The Dutch Mole
Episode 9

February 2001 - Amsterdam
Nine contestants and a mole traveled through Scotland. It was wet, cold, but very beautiful. In short, it was a beautiful country for a game where nothing is what it seems to be. Every 2 days, a contestant was eliminated. And that was the one who knew least about the Mole. They didn't see the clues. But how could you know who the Mole was?

While Holland was still guessing who the Mole was, the contestants were invited to watch the finale. But first they asked them who they thought the Mole is.
Doortje:"I still think it's Nico, but I've had a lot of doubts with Yvonne. I can't stay with certainty it is Nico, I still think he's a good Mole, but Yvonne too, because you wouldn't expect it of her. So she could be it too. I don't know."
Dan:"Either Nico, Sigrid or Yvonne? I'd go for Sigrid. Sigrid is the Mole!"
Cor:"From day 1 I have voted for Dan. I knew for sure it was him. And now I'm sure again. It's Yvonne!"
Nazife:"When we were in Scotland, I thought it was Dan, but now that I've seen the episodes I think it's Nico."
Björn:"I first thought it was Cor, but when he got eliminated it all became one big riddle to me again. Yvonne is the Mole."
Gerda:"I think it's a woman... Yvonne!"
Ward:"I think Yvonne is the Mole... yeah... Yvonne!"

Nico's Mole confession:"The last three weeks I've played a maskerade and it begins to fall apart. It's difficult to keep up. The weird thing about it is that it became more fun to do. I feel less guilty. Not that I felt very guilty, but.. It's a role you have to get used to, but it's a nice role to do."

The contestants look at the revealing of the Mole. Some are very surprised it's Nico.

Angela:"Sigrid, what did you feel when you found out you had won?"
Sigrid:"I had never thought about me winning. I knew Nico was the Mole, but I still had competition with Yvonne. Before the test began, I was just waiting and Yvonne was busy reading her notebook. I also thought 'What do I do with the money?' "

Angela:"Yvonne, you have worked the hardest. You ran the fastest and you showed a lot of efforts, but you started suspecting the Mole a bit later, so you knew less about him. Then you're standing there and you just miss thte money."
Yvonne:"I knew from the moment I had taken my test, that it went completely wrong. Nerves... I knew it wasn't me."
Angela:"Were you very disappointed?
Yvonne:"No, because I knew had blown it for myself. That's the great thing about the game, you can choose. If you do your test well, you can stay, but I knew I hadn't done well."
Angela:"It was difficult for you all, but it wasn't very esay for Nico either. Let's watch some more..."

Episodes 1 to 3
Nico:"My experience as the Mole the first days... I'm very tense about how it will be. Especially the first day was very difficult. I was afraid I would be suspicious from the very first day... it's something I didn't have much comfort with. Because I'm the kind of person that's not very expressive and a bit quiet, I thought I would be very suspicious soon. In the car a clenched fear came over me. I thought it would all go completely wrong."

Day 1 Mountain/Cable-railway challenge
Flashback episode 1 Nico and Ward are trying to measure the water in the buckets for their first riddle
Nico:"The first days, my strategy was to stay out of the picture a little and if I could do something, I would do that by omitting some things."
Flashback Nico:"Shall we tkae the next one?" Ward:"OK, that's fine." Nico:"'Cause I'm not good at these things."

Day 2 Bank challenge
Flashback episode 1 Angela:"I need 2 people with a good memory, and it might help if they're good at maths." Sigrid volunteers and all the rest says Nico should go, because they know he's good at maths. But Nazife stands up and wants to be the person good at maths.

Day 3 Mountain bike dropping
Flashback episode 2 Nazife and Doortje are on the phone. Nazife:"And then you said we had to go to the other direction and that's what we did."
Nico:"I made sure Nazife was in charge of the communications. My purpose was that I thought she wouldn' be really good at it. It's a challenge where communication is very important, so if anything had to go wrong, that was my chance."

Day 5 The riddles
Flashback episode 3 Nico:"OK, first riddle: Which day was it yesterday, if 4 days before the day after tomorrow was a Thursday?"
<Confession: Sigrid:"Today with the riddles... It was obvious he wanted to continue in that group." End of confession>
Nico:"We really have to decide something or we'll run out of time."
<Confession: Sigrid:"I noticed Nico wanted to go on. I saw it on the screen. I also saw he didn't participate in the discussion whether to continue or not and I noticed he wanted to continue. Such things strike me, because I'm paying close attention to him." End of confession>

Day 3 The hour-glass challenge
Nico:"My first real chance to do something was with the hour-glass challenge. At a certain point there was some noise in the room. I was on guard with Dan and Björn. When the hour-glass got turned by Dan, I distracted him and he forgot to put a mark on the paper."
(The contestants are watching this too. When they find this out, Yvonne says:"YOU!!")
Nico:"The group really did their best and I have to say I really felt like a bastard afterwards."
Flashback episode 2 Cor:"And I'm the oldest, I should be the wisest." Angela:"That's the game..." Cor:"No, I don't care, but now I really have something against the Mole. At first I didn't have, but now I do. Now it's getting personal!"
(The group laughs. Yvonne:"Here he is Cor. You can hit him now!")

