Dutch Mole 4
Episode 1

A dark room... polaroid pictures of people and application letters are spread on a desk. Someone is watching them... The same person then takes a tape, labeled 'INSTRUCTIONS' and puts it in a VCR. We can't see the hands of the person, because he is wearing gloves. The host appears on a small screen:
"You are The Mole. The next few weeks you will have a tough task. Your assignment is double: you have to act as being one of the ten contestants, only you have a different task. You have to take care they deserve as less money as possible for the group pot. This means you will have to sabotage. In front of you, you'll find information about the contestants and the challenges. Get to know all about your opponents and mas sure you're not unmasked. The person who knows least about you will be eliminated and sent home. In the end, only three people will remain: a winner, a loser and you, The Mole. Play the game... and enjoy it... good luck!"

Day 1 - Halifax Airport, Canada
A plane arrives and ten people get out. They slowly walk to a helicopter with all their bags and stuff. It's snowing mildly, which makes it all that more mysterious...
The helicopter pilot tells them they have a weight and balance problem if all of them and the luggage are taken on board. They have to repack everything and only take along what they think they will need for this one day.
The people start repacking. From then on, it gets interrupted with split screens and we get to know the contestants:

"I'm Astrid. I'm 44 years old and I live in Amsterdam with my two daughters."
Astrid introduces her youngest daughter Isis and her oldest daughter Cleopatra, who's 8 years old.
"I hope I can make sure that we have a lot of fun and diversion."
"I don't know what The Mole looks like. Everyone is a suspect to me."
"I hope I win, I could really use the money."
Astrid
44 years old
PR-Advisor

"I'm Ron, I'm 33 years old. I live in Utrecht and I'm graphic designer."
"Searching The Mole seems very difficult to me, because you don't know the people and don't know how they react in normal life."
"I think I will stay in the background and watch what happens and then draw my conclusion."
"I think, if I survive the first two rounds, that I can stand a good chance at it."
Ron
33 years old
Graphic Designer

The contestants get in the helicopter after having repacked their luggage. Ron is sitting in front. Astrid gets in the back.

"I'm Julien, I'm a lawyer and I'm on my way to court right now."
"The thing I'm least looking forward to is that you don't have anyone who you can trust. Not only during the game itself, but also 24 hours a day for maybe 4 weeks in a row."
"It's a sport for me to select the people of whom you know on forehand that something's wrong with them and I think I've become quite good in that."
Julien
30 years old
Lawyer

The helicopter takes off. Next to Julien, there's a woman who seems to be scared of heights as the helicopter goes up in the air with her in it...

"I'm Patricia and we're in Amsterdam now. It's Bridge night and I play here every wednesday."
"I'm least looking forward to two things. One is missing my kids, I'm really not looking forward to that! Then the second one is how scary the challenges will be and then maybe even a third one is that I don't want to be the first one who is sent home, because I think that's really awful!"

Patricia
39 years old
Scientist

"Hi, my name is Louis, 38 years old. We're at a golfcourt in Utrecht now. I try to do 18 holes once every week."
"I'll be the manager in the group. I'm going to try to fix or do things that otherwise won't be done."
"I also try to bring humour in the group and to keep it in the group."
"I would be a very good Mole, but I'm not The Mole."
Louis
38 years old
Salesmanager

They leave the city and are now flown over fields, swamps and forests....

"I'm Elise and were in Leiden. I study here... and I live here too."
"I think if I suspect someone for being The Mole, I will keep an eye on him all the time. But I'll also do it in such a way that he knows I'm keeping an eye on him."
"If I'm The Mole? That's good question... Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. I'm not telling you anything!"

Elise
26 years old
Student

The helicopter lands in The Bluff Area, a kind of swampy area, and the contestants get out. The last perso nto leave the helicopter is a man with short grey hair.

"I'm Rene, I'm 37 years old, I live in the village Zeeland and am a policeman."
"I think I'm good at observing people. Have good conversations with people and extract as much information as possible out of it and then I'll put it together and see if I can find out who The Mole is."
"I'm expecting to get quite far in the game."

Rene
37 years old
Policeman

"I'm Aafke and we're at my job now, at the Landelijk Orgaan Beroepsonderwijs for hotel, tourism and food and I'm policy co-worker here."
"I always like things to happen the way I want them to happen. When we have a meeting that's not always the case. I like meetings. It's a kind of game among people and together we try to find a solution."
"What does The Mole look like... A man? A woman? Someone who's got life experience."
"If I'm The Mole? Like I'm going to tell you!" (laughs)
Aafke
40 years old
Policy Co-worker

All contestants get off the heli, taking their bags with them, and are now awaiting further instructions... The helicopter leaves.

