You know that feeling you get when your throat tightens? When your heart is beating so loud you’re worried your chest might explode? When your stomach is twisted up into a million knots and you’re holding your breath in anxiety? Yeah, that is how you’re going to feel at the end of every episode of season seven of “The Mole.”
Netflix has reincarnated this 2001 Stone and Co. Entertainment favorite and brought the high-stakes game of sabotage back to the screen. Season seven of “The Mole,” which premiered on Netflix on June 28, might be the most intense season yet. Eureka Productions gave Ari Shapiro the honored task of hosting this season as the 12 players compete in and around Malaysia for a shot at a cash prize.
Who is the Mole?
The series is a reality competition show that consists of a group of strangers coming together to perform a series of high-risk missions to add money into a prize pot. The object of the show is to add as much money into the prize pot as possible because in the end, one lucky winner will walk away with the whole loot. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong.
There is more to one of the players than meets the eye. One of the players has been secretly recruited by the producers to be “the mole” and they are tasked with sabotaging the group to drain as much money from the pot as possible. While the players’ goal is to add money to the pot, they must also learn as much as they can about their fellow players and observe their every move. After each mission, they participate in a multiple-choice quiz and whoever knows the least information about the mole is eliminated from the game.
This season features missions ranging from repelling down a skyscraper to completing a jewelry heist to a faux kidnapping, perhaps making it the most dynamic season of “The Mole” to date.
Every Man for Themselves
The missions throughout the series are meant to provide opportunities for the players to add money to their prize pot. However, opportunities are also given to gamble that money away. Knowledge is power in this game, which means the only thing that might lure the players away from money is information.
Throughout the game, opportunities arise for the players to accept exemptions from the elimination quizzes, guaranteeing them a spot in the next mission. However, accepting these exemptions often comes at a great cost to the group. The players must decide what is more important to them: money or information that could help them discover the mole’s identity. It is a balancing act and unfortunately, these players do not know the first thing about balance.
In the end, there are only three players in the finale: two regular players and the mole. One final quiz is taken and whoever guesses the mole’s identity correctly wins. If neither of the players guess the mole’s identity, the mole wins the cash. The game is, essentially, a life-size poker game full of bluffing and double bluffing and holding your cards close to your chest. It is a must-watch tournament of lies, deceit and sabotage. “The Mole” goes to show that when money is on the line, you cannot trust anyone.