Day 4 Raft building challenge
Flashback episode 2 Confession of Sigrid:"I voted for Nico today. I already said in my previous confession that he would be the perfect Mole, because he is very stable and doesn't take much initiative. Today at the raft building too. While peddling I looked at him. He choses the easy way out. I thought he was peddling in the wrong direction. That's why I thought 'I'm going for Nico.' It's not a certainty, but an assumption."

Day 6 Abseilen
Flashback episode 3 Dan:"And when all 7 of you have gone down and number 7 has the last box with money, then I will feel really bad."
Nico:"If I did something in this challenge, it wouldn't be very difficult, because I could just throw away a key, or throw a box in the sea. But I didn't feel I could influence the result about which contestant was staying or not. If I had done something, it would've been against Dan. I don't want to have such an influence."

Nico:"It's a very strenuous thing to do, but I knew that on forehand. But I can't say I have fun doing it at the moment."
(Group:"Aaaaaah..." Dan:"Poor guy!")

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Angela:"We just saw Dan arriving at the hill and then Björn got eliminated, although he didn't fill out the questionnaire the worst. He did it better than you. Did that have any influence? How did you feel or were you just glad?"
Dan:"When I got the money I was very happy. When arrived back with the group, I knew I could stay. I noticed nobody came to congratulate me, except for Björn and when a few minutes later it was time for the execution and the person that was so sportsmanlike to congratulate me got eliminated... I found that very annoying."

Angela:"Björn, then you had to go home. IT was a shock, wasn't it? To us it was a shock. How did it feel to have to go home? Because you really wanted to win, right?"
Björn:"I especially wanted to stay in till the end. I didn't think of winning yet. But I did want to be in the finale."

Angela:"Dan, actually it's your fault that the hour-glass challenge failed. But you got distracted. Didn't you know you forgot to put a mark?"
Dan:"We were there with three and I think that was the only time I turned that hour-glass. For the rest I barely touched it. So it was two times as bad."

Angela:"Björn, you were sitting next to them and you didn't see a thing. You didn't even think a single second that you were fooled."
Björn:"Well, it was a long night."

Episode 4
Nico:"It's as though the group has accepted that there is a Mole in the game. That there has to be one. And that makes it less annoying when I do certain things."

Day 7 Hot air balloon challenge
Nico:"With the hot air balloon challenge I made sure I would have the phone. To begin with, the connection was very bad. So I thought 'Hey, I can do that too!' So at certain moments I deliberately broke the connection to make communication between the two groups more difficult."
Flashback episode 4 Nazife:"Nico?" (there's a bad connection) "Hello? Nico?" Nico:"Nazife? Can you hear me? Nazife?" Nazife:"Hello? Hello, Nico?"

Day 8 The museum challenge
Flashback episode 4 A door is closed with a big bang. Sigrid and Nico look at each other anxiously. The guard is walking through the museum.
Nico:"I let the flashlight fall one time, which made some noise. I also had my rubber shoes on, of which I know they make a lot of noise at the floor over there. But it didn't have much effect, though."

Day 8 The taxi challenge
Nico:"I did everything to let this challenge fail. To begin with, I ran to the wrong direction."
Flashback episode 4 Yvonne explains Nico the way on the map:"So you go outside, turn left, then right, left, left. So first left, right and then over the viaduct. OK?"
While Nico runs off, we hear the beginning of Yvonne's explanation 2 times. "So you go outside, turn left.... So you go outside, turn left..." Then we see Nico running outside and turning RIGHT!
(The group laughs. Yvonne:"There! He just turns right!")
Nico:"I arrived at the point where I was supposed to arrive and I was 2 minutes late, so I thought the taxi would already be gone, so I went back to the library."
Flashback episode 4 Nico arrives back at the library, where Cor and Yvonne are sitting. "I think I was on time" Yvonne:'Didn't you wait there? Was there a cross on the ground?" Nico:"No, I didn't see a cross." Yvonne:"You've got to wait there!" Cor:"It must be stuck in traffic."
Nico:"So I went back to the stop and the taxi still hadn't arrived yet. I had to wait, because it would have been too obvious if I would still miss it. So the challenge was a succes, but not thanks to me, I guess."