"Hi I'm Ferdi. I'm 27 years old. We're at the Goffertpark in Nijmegen at the moment and I walk the dog here two or three times a day."
"I think The Mole will be unmasked by himself. He's the one who has to act different than he really is and I just have to watch out which person is himself and who is not."
"... I'm not The Mole."
Ferdi
27 years old
Student

"I'm Chandrika and I work with psychiatric clients. They have an extra handicap, because they are deaf and hard of hearing. So we use sign language to communicate with each other."
"I think I can have an advantage in the fact that I keep an eye on people very well, especially on the non-verbal side."
"I thought about what The Mole would look like. It's usually the people who are more in the background. The people who are very striking, usually aren't The Mole."
Chandrika
26 years old
Social Worker

Another helicopter arrives. The host gets out. (note: Angela, the only female Mole host around The Mole up to now!) She welcomes the contestants and tells them about the game a little. And then she takes a silver tube out of her pocket. she says they all get one. It's their personal belonging and they have to carry it on them all the time. It's forbidden to open it. She has Louis's tube. The others will get theirs later on.
So they are in the nature area The Bluff, which they will walk through. They get a map and a compass. The map has a start and a finished marked on it. First they have to assign an order in which they will walk. They always have to stay in that order and have to arrive in that order too. They have to carry all the bags and luggage they took along, with them. For every person that arrives at the finish in the correct order they started in and within 3 hours time, will win 1,000 € for the group pot. If all of them arrive at the finish in the correct order and on time, the money gets doubled! They will win 20,000 €.
Time starts.
All stuff they need to survive a day and a night in the wilderness, is lying at the starting point. They had to leave their personal luggage behind before they went on helicopter. They have to take all the stuff along with them.
CC
Julien:"It was a bit of a false start. Everyone was running aroudn like crazy. In fact I was already thinking 'Is this really going well?' No one took the lead. I think we were all a bit scared to take the first initiative."

Elise:"We have to make sure we all arrive!"
Patricia:"And we have to keep this order all the way to the finish right?"
Elise:"Yep."
Aafke:"I don't want to be bossy or anything, but south is up there and north is over there." (pointing in the directions)
They are searching through the bags to find the map and compass. They have the map already and Louis finds the compass. They study the map, which is quite a primitive one, with no roads or anything on it. They're just standing around, not doing much...
CC
Elise:"It irritated me quite a lot that it took us so long to start moving, because everyone was just running aroudn like crazy. I didn't really think we were well organized."

Elise suggest to let two people walk first with the map and four guys should stay in the back of the group to carry the heavy stuff. Rene and Ferdi have walked several meters away to stand on a big rock to have a better view.
Elise:"This is really taking to long. We have to start moving now..."
Chandrika:"Yes, we haven't got much time!"
Louis:"But we have to make sure were to go. We can walk all the way into that direction and then later find out we had to go into the opposite direction."
Rene gets back from the rock and says they couldn't see much there either. Louis:"OK then we just start walking and hope we'll find water somewhere." (because they are supposed to go into the direction of a lake.)
CC
Rene:"It was going really difficult in the beginning. We got a map with just two dots on it: start and finish. We didn't know how to hold the map. Then we hade to come up with an order in which to walk and decide who would carry what. So it was a bit difficult."

After having wasted 29 minutes, they finally start walking. They now have to keep walking in the order they started with. Everyone carries some bags and some additional stuff. Ferdi goes first with the map, followed by Aafke, who's also carrying a flag. Next is Patricia, who carries a pole, which is carried by Elise on the other end. Behind Elise is Astrid and then Chandrika. Then comes Julien, followed by Ron followed by Louis and Rene who are carrying a big basket together.
They're going through a rough terrain, which is difficult to properly walk on. Patricia:"Ferdi, are we going into the right direction?"
CC
Ferdi:"Somehow I got appointed to walk in front with a map and a compass and to be honest, I've never walked with a compass before. So you start and hope you're lucky."

Ferdi (to Aafke):"Do you see those trees ahead in the distance? That's where we have to go to."
They're going through the swampy part now and Astrid almost falls into a little water stream.
They have one hour and 42 minutes left and suddenly arrive at a familiar spot...
CC
Louis:"At one point, we arrived back where we landed with the helicopter."
Julien:"That's where I was really thinking 'Is this going well.' because it was clear that when we arrived there, we really walked a big way around."
Elise:"No way, did we really walk in a circle? Oh no! I already thought so. I even thought 'Hmm, I feel like we're walking in a circle, but that's probably not the case.' because if I had said that, I was the negative person and such."

