose (here, I chose Neesh). The twins, who are 12, win more often than anyone else by choosing based on their gut. For The Mole, the idea was to select the mole. One of the girls chose Michael, and the other chose Sean.

This is notable because, in the finale, we discovered that Sean was the mole, but Michael won the game. It was clear early on, at least to 12-year-olds, who were the most likely mole suspects. The two played a very similar game. The difference, however, was that one was the actual mole, while the other, for strategic reasons, wanted everyone to believe he was the mole. Michael played a cynical game, but a winning one.

Sean, a real-life former undercover cop, received a lot of praise from both the cast and Ari Shapiro for so successfully playing the mole—a player who must subtly sabotage missions without appearing to do so. But the reality is, Sean only succeeded because of how good Michael was. To win the game, players take a quiz after every mission, and the player who answers the least number of questions correctly about the identity of the mole is sent home. That basically means that the players who are quickest to correctly identify the mole stay longer.

Michael knew that Sean was the mole early on. It’s why he was able to stay in the game until the end. But the trick to eliminating other people is for them to believe that someone else besides Sean is the mole, and that’s where Michael was so successful. Most of the players were eliminated because they thought he was the mole. Why? Because Michael sabotaged missions almost as often as Sean, but he was more subtle about it. Michael had botched missions from the very first one, but he provided just enough cover to leave a seed of doubt.

More importantly, he was actually less obvious about it than Sean, which counterintuitively made him slightly more suspicious. The mole wouldn’t be as egregious about sabotaging missions as Sean was, would they? Of course not. That’s why it had to be Michael — so the rest of the contestants thought — because Michael had more chill. Sean felt like the too-obvious red herring, while Michael seemed like the actual mole, when in fact it was the opposite.

Michael never seemed to sweat over the quizzes, either, which suggested to other players that Michael was the mole because the mole couldn’t be sent home by the quiz. Michael was confident, but it wasn’t because he was the mole. It was because he knew exactly who the mole was, and he clearly stuck with his choice after each mission from early on in the game. Once you go all-in on the mole and aren’t eliminated, the strategy is no longer in figuring out who the mole is but in casting suspicion on someone else. Michael wisely cast that suspicion on the one player he could control: himself. He may have put a huge dent in the purse, but his deviousness allowed him to win the game with what was left.

It’s smart game play but it’s also likely to result in multiple players doing the same thing in the next season, should the series be renewed. That would be detrimental to the game. We may be more surprised when we find out the identity of the mole, but there won’t be any money left in the pot to award.