The Mole has the power to change reality television as it marries reality watchers and espionage lovers into one fun formula. Netflix has finally revived the 2001 reality classic (originally hosted by Anderson Cooper), and the efforts are not in vain.
Here’s the premise: set in Australia, with host Alex Wagner, the cast must complete a series of missions every episode to win money for the “prize pot.” Along the way, there is a “mole” who can sabotage the missions and ultimately lower the amount of money in the pot. At the end of each day, there is a quiz where the cast answers questions about the mole’s identity, and the person with the most wrong answers goes home.
Simple, huh? Though there are changes in location and a departure from a solely spy-focused theme of the original, the element of being a hidden agent is still present in this adaptation. Each challenge is gripping, whether it be a prison break, a bank heist, or a snowy mountain climb, and every mission brings new opportunities for the mole to sabotage.
Or, anyone really. One thing about this cast is that, for the most part, they play an individual game. This makes it hard to spot the mole because everyone wants the money, but they also want to keep others from getting it, so they will pretend to be suspicious to make people vote for them in the quiz, and ultimately send those people home for fake answers. Everyone in the game constantly lies, which may be the point, but it’ll certainly cause more trouble than necessary. It’s quite hard to get attached to most of them as their confessionals and interactions with others just make them seem like they’re never being honest.
There are some people who play to pay, some who play to fake, and others who play to win. It becomes increasingly clear where each of the players falls, but in a game based on deceit and deception, anyone can change their strategy at the drop of a hat, or rather, at the drop of ten thousand big ones.
Truthfully, The Mole comes at a perfect time. It’s almost shocking more reality shows don’t follow this premise, considering the popularity of video games like Among Us or party classics like Mafia. It seems like there’s a lack of “undercover agent” reality shows. But that simply means The Mole has the unique and undeniable power to suck viewers in. You will be anticipating each elimination with excitement and nervousness, just like the cast, and will be even more frustrated when you see someone else has lost money in the prize pot.
That’s not to say it’s reality perfection without flaws. One major point yours truly could not get over is how the mole just gets to the end because they will never be eliminated during a quiz. In the finale, the mole is finally revealed and the person who chose the mole in the last quiz wins the money (or, if nobody did, the mole would win). It’s kind of strange because obviously, the chances of choosing the mole then go up if it’s only down to three people in the end. It may be better to structure the show in a different way, somewhat like Among Us, or even the popular Jubilee series Odd One Out, where people have to vote on who they think the mole is, and the person with the most votes is eliminated, and then, later in the episode, the cast finds out if they were right.
The concern with that is that the mole may actually get eliminated fairly early on, but seeing as they’re an expert liar, it seems unlikely. As the final episodes air, it becomes clear that the mole is either one of three people, and even though it’s hard to see which option is correct, there are clear frontrunners who have made more suspicious moves throughout. Even if it comes as a twist, it can’t be all that surprising since there are only three people to pick from. Still, the show will certainly have you watching until that final reveal, and that’s what is so appealing about it.
Although the cast is sometimes overly dramatic and eager to sabotage the “pot,” mostly to look suspicious, it’s a series that will have you at the edge of your seat, waiting to see if your own predictions about the double agent are correct. This is a formula that holds a lot of potential for the future, so it’s clear that this will be far from the only undercover mole that we will get to unmask.
