Well, for the past three months, I have been posting the weekly "Amazing Race" poll, with people trying to figure out who gets eliminated each week. Since we had fun with that, I will start a weekly "The Mole" thread, with each of us talking about each week's episode.

Since I'm on the West Coast, the poll question will probably not be posted until after the episode airs. Also, since the number of players currently exceeds the number of poll choices, early poll questions will be lifted directly from the players quiz.

As you have probably guessed, this weeks poll has been recycled from the original thread. The original results were:

The Leaders Team: 2 (14.29%)
The Crossbow-Biathlon Team: 5 (35.71%)
The Pulse-Ropewalk Team: 2 (14.29%)
The Swing-For-Life Team: 5 (35.71%)

Enjoy figuring out.... WHO IS THE MOLE!

Although I'm likely to change my mind in the coming weeks, right now I suspect Eliva (or whatever her name is -- the black girl). She seems almost too obvious, so normally I wouldn't focus on her, but I saw two potential "hidden clues" that pointed to her. 1) right after one of the commercials, an arrow scanned over the group and stopped above her head. 2) At the introduction of the quiz in the second hour, the voiceover said, "Who is the Mole." Right at the moment of "Mole," the camera stopped on Eliva's face. So I voted for the Swing-for-Life team since that is the team Eliva was on even though she didn't swing.

Great show. I'm so glad they are giving it another chance. Hopefully it will finf its audience this time.

After seeing what the 'clues' were in season one as to who the mole was, I don't bother looking for that stuff anymore. Not that I was very good at it

Glad to see this is finally back though

I guarantee

I'm still sticking with my initial guess from way back in September. I believe that Katie is the Mole. If it's not her then my money is on Darwin.

katie, heather or bribs...

Im guessin' Katie.

Right now, I say it's the Admiral. Notice how he managed to become a "leader", then, based upon a off-hand comment, he needed "fashion advice", and then they decided no way on the baby bibs even though it meant doubling the money.

I'm not sure yet. It wasn't till episode six or so last season that i started having serious inklings of who the Mole was. Acting overtly this early wouldn't be the wise move, so I don't know yet!

I'm still wondering why someone would nickname their toy cow "Meadow Muffin." Could this be a clue?

I predict that Heather is the Mole.

I picked the mole last season about half way in. Im still making up my mind but i think it was someone on the swing team. Im not telling who :-)

capt

Watched this show for the first time. I'm not a huge fan, just because it seems like such a crapshoot as to who gets eliminated. With other reality TV shows... at least, the ones I've liked... there is some sort of skill element involved with who stays and who goes.

But man, Anderson Cooper is great. Probably my favorite host out of all the hosts... he busts the contestants' chops the whole time, and it's hilarious. Eating a sandwich during the "Swing For Life (or Death)" game... "You're the next contestant on 'Public Humiliation!'"... "You're rank and you smell and attract flies wherever you go"... good stuff. The rest of the hosts are kind of just human exposition machines.

Oh, yeah, and I had a feeling that they wouldn't burn the contestants bags. I'm just impressed that they held out on the contestants so long about it.

One last thing... it's not "Texas A _M University," it's "Texas A&M University"! Bastards.

Stick with it. Although that's true in a sense right now because everything's so wide spread, as the pool of contestants starts dwindling, the competition for figuring out who is the Mole becomes more intense. I think there is skill involved. Partly in trying to figure out who the Mole is so that you do well on the quizzes and stick around and partly on trying to manipulate others into thinking the wrong person is the Mole so that they will blow the quiz and get eliminated.

I agree, Anderson is pretty funny. Twice we see the camera pan over him during an intense moment, and he's standing there eating!
I also love it in the third episode when Hilarious!

On a side note - are the quizzes "open-book" (i.e. contestants are allowed to look at their notes)? Otherwise that's a hell of a lot of info to memorize about every other player.

If I'm understanding this right... ABC aired three episodes of "The Mole 2" last year, cancelled it b/c of ratings, but is now trying to bring it back?

What exactly is the Mole's role on the show, I never understood it from last season and I still don't understand it this season. Do the producers tell the mole what to do, or does the mole think up stuff all on their own. What incentive does the mole have to sabotage missions other than saying thats what he/she is supposed to do?

That is correct.

I think the Admiral is the Mole.

I second Jeraden's question. Does the MOle get told what to do, or plan his/her own sabotage ideas?

The mole's job is to sabotage the contestants attempts at winning money via challenges in subtle enough ways that you aren't suspicous of them...well no more suspicious than you are of everyone.

The mole meets with producers on a regular basis, so they have advance knowledge of challenges and such. Although I don't think its ever stated, I'm pretty sure the Mole gets paid something.

The Mole works with the producers, and knows what events are coming up.

I had very similar feeling after the first couple of episodes of the first Mole. But after four or five episodes I was just hooked and it became "Must Crave TV" Just give it another few viewings.

I always thought that the Mole should be paid whatever amount of the million that doesn't make it into the pot. That would be a real incentive to screw things up! (altough with that much motivation the Mole would probably mess it up by being too obvious).

And I hate to ask again, but this is REALLY bugging me - can contestants look at their notes during the quiz? Some of them have some pretty extensive notes jotted down (which is why the upcoming sucked so much).

I don't know for sure, but I seriously doubt it's an open-journal quiz. Plus, of all the times they've shown contestants taking the quiz, I've never seen a journal in anybody's hand.

I saw the episodes that were originally broadcast way back when, and mark my word: it's gotta be Darwin.

Well, I don't necessarily count that, because that footage of each player in front of the monitor might not be "real" (i.e. - they might do some pick-up shots later - nothing to affect the outcome, of course!)