Rhymes With Steve

Tonight I’m faced with the toughest decision of the week… what to watch? Two political debates, and one new episode of Smallville. My, oh, my. (UPDATE: Smallville airs one hour earlier!)

First off, the people who scheduled tonight’s separates debates are mean. If you haven’t noticed, Canada and America have been going out for quite some time. Everything they do affects us, everything we do affects them in some way too (albeit: usually/probably not as much). We’re different countries, no question, but we’re still family.

I haven’t blogged about Sarah Palin yet, I don’t think. So I guess that makes me behind the times. Secretly, I just adore her. Yes, she’s a walking contradiction on many respects and just the wrong person for the job overall, but she’s cute as a button. And I don’t mean that physically or ’cause she’s a woman.

(In fact, I would have rather seen Hilary Clinton secure the Democratic presidential nomination.)

Coincidentally enough, she reminds me of Lois Lane from Smallville. She’s so sassy and quick. She makes me laugh. In fact, she’s someone I’d love to be friends with. Just to interact, talk about movies and stuff.

There is, however, the seriousness of it all. She has a one in two chance of becoming the vice-president of the United States. And if she succeeds, she’ll be second-in-command. So while she’s fun to watch, there’s a definite amount of worry that follows.

In my People, Power and Politics course, we have recurring discussions on how much more interesting American politicians are. Case in point: Sarah Palin. And that’s why I’m kind of at a fork in my political road. If I watch the Canadian debate, I’ll gain more information that will impact who I vote for. If I watch the American debate, I’ll: be up to speed on my pop-culture, understand what CNN’s talking about for the next few days, and further appreciate the inevitable Tina Fey SNL parody.

On the other hand, and I know I might be alone on this, Canada’s election is interesting. There was the infamous puffin pooping Stéphane Dion thing on that Conservative-authorized website, Elizabeth May getting to participate in the leaders’ debate, etc.

Oh yes, back to Smallville. I could actually watch it another day, I guess. From what I’ve read, it’s a Green Arrow origin story. I like the character but would it kill me to watch it another day? I only have, like, one friend who goes to Ryerson that watches it and we never see each other anymore. And it’s not like I’m going to be receiving any spoilers in Information and Visual Resources tomorrow… oh, decisions, decisions.

[I think this goes without saying but this blog post will completely spoil you. Although my last few Mole entries essentially spelled it out -- albeit: without actually knowing 100%  -- this post definitely confirms the mole's identity.]

Due to complete and utter forgetfulness, I missed 32 minutes of the beginning of the episode. I set up an alarm clock on my phone, which I smartly left in a vicinity away from me, and didn’t hear it. Since CityTV doesn’t upload the episodes to their website, like CTV now usually does, I’ll have to find another means of watching it and will therefore update this at a later time.

The mole was Criag. Mark won. Nicole came in second. The end.

Parts of me, specifically the brain which controls emotion, wish Craig wasn’t the mole. I figured out the first season’s mole by the paintball mission, roughly the same number of epsidoes into the season as this year’s(?). The second season’s mole completely stumped me until the big reveal. And the two celebrity versions’ moles, were way too obvious.

You have to take into consideration the timeframe. When the first mole aired, the Internet was still rather new and Anderson Cooper wasn’t warming up my spot at my eventual gig at CNN. Skip over to 2008, the Internet is still here but with tonnes more message boards, websites, and even expertly-written blogs on the subject. Information travels fast, as does clues and the like.

It’s sad, really. Nothing is as secretive as it used to be. Like movie scripts, they’re leaked online all the time by, well, moles. Do you know how hard it was for me to scour IMDB’s The Dark Knight message board sans spoilers?

A lot of things have lost their magic. I know this is drifting off topic, like these posts tend to, I just miss being mystified at certain aspects of Hollywood without ten bloggers ruining its innocence.

Some of the clues they exposed hidden throughout the series were rather dull. Who honestly has time to freezeframe all those graphical clues? Very silly, in my humble opinion. Shockingly, they didn’t seem to note the first episode’s lack of a graphic-circle-thingy beside Craig’s name during the opening credits. I wrote about it in an earlier entry and included video proof but alas the video seems to have been termined by YouTube’s admin no, wait, nevermind. It “video has been removed by the user.” It was one of the first clues everyone saw and possible to notice with the naked eye.

It was nice to see the gang together again, at least for the final 30 minutes I got to see. I wonder what they did during the filming of the rest of the season and how they didn’t make it obvious they got eliminated to the public. And I wonder if they read blogs, mainly this one. (If you were a contestant on the mole, please comment on this blog.)

They appeared genuinely happy Mark took the money home. He really did deserve it. He played the game fairly, didn’t cause trouble, contributed a lot of effort and money to the group, and was just an overall smart player.

From what I remember, he was the only one with a particularly strong intention for attaining the winnings. His goal of getting his wife off her two job work schedule was loving and honest, and that determination is probably what led him to achieving itl. Congratulations on winning, Mark, and I know everyone wishes you all the best with the new baby!