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Nico:"It was just impossible to miss that taxi!"
Doortje:"Then you're really trying to do your best to miss it!"
Angela:"If you look back at it, you think 'How come I didn't see that?'. Nazife, you were really involved with it. People started suspecting you."
Nazife:"Yeah, with the phone.. I really thought that was horrible, because it was very frustrating and I'm not good at those mobile phones. I didn't understand a thing of it... really frustrating. But hey, it's a game..."
Angela:"And afterwards you didn't think 'Hmm what a coincidence.'?"
Nazife:"I thought Dan was the Mole, and if you're suspecting someone, everything you see is a confirmation to your suspicions, so... you have to choose someone."

Angela:"Yvonne, you really were taken for a ride by the Nico in the library. Didn't you have a clue? Because when he got back for the second time, I thought 'Oh God, if they still don't see it by now.' "
Yvonne:"Oh yes I did know. Already because it took him so long until he knew where he had to go to. That was very annoying. Then he came back and it was clearly said that there would be a cross on the ground. I had already voted for Nico by then and I thought 'Well, Cor will know it now too', because it was so obvious. But apparently it wasn't, right Cor?"
Cor:"No, Nico came back so innocent!"
Yvonne:"Not at all!"

Episode 5
Day 9 The travel to Oban
Nico:"We went to Braveheart's birth place, of which I knew we wouldn't find anything there. Then I deliberately chose to go through the city. I knew there would be a great chance we would get stuck in traffic. And we did. Later I also let us drive to the wrong direction via the M9."
Flashback episode 5 In the car, Nico:"... to Wallace Monument on the M9..."
Nico:"We got pretty far, but didn't make it after all."

Day 10 The partner challenge
Nico:"The partner challenge was the ultimate possibility to try to sabotage in a non-subtle way. And I took that opportunity. When it was my turn, I just started changing people."
Flashback episode 5 Nico:"I think 6 has to be changed by 8."
Nico:"I didn't even look. I think a lot of people were placed wrong. What I notice, was that the attention to the game was drawn away because of the visit of the partners or family members. So afterwards no one did an analysis to try to see where there a mistake was made. And that's amazing, because the partners could really help with that."

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Angela:"Cor, why did you never think about Nico?"
Cor:"Nico was so very innocent to me. My problem was I suspected Dan to be the Mole and you start seeing everything Dan does wrong."
Angela:"Like what?"
Cor:"Dan came to me and said 'Nazife has got to be the Mole, because she goes up the mountain and she's tired and doesn't even sweat.' and then I start thinking 'Yeah, you're just telling me that, because the production crew told you I'm suspecting you, so you try to put suspicions on someone else.' "

Angela:"Sigrid, in the polaroid challenge, you were sitting next to Nico all the time, while you voted for him the previous night. So you knew you were sitting next to the Mole. How did that feel?"
Sigrid:"It didn't change anything to the person of Nico. But I did think 'Yeah, you're sitting here very comfty, but you are the Mole!'. I've never talked to Nico about suspicious things. Doortje and me, we told each other everything and I didn't want to talk about it with him, because that wouldn't be very nice for him."

Angela:"Doortje, just before the finale you had to go. You were doing very well. You even voted for Nico and still you got eliminated. Did you start doubting afterwards?"
Doortje:"No, not really. I did think it could be Yvonne after all and that it was just played of her to go get the others on the mountain the first day. But I knew it when I had done the test. I knew I had to go."

Episodes 6 to 8
Nico:"The weird thing about it is that it became more fun to do. I feel less guilty. Not that I felt very guilty, but.. It's a role you have to get used to, but it's a nice role to do."

Day 11 Tasting Haggis
Flashback episode 6 Yvonne:"But if you don't know what it should taste like, then..." Angela:"No no, you just have to decide which one is made by Dan and Doortje."
Nico:"I wanted to create more doubt about the three Haggises, but the first one tasted so very different. Although it was more delicious."
Flashback Sigrid:"I would say the first one, because it tastes more different than the other two." Nico:"I dislike the third one the most."
Nico:"I thought it would be too obvious to choose one of the others because of the difference in taste. So I didn't do it, because it would make me suspicious. Even more than I already am."