They wasted one hour and 15 minutes by walking in a circle. The finish is still at 12 kilometers away from them.
CC
Chandrika:"In the beginning, Aafke already told us where north was."
flashback Aafke:"I don't want to be bossy or anything, but south is up there and north is over there." (pointing in the directions)
Chandrika:"And we only went north a long while later, so yeah, maybe that was the act of a Mole."
Ferdi:"It didn't feel really well, because you're carrying the group's fate. That's not easy. It makes you feel a bit obligated."

They stop again to study the map and look around. Ferdi thinks he sees a lake ahead and stands on a rock to have a better view. Meanwile, everyone is waiting behind them in a row, because they have to stick to the same walking order. Aafke shows the map to the others:"We're not sure, but I do have a good feeling about it so I'm going to let you show it. This is the path we are going to follow." (pointing out a line that's on the map)
CC
Patricia:"Aafke said she could read a map and pointed out a path on the map which we were going to follow... While I saw... even though I can't read maps, that those lines were contour lines."

They have 47 minutes left. Astrid is walking quite fast...
CC
Elise:"I really had to make sure to keep Astrid behind me, because she always seemed to want to race past me."

Elise can't walk very fast, because she and Patricia are carrying a pole together. Astrid almost walks past Elise and they tell her to slow down. Astrid:"Don't worry, I'm watching you!"
CC
Chandrika:"At the times when she had to go faster, she didn't and when she was going faster she almost walked past the person she wasn't allowed to walk past. That struck me."

23 minutes left and Ferdi stops again. He says that the two people who are behind, carrying the big basket, will probably not make it on time. "If I leave my tent behind, I will make it and then they can take it along."
They decide to do so and start running. Ferdi and the women that is. They handed the heavier stuff in to Julien and Ron who are behind them. Several tens of meters behind them, Rene and Louis are walking, carrying the heavy basket. Ferdi and the girls are 2.5 kilometers away from the finish. The basket carriers still have to do 4 kilometers.
The host is awaiting them. They have 14 minutes left when Ferdi arrives. The girls come running too and also get to the finish. 6 people in already, which makes 6,000 €. Still ten minutes left for the others...
Louis and Rene are far behind. They suddenly arrive at a junction and don't know whether to go left or right... Louis yells. Rene:"I thought Ron wait for us."
Louis checks out both paths. Rene suggests to go to the right. "I have a good feeling about it. Let's go." But Louis wants to wait a little longer and yells again. they get no response and decide to go to the right.
Julien meanwhile has reached the finish. 7,000 € ! Ron is also on his way, they see him walking. He still has 8 minutes left, so plenty of time. The others, who are at the finish already, are cheering him on.
Louis and Rene hear the cheering. It comes from the left... So they went into the wrong direction and go back. They have 4 and a half minutes left. Ron arrives at the finish.
The people who already arrived at the finish are allowed to go back to help the others. Ferdi runs to Louis and Rene and says it's still do-able and asks if he can carry something, but they don't want to stop to take things off. Rene and Louis ask how far it is. Ferdi:"About 4 minutes." Rene:"No we need a number of meters." Ferdi says it's a bout 500 meters. Rene and Louis decide to start running, but Louis slips and falls over, letting the basket drop!
They have 2 minutes 40 seconds left and the girls see them arriving in the distance and start cheering and yelling. They arrive at the finish with 2 minutes 28 seconds to spare! Everyone arrived on time, which means they win 20,000 €. The host asks who wants to control the group pot and Rene immediately raises his hand. He gets the coupons of 20,000 €. They also get pocket money to buy food and stuff during the 4 weeks. Patricia takes it.
Later on they sit around the campfire, eating chips and stuff that was in the big basket. They will sleep in tents this night. They make a toast to the game. Elise toasts that all 10 of them will stay in the game. Louis:"Yeah, someone already has to leave tomrrow, guys..."
CC
Julien:"I think the group can cooperate well. It's important to create a base of trust in the group and that worked out well today. I think the Mole kept himself in the background to see how everyone works and to find out how far he can go. Or she."
Astrid:"It's scary, because you don't know what is going to happen next. I know there will be some enormous challenges. Physical challenges... but also the challenge to eventually try to unmask The Mole and to win."
Elise:"I'm quite nervous for the questionnaire tomorrow. If I blow up it's bye bye Canada!"
Ferdi:"I am going to keep an eye on the redistribution of the roles. I'm very curious as to who will be the leader tomorrow and I think things will get clearer from then on."
Louis:"Wait and see. I think The Mole is also waiting and to unmask him I also have to wait."

