IS THE MOLE A MUSIC EXPERT? - HINTS & THEORIES - WIE IS DE MOL? 2024 - SEASON 24 - ENGLISH 

Being The Mole on the street team would have been so easy. They were asking people who their favorite wrestlers are. Yeah, every Mexican wrestling fan knows who Rey Mysterio, Mistico, Blue Demon, etc. are but none of those people would be at a lower level show like that. It wasn't until the very end that they actually asked someone who their favorite wrestler was who likely would be on the show. That said, I still think attending the event would be the easiest way to Mole since all four people needed to get the correct photo. The tiniest mess up and what the other three people do doesn't matter because you've already lost.

I think I'm more confused about who the Mole could be with each new episode. Kudos to the editors! As someone else noted, Kees sitting behind each eliminated player and grabbing their shoulders does stick out. I tried to rewatch to see if he carefully chose his seat when they walk to the chairs - but they conveniently cut away in Episode 2 and didn't even show them walk out in Episode 3. Suspicious! But what if the player to be eliminated sits in the back row? Hmm. Pattern broken. Although I do think his voiceover at the beginning of Episode 2 "we recognized that stadium from the cards" could be one of those hints where the Mole accidentally outs himself with too much prior knowledge. And yet with all that, I still don't really think he's the Mole. And what about Rian sitting in the same color chair as the eliminated player? I guess that is most likely a coincidence. But part of me is buying that Rian could be the "actress Mole pretending to be a player". But I don't really think she's the Mole either. I thought I was onto Anna after Episode 1, but now that seems like a false lead. But I guess I'm committed to keeping her on top of my list as long as she's in the game. Sometimes you need your top suspect to get eliminated as a fresh reset. Maybe that will happen in Episode 4. As for the others, I had Jip and Justin high on my lists and now they are out. Rosario definitely seemed more suspicious this episode and it makes you wonder if he was just laying low the first two episodes. For Jeroen, there was no cause/effect challenge this episode, so I couldn't test my theory that he would always choose the "cause" team. Fons and Tooske still seem like regular candidates to me for now. I hope I have a better read on it after the next couple of episodes. It's always a fun ride with WIDM!

This episode really had me spinning my wheels. I feel like it did absolutely nothing to clarify who I suspect and in fact brought more people back up to the surface that I wanted to rule out. I have some other thoughts in general first, before touching too much on this episode. Knowing it is producer Rick's final season (and possibly host Rik's final season), maybe they'll be more bold in a mole choice (see: Art's final season hosting). Maybe they'll do things they don't normally do in the edit that makes it more confusing for us as consistent viewers of the show. Next week it looks very likely they'll bring back an eliminated contestant, so sort of supports the theory since they've never done that on this show before. Now on to the episode: the only one I want to really rule out this week is Jeroen. He got way too many trivia questions right in the first task that they would never have gotten without him, and he just seems really contestant-like to me. (I also think SPOILER ALERT FOR PREVIOUS SEASON......................... they would not have another Jeroen be the mole, although that is more of a meta reason than actual logic.) The first challenge, I think there were a few routes the mole could take. Not come up with answers, or support bad answers. Keep the game going if they earned money to try to take it away, and/or stop the game when they haven't earned too much. Rian and Rosario didn't contribute much, Anna got two questions right all by herself (although maybe to keep the game moving along to try to take money out of the pot?), Fons had a right answer that went against the grain of the group (I feel like the mole doesn't need to do this), Jeroen got too many questions right as previously mentioned, Kees was Kees, and Tooske was Tooske. Which is to say, I don't think Kees is the mole. He's just been too obvious but not in the ways the mole wants to be. And I just don't think it's him. No solid evidence, just my gut instinct. Tooske is my dream choice for mole this season, if for no other reason than I already love her and think she's bold in the best ways. But I feel at this point it's slightly wishful thinking. But it happened during Art's final season hosting so it's certainly possible. Second challenge: so many people are suspicious here I can't even. Tooske, Rosario, and Rian had alone time which is always dangerous in this kind of challenge. I could see any one of them moving a stool/envelop set from a point and chucking it in a dumpster or something to prevent it from being found. Tooske and Anna conveniently can't find their final checkpoint to prevent $150 from being earned. But Rosario sort of sends them on their way, and there's probably no better sabotage this challenge than sending Anna (clearly the most game-savvy of the group based on the molympics task) away from the endpoint, where the real money could have been earned. Kees gave some right answers (probably?) for the cities further away from Amsterdam but it didn't even matter because they fully misunderstood the 'not a crossword' puzzle. Everyone at the endpoint is suspicious (although maybe Fons a little less because he showed up late) for putting up those poor answers in the puzzle. Third challenge was impossible. That's my general summary. The mole could do anything and nothing and it wouldn't matter; that challenge was earning the bare minimum regardless because it was just too hard. So yeah, sort of a conundrum of a season so far and this episode really didn't help XD

Kees was sitting behind the person who had to leave all three episodes.