Day 12 Defending the fortress
Flashback episode 6 Nico gets the suit and falls twice on his way back, while Dan and Doortje are screaming to hurry up and get in.
Nico:"I suggested to go get one of the suits which were outside of the fortress. I succeeded and it made the others trust me a bit more.
Flashback Yvonne gets shot
Nico:"Then Yvonne got shot, which I didn't find bad, because it brought suspicions on her."

Day 14 Who do you trust?
Nico:"I knew what the challenge would be, so I didn't refuse, but just said yes. I didn't even hesitate."
Flashback episode 7 Sigrid:"Can you do that?" Nico:"Sure I can."
Nico:"It eventually meant money in the kitty but no exemption for Sigrid."

Day 15 Taptoe challenge
Nico:"I deliberately walked the wrong way, but in these situations it doesn't cost me much effort to do so, because I have the sense of rhythm of a cat. I knew on forehand what the challenge would be and I didn't think much about what I could do. It was just something small I did. I didn't want to fail the challenge, but just do something wrong and that actually went without having to do any effort. I'm just not good at that kind of stuff, so it's easy to make a mistake there. Something I did notice, is that it costs more effort to actually let a challenge succeed than to let it fail, because you do something stupid very quickly."

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Angela:"Nico, so you were the Mole. How did it feel when you were walking around in Holland and you know that more than a million people watch 'The Mole' and you know you're it. How's that?"
Nico:"Yeah, it is rather strange. It's like you have a secret."
Angela:"Was it a difficult secret to keep to yourself?"
Nico:"You get used to it. In the beginning, definitely after you have come home and it made such an impression on you, it's difficult not to tell anyone. But after that you get used to it."

Angela:"Yvonne, how were the reactions in general?"
Yvonne:"People who know me, say that it is really Yvonne standing there and people who don't know me, say I have a sharp tongue or I'm a virago. But that slows down after a while. But after the first episode, where I drag Gerda up the hill, you get that kind of remarks quite rightly."

The others
Angela:"Nico was very succesful in getting other people suspicious, but you also were suspisious because of your own mistakes."

"On the first day, Nazife was immediately a suspect..."
Flashback Dan:"Come on, give your bag to me, get your coat, come on. You hardly even sweating."
Confession: Dan:"I took her with the neck and I felt not a single drop of sweat, so I thought 'Hmmm.. strange.' "
Gerda:"I found out tonight that Nico and Dan were philosophing about how to take care of the money. So I knew at that moment they couldn't be the Mole. So there were 2 suspects less. I think it's that girl Nazife, because I've noticed small things I've seen that I don't really trust."

"And Sigrid seemed to be the Mole too, again and again..."
Flashback episode 1 Sigrid:"Yvonne is 33, so.." She types in 1976 and presses ENTER. Nazife:"No, 1967! You did 1976..."
Flashback episode 3 Angela:"Dan is going to get dressed. What will he wear. The black suit or the kilt?"
Sigrid:"If I would have to work hard, I wouldn't wear a kilt." She was wrong, Dan did wear the kilt.
...
Yvonne:"Does Dan know that man is talking about the Scottish version of the Mole?" Angela:"Of course."
Yvonne:"Then he will ask for more information." Sigrid:"No! I think he's not that crazy."
Dan to the man:"So tell me a little bit more about it." Sigrid was wrong again.
...
Angela:"The owner of the hotel will ask him about the Scottish way of wearing a kilt and that's..."
Yvonne and Sigrid:"Without underpants!" Angela:"He will ask Dan if he's wearing underpants or not. What's Dan's reply?" Sigrid:"He's wearing underpants." Yvonne:"No he's not wearing underpants." Dan wasn't wearing any underpants. Again Sigrid was wrong.

"In some challenges, Yvonne made herself suspicious unwillingly..."
Flashback episode 3 The riddles. Yvonne:"4 days before the day after tomorrow is Thursday, so it's Monday today and so yesterday is... Sunday." WRONG!!!
The second riddle: Sigrid:"Just quit it Yvonne." Yvonne:"No, we can at least try. This has to be multiplied by 1,1 mm, so..." She types in the wrong answer.
Third riddle: Yvonne:"Yeah... 6! A man rolls 1 cigarette out of 6 fags, how many can he make out of 36 fags? Yeah, of course! 6!" WRONG!!!
Flashback  episode 6 Yvonne turns the piece of paper with the Morse code on it. "Oh God, no!"
The group is watching this now too, and Dan says:"Yeah, that really was a good one!"