Oh, Nicole. I don’t think the show knew what to do with you. She jumped into my radar a few times throughout the season, specifically the first episode, but she cleared herself out of my sights early on. The mole couldn’t be that obvious. She did many outrageous things like threaten Paul with murder that would leave ‘no forensic evidence’ and, more distressingly, brought up the race flag on on occaisional. Regardless, she was an interesting aspect to watch.

Although I saw right through Criag by the near end, he was a fantastic mole. It’s a shame that the online dossier, something I’m sure was comissioned by the producers and not by him, contributed a good part into my discovery. With every season, the mole has to step it up a notch. While the time it took me to figure out the mole’s identity was approxiamtely the same as the first season, he added enough mysteriousness, personality, and technique to aptly deceive.

The show got progressively better with each episode. It’s like wine. And the conclusion was cleanly satisfying (I still haven’t gotten over the fact that Alex wasn’t the mole). Yes, I figured out who the mole was before the finale. However, for the average viewer, I’m sure it came as surprising. I’m sure most folks surmised Nicole to be the mole, followed by Criag, and then Mark.

I haven’t rated any episodes, and still have yet to watch the final episode in its entirely, still, despite its problems, I’d have to reward the season a solid 3 green fingerprints out of 4. I haven’t heard anything good about viewship and certain YouTube videos have suggested the show was in deep water already, but I believe the show has found its footing again (no more celebrity editions!) and I hope and can’t wait to see it be brought back for another season.

I wasn’t too impressed with this season. It wasn’t the worst and perhaps just having it back was good enough, yet it still lacked the oomph and value of the first two seasons. But this episode changed that streak. The bomb mission was very simple yet creative. It had class somehow.

I didn’t notice too much in this episode. I’ve been convinced that Craig is the mole for the past few episodes and still maintain it. There was one point where Craig almost instantly knew the location of the theatre where his task was to take a picture of him tangoing that seemed a bit too obvious, even for someone who was apparently obsessed with the city.

I can see Mark totally winning the game. He seems to deserve it more than anyone and not only because of his personal life — because he’s a good player. He used his journal wisely (’till it burned up, that is), was an all-around team player, etc.

(If anyone understands the potential clue-harbouring title the host gave for the last dinner — he called it “the last supper” — let me know.)

The exam this time was a whopping 20 questions. I just cannot see Nicole remembering that much. So, yeah, I think she won’t win.

Oh, and a-ha! If this doesn’t count as indisputable evidence I don’t know what is: remember during the episode when Craig said it was his dream to open up a business? Well, view the mole’s online dossier and read the third thing from the bottom-right on the 13th page.

I rest my case.

There’s not much to write about for this episode. Assuming everything goes to plan, next week all our questions will finally be answered and that’s about that. Also, sorry about posting this late. I completely forgot to the watch The Mole yesterday but did so today on YouTube.

I don’t recall there ever being an exemption given out so far into the game in the show’s history. What Paul said was right, it wasn’t in good taste. To narrow down three people, even with the possibility of no mole among them, would be very similar to the finale’s execution.

To be fair, the mission was one of the more interesting missions of the season — but not by much. The missions still haven’t reached the caliber of creativity the first season achieved.

Watching this show every week, you get attached to the players whether you like it or not. So I was a bit sad to see Paul go. It was quite surprising too since he seemed to suspect Craig more than the others, which leads me to my final prattle about the episode.

You know, ultimately, the goal of the mole is to not let money be added to the pot. As much as I try to locate clues (sometimes drastically failing clues) and piece together the manipulations, it’s all about the Benjamins. And while I didn’t come up with a tally, though I think Mark did and that’s why I believe he deserves to win, Criag has continually been the weakest link in the missions.

That, and I found some clues in previous episodes to support my theory.

Now I’m sure I know who the mole is. And to keep the suspense flowing to my findings, first watch the video above and don’t read past the end of this paragraph. Starting 1:34 and ending at 2:30, who doesn’t have a cool graphic circle thing and flickering text for the written portion of their introduction. (In case the video gets deleted, it was located here and was the first episode of the season.)

Mmmhm, and he’s a graphic artist to boot! I actually noticed this earlier this season, not sure why I waited this long to remember to post it.

Found a few other clues. In the mole’s online journal the coordinates “34.05N 118.25W” can be found on the 12th page. Using Google maps, this leads us here (with street view!). I wonder what the area is called. The only clue I found — even after looking around the area in street view — is that it’s located in California, Craig’s state of residence.

I did some digging on that ““N20 HL70″ potential clue from my second-last entry and the general online consensus is that it refers to Craig’s apparent November 20 birthday. Whatever the other part means, I don’t know. Be aware I couldn’t find Craig’s day of birth in official online document form — most people just say it is.

Backtracking a bit, a few players joked around by asking whether or not they were staying “here” (at the waterfall area) during the first mission of the season. Craig responded with, “who cares where you’re sleeping?” After which, Marcia was given the task to decide who sleeps outside for the night. Ding, ding, ding?

Remember those clues that led me to believe Alex was the mole? Well, Alexander Selkirk was evidently born Alexander Selcraig. Funny how I found two clues for two completely different moles people.

Finally, I read somewhere that Craig’s journal is number 11. That was the same the journal number the host held up when first showing the players the journals they would be getting.