OK, this episode won me over on this group of candidates. I feel like people’s personalities finally started to come out during the mariachi assignment (the tequila shots may have had something to do with that, lol), and the other two assignments were fun as well, especially the wrestling one. Side note- I am going to need someone to put Jeroen’s “Soberano” drawing on a t-shirt for me 😂. Since Julie brought up color theories, I have something to point out about the 2nd assignment: the district that the assignment took place in was called the “Zona Rosa”, and what did Tooske choose to wear that day? A bright pink outfit. Actually, all 3 of the ladies were wearing pink (Rian had bright pink shoes, and Anna had pink lipstick), but Tooske’s definitely stood out the most. So…in terms of suspicion, I think I am ready to cross Rosario off of my list. Honestly, I would have crossed him off last week, but then someone made the comment about the mole possibly messing with the envelopes in the stadium, and I thought, yeah, that would be a cool, under-the-radar way to mole that assignment. But then during the music quiz in this episode, Rosario just sat there quietly (for the most part). There is at least one assignment per episode that he doesn’t really actively participate in. I just don’t think a mole would do that. Yes, technically, if the candidates are making a mess of things, the mole doesn’t need to participate. But that’s no fun. And the candidates were actually doing pretty well with the quiz questions, so at that point the mole needs to get involved. Justin wasn’t really suspicious to me, so him leaving doesn’t exactly help to clarify things. Rian has never really been suspicious to me either. Anna has been dropping lower on my list each week. So then I am left with 4: Fons, Kees, Tooske, and Jeroen. At this point, it is actually easier for me to say who I WANT the mole to be, rather than who it is. I REALLY, REALLY don’t want it to be Fons. Like, Fons as mole would kind of spoil the season for me. Kees would be annoying, but not as bad as Fons. Jeroen would be acceptable. And I would like it the most if Tooske turned out to be the mole. Ever since episode 1, I have had the thought in the back of my head that I like the IDEA of Tooske as mole. And it could be her. But it could be Fons, or Jeroen. Or (maybe a little less likely) Kees. The mariachi quiz assignment was a really interesting one, but also really confusing. Because we are at that point in the season where people are starting to have top suspects, and starting to want to test those suspects during assignments. So, I found myself questioning EVERYTHING. For example, Jeroen is normally more subdued, but now he is being loud, and encouraging everyone to keep going and spend more money. Is it because he wants to see who will go along with him? Or because he is the mole? (Or because he had too much to drink?). Fons is giving correct answers to questions. Is it because he wants to earn money? Or is it a double bluff, and he knows that Jeroen and Kees don’t trust him, and won’t use the answers that he gives? So many questions. In the second assignment, Fons and Tooske really didn’t do anything useful. Which one was moling, and which one was the candidate observing their mole in action? It definitely wasn’t lost on me that Tooske was the only person who seemed to understand perfectly how the puzzle worked, but then she didn’t feel the need to actually be there while the puzzle was being solved. Between that, and her being dressed in pink for the pink zone, she was looking awfully suspicious here. And then we had the entire group just deferring to Kees for all of their answers. And Kees, in true “Fake Mole Kees” fashion, having to then ask the group which country a major city was located in, even though he is the “geography expert” 😂. As far as Jeroen is concerned, I got the impression that all of the portophone shenanigans were what messed him up, rather than him going to the wrong location to sabotage. But I could be wrong. I like it when the group gets test questions for a future assignment, especially when it is only a couple of questions, like it was here. What do we all think of Fons half-heartedly making an attempt to take the tickets from Rik? There are 8 candidates, and only 1 person can take the tickets. So, the logical answer to the question “did the mole take the tickets from Rik?” is “no.” The best way to ensure that the mole doesn’t take the tickets, is to take them yourself. To me, in that moment, Fons looked like a candidate, pretending to be the mole, pretending to be a candidate. If that makes any sense. The wrestling assignment itself was hilarious. The selfies! The drawings! So many possible ways to mole. Tooske, who just so happened to be the only candidate to select the episode 3 wrestling card from the fortune-teller in episode 1, also just so happened to have the perfect seat in the arena to get perfect selfies with all of the wrestlers. A perfect opportunity for the mole to do well in an assignment that is most likely going to fail anyway? Anna and Jeroen were also suspicious for getting descriptions of wrestlers who weren’t in the arena. The very first question they asked should have been “who is wrestling tonight?” And then, once they had a list of people who were actually going to be there, ask for costume descriptions. I mean, I know that “who is your favorite wrestler?” is a nicer, less awkward way to start a conversation with someone when you approach them on the street with a camera crew. But still. The assignment comes first! If I HAD to list my top suspects, I guess it would be Tooske/Fons, then Jeroen/Fake Mole Kees ™️. Before the season started, I wanted it to be Anna. So I’ll keep her on the list as well and see what happens. Things are getting interesting.

Rosario is a big suspect of mine right now. My biggest issue is that he seems a little passive (he did almost nothing in the music task, where you'd think a musical Mole would take charge). He's also very far from the usual male Mole archetype - most of them are actors / presenters, older than Rosario, and white. But that might be why they've picked him this time out. Jeroen seems to be a complete chameleon, sometimes being very enthusiastic, sometimes laid back, sometimes frustrated. He's also had a lot of suspicious moments. Kees and Rian also seem to be at the centre of things when they go wrong in a lot of challenges. Again, I'm not sure if this is just them being themselves, or if one of them is the Mole. Pre-season I had Rosario, Rian and Kees in my top five LEAST likely Moles. Now I'm wondering if I got it completely wrong. Fons and Anna are the only two remaining people who didn't get an exemption in the first episode. Fons is still up there for me. Anna... I kinda worry I've been ruling her out wrongly. She's just so far forward in the edit, which seems really odd if she's the Mole. From an actions standpoint, she fits in terms of putting herself in the right positions. But does she actually sabotage when she's there? She's earned a little money for the pot, and she at least seemed to be one of the ones encouraging the "everyone pick the person you were with first" strategy when trying to get rid of the exemptions in episode 1. Tooske was the "viewpoint" character in the very first challenge, where the candidates had to race the Mole; I don't think they'd choose the Mole for this position. I'm not hugely sold on the challenges this episode (c'mon, you have a massive lucha libre show, and none of the candidates get to wrestle? Remember Baha and Holy Pieter?) I feel like that's why I'm less motivated to find the Mole this year. I'm sure I could do a better job than I am doing. Ah well, what can ya do.