Day 2 - The Bluff Area
The contestants wake up and wash themselves with water from a little stream nearby and then head to the cars.
CC
Elise:"The most important way to find The Mole is intuition. And provoking too, I think. Yesterday Chandrika looked at me and said 'We have never had a blonde female as Mole before!' so I said 'No that's true.' and then she watches you to look how you react. I think that's a good way."
Ferdi:"The Mole will strike when people go past rationality and wind up into the emotional. I think The Mole will appear very quickly then."
Ron:"I think it's really good to lie sometimes in the group, because it's an advantage if people suspect you. Everyone closely watches each other. If someone is walking behind or does strange things, you see that the entire group notices it."

Via Halifax Harbour they go to George Island. They will have to do an assignment which will only succeed if all ten of them work together.
First they need to appoint someone who has to do an important job.

Rene volunteers. He has to stay behind as the host takes the others along with her. They are taken to the entrance of undergroudn tunnels which go aroud under the entire island. It's pitch black in the tunnels. They have to get to the exit, but the door of the exit will be closed. The only way to open the door is to aim a laser beam on it. The laser beam will start within 15 minutes. They have to use mirrors to guide the laser through the tunnels towards the exit. Two people can explore the tunnels to already find a passage. After an hour, the lights will go on. That means it's game over. However, if they succeed, they win 5,000 €.
They get in and the host closes the door behind them.
CC
Julien:"It immediately started with the question which two people would explore the undergroudn network of tunnels and I noticed Louis insisted on being one of the explorers and he asked me if I wanted to go with him."
Louis:"I didn't think we were going to succeed. I thought it was a typical challenge where The Mole can sabotage very easily. Also because it's very difficult to get a laser beam through those tunnels. I already told Ferdi in the beginning that it wasn't going to work."
Julien:"Louis started running straight forward in the tunnel and almost immediately found the exit, so I thought 'Hmm this is going well!' "

There are several routes to get to the exit. They don't know it yet, but they have to find the shortest route, or else it will be impossible for them to guide the laser all the way through to the exit.
CC
Julien:"We ran back quickly and thought this assignment would be a succes. We had foudn the exit so quickly and the group only had to aim the mirrors correctly and it's over."

15 minutes have past and Rene (who had to do an important job) is told to go cycle on a bike (a hometrainer). He doesn't know that he will activate the laser beam that way. The laser will only start burning when Rene cycles faster than 8 km/h.
In the tunnels they take position already with mirrors and all. There's chaos, with everyone talking to each other. The laser starts burning and they try to aim it through the tunnels with the mirrors. They've got to have the shortest way or else the laser beam will become too weak. They have to aim it on a reflector at the exit door, which will then open. If the beam gets interrupted, the door will close again 30 seconds later.
If the door opens, they have to run out and quickly get several tripods which are lying outside the tunnels. They have to use the tripods to attach the mirrors to it, so they can all run out.
The contestants are still trying to guide the laser beam through the tunnels...
CC
Ferdi:"It only takes one small movement or you only have to breathe a little and it results into a chain reaction which creates such a big deviation that it's impossible to get it right and you have to start all over again. It's very difficult to get 7 people on the right position at the same time."

We see Aafke standing with a mirror, but no laser beam. She's waiting. Ron is also waiting for a laser beam to arrive...
CC
Ron:"I was standing there, but there was no laser beam. So I was just getting bored there, standing in the cold."

They have 25 minutes left.
Astrid:"I think we're right on schedule people!"
But then the laser stops burning... Rene is cycling under 18 km/h...
CC
Rene:"It wasn't my fault, I kept on cycling and went for it 100 %. Sometimes they said 'Maybe if you cycle faster, we'll get more light!' but I don't know what they meant with that..."

Ron gets back and yells:"We have the wrong path, there's got to be a shorter way!"
CC
Chandrika:"Suddenly someone said 'There has to be a shorter way.'  So two people tried to find the right way in the beginning, but they apparently didn't find the right route."
Ron:"That happened after half an hour, so we lost a lot of time because of that."