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Angela:"Yvonne, you really felt bad. Did you expect people would think you would be the Mole because of this?"
Yvonne:"Well, if I go in a game, then a switch gets turned inside of me and I'm going for it. I did thought about whether I would be a good Mole, but then you're in the game in a different way. I think I would have been able to play the role, but what you saw here is really me, so I really felt bad."
Angela:(acting out the way Yvonne said it)"36 fags! Yeah...6!"
Yvonne:(laughing)"Yeah and then I am really sure it's correct. But it's just something I'm not good at, solving riddles. Just let me build a raft."

Angela:"Dan, you had a strategy, right? Did it work?"
Dan:"Part of it did. I wanted to act really suspicious and then look around and the one who would be most surprised must be the Mole. The first part worked, I got very suspicious, but the Mole wasn't looking surprised."

Angela:"Björn, many people thought Yvonne couldn't be the Mole, because she was way too fanatic, but you just thought that was a reason to suspect her."
Björn:"Yeah, that's why I voted for her the first time."
Angela:"When you were watching it at home, did you still think it was Yvonne?"
Björn:"No, whether you're at home or in the game, it's both very difficult, but I didn't think it was Yvonne anymore, because I was absolutely sure it would be Cor. Before we went abseiling, he told me to sabotage the challenge, so Dan had to go home. And I thought 'Hmmm, clever of the Mole to find a companion.' "

Angela:"The group was very fanatic, wasn't it scary to be the Mole in such a fanatic group?"
Nico:"In the beginning it really was. But I got used to it and it also became better when I got to know the people."

Angela:"Gerda, where you surprised by the fanaticism?"
Gerda:"Well, they could just help you to do an extra effort."
Angela:"If it had taken a bit longer, Yvonne would have taken you on her shoulders and carry you up the mountain."
Gerda:"Exactly, if it wasn't for that, I would have never reached the top. It was nice to have people encouraging you, but not when I was trying to get some breath and Dan said 'Come on, goddamn! 24.000 gilders!'. Then I felt like 'Yeah right!' "

Angela:"Ward, you weren't so very fanatic, I think. Wasn't it you who would rather go to sleep with the hourglass challenge?"
Ward:"Yeah, that's right, it was me. I thought if something would go wrong it would be that challenge."

Angela:"Doortje, you got a label very soon. What did they say about you?"
Doortje:"That I was selfish?"
Angela:"Was it true?"
Doortje:"Yes and no. I didn't think I was very selfish, but you're there for yourself, so you eventually choose for yourself. I can imagine people thought I was selfish, because when we had to sleep in the car, there was so much nagging going on about it. And because evryone had such a discussion about it, I felt like 'OK, I'll sleep in my bed.', because I didn't feel like argueing and then everyone got angry and said 'You're young, you go sleep in the car.' So I said 'OK, I'll sleep in the car.' And that wasn't good either and... oh, really... So I chose the easy way out many times, but I did hear I was selfish."

Angela:"You two found each other really quick, Dan and Yvonne. What was going on between the two of you?"
Yvonne:"I notice very soon when if I get on with someone or not. And I really felt Dan and me were on the same wave-length. We only had to look at each other and we knew what we were thinking. Like with those dillemma's I always knew exactly what Dan would do. After two days we went outside in the middle of the night, away from the group and we looked each other deep in the eyes and honestly told we weren't the Mole."
Angela:"But how can you trust each other in this game?"
Dan:"We just honestly told each other. And we agreed that we get as far as we could and if we were in the finale together, it would be the two of us against each other. We did this for a long time, but eventually I had to go."

Then Sigrid finally gets her cheque of 70.000 gilders.

Secret Clues
Day 8 Kelvin Grove Museum
In the scene with the exciting music where Nico and Sigrid are walking around in the museum. When you rewind the scene with the music you can clearly hear a man saying 'Nico is the Mole.'
The same thing happened at day 12 when Kilchurn Castle got zoomed in.

But a more obvious hint was in the opening sequence. Every week it was the same piece of film footage for every contestant we saw, except for Nico. We did see him abseiling each time, but it always was a different shot. And if you put the shots behind each other (so first the shot of episode 1, then episode 2,....) you can see him abseiling down the cliff.

Gerda went to Suriname after she left the Mole. She just got back.
Ward still works with lots of pleasure as a group leader with children.
Björn is planning to become a skiing instructor after his studies.
Nazife still is the only Turkish speech therapist in Holland.
Cor became grandfather for the second time and subscribed to an employment agency.
Dan got offered a new job after the first episode.
Doortje quit studying and became skiing instructor in Austria.
Yvonne took a half year off at the defence department to travel around the world.
Sigrid gave up her job and is looking for another one.
Nico and Michel are going to move to a new apartment in Rotterdam.

<~Episode 8

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