The route Julien and Louis found was too long. It won't work trying to get the laser beam to the exit via their route. They have to find a shorter way now. On the map you can see the route. The red route is the one Julien and Louis found. The green route is the shorter one they need.
They find the shorter route and guide the laser beam to the exit. The door opens and Astrid and Ron come running out to get the tripods. They have 3 minutes left. Rene sees them getting out of the tunnel, taking the tripods and running back in and the door closes again. He has no idea what's going on.
They try to attach the mirrors to the tripods, but after a while time's up and the lights go on. Challenge failed.
CC
Elise:"It was all so messy. Everyone should have just stayed on the same spot and keep their mirrors, but... because everyone was just running around and then every time a different plan was made. Then through this route and next another route and we just wasted a lot of time with that. We weren't really clever about it."
Louis:"We didn't really discuss about it. I ran to the exit from the first time and we never even thought about it that there could be another way. We also encounters 7 corners, so then you're not going to think about there being another possibility. You only do that when it doesn't work out."
Rene:"I could get angry at other people, but I don't know who's fault it was the challenge failed. It was annoying, but it doesn't change anything."
Julien:"The group wasn't really fanatic. Maybe they thought they could take it slow, because of the succes of the first challenge."
Ron:"I already thought the challenge would fail anyway. It went as I thought it would go, so for me nothing bad happened."

Their pot stays at 20,000 €

Suspicions
Ron:"Patricia is mostly my suspect. In the first challenge where we were going to run... if someone's shoe laces were untied she wanted the entire group to stop, so that that one person could tie their shoe laces again." flashback Patricia:"My shoe lace is untied again, sorry! I know, it's really bad." "It's just a feeling. She was already suspicious to me before we even started the assignment."
Patricia:"It's very difficult, I really don't know. I guess I'll just have to guess. Ron, Chandrika or Julien. But I really don't know."
Julien:"My Moles are people who wait and see and just carry along and don't take any initiatives." flashback Louis and Rene are far behind. They suddenly arrive at a junction and don't know whether to go left or right... "Louis and Rene were just waiting there. I wonder why, because it was quite obvious that they had to follow the main road and turn right into small road."
Louis:"If I have to name two I'd say.... Patricia and Astrid. But I don't know why. I really wouldn't know."
Astrid:"It's a man and I'm watching three men and will keep on observing them during the next challenges. I suspect Ferdi, Louis and Julien, because he's nonchalant, which is easy to use when you're The Mole."
Rene:"Based on the first challenge it's really difiicult. I can imagine The Mole is keeping low to observe everyone first and see how the group works. I'm thinking towards Astrid a little, but I really don't have any feeling that tells me 'It has to be that person!' "
Aafke:"I think Chandrika is The Mole, because she was htting against my arms when I was trying to aim the laser with my mirror. I was counting '1... 2...' and every time I was at 3 I got another hit in my arm." flashback of two people standing next to each other with mirrors and one accidentally hitting the other. "After three times it started to get obvious."
Chandrika:"Today's challenge failed gigantically. The Mole had a great deal in it I think. It went well at first... but Louis was changing our positions all the time." flashback Louis is telling Chandrika to go stand somewhere else with her mirror. "So yeah... I don't know if we can trust him."
Elise:"I think Louis. He was running around like crazy all the time, changed people's positions and took control. He wanted to take over from me."
Ferdi:"I think Ron is The Mole. He's very quiet, can blend in to the backgroudn very easily. He doesn't want to charachterize himself and if something might go wrong, that's a great position to just say 'Oh well... sorry.' "

Suspicious in this episode
Ferdi was guiding the group and they just walked aroudn in a circle.
Aafke told everyone where north and south was and later it turned out they headed into the wrong direction. She also pointed out a road on the map, which actually were contour lines.
Patricia slowed everyone down a lot by tying her shoelaces.
Astrid always seemed to want to go past Elise.
Louis fell at a critical moment. Was he trying to stall time?
Rene was cycling below 18 km/h at one point, which made the laser go out.
Julien and Louis didn't find the shortest road to the exit at first.

Elimination
Elise:"I really don't know who will have to go home. I don't want to think about it, because my stomach starts aching from it!"
Ron:"The person who has to go home today is unbelievably unlucky. It could be anyone except The Mole of course. Today it's just a guess... a pure guess and hoping you can get through."
Rene:"In the short period that you got to know each other, you do get some kind of bonding. I wouldn't know anyone who I'd like to see get sent home tonight. I hope it's not me anyway."
It's dark. They're sitting outside. As the host starts her speech it's beginning to snow mildly, which makes this elimination one of the most mysterious looking ever. Who will be sent home?

Episode 2

Home