El Topo, 6/30

Reality shows have made me laugh before, like, a lot. I used to watch Survivor and it could, at times, be extremely funny. I tend to have VH1 on in the background as filler a lot, so I see Flavor of Love and I Love New York and all that shit. But never before have I experienced Office-levels of hilarity on an episode of reality television...until last night.

Oh my GOD. Best episode EVERRRRRR.

- As I said before: CRAZY!!!Mark. He's definitely Moley... but if he is the Mole, he deserves an Emmy for Best Fake He's-Gone-Totally-Psycho Gleam in His Eyes Ever.
- I'm so not surprised nobody took the exemption on that first task, even CRAZY!Mark. I mean, look at how hated Craig is now for taking the exemption he was offered... the person in the first mission would have been screwing the group out of more than money; he would have been screwing people over in the cold.
- A lot of people are wearing yellow. I'm just saying. I don't know what it means.
- I've watched that video above like 608086 times and I can't stop laughing. The look on Clay's face when Craig assigns him to the unicycle! Mark's "it was (beat) INSULTING"! "It was almost... Shakespearean" or whatever it is! Jon Kelley trying to stop laughing when Paul and Nicole get assigned the llama! Hell, PAUL AND NICOLE GETTING ASSIGNED THE LLAMA!!!! I'm just sad we were deprived of what would have clearly been the greatest moment in reality television history: them actually attempting to run the race!
- I'm about 90% sure something would have come up in that Travelers challenge. Like, Jon would have offered them a ride halfway through, because, as Mark said, it would have been extremely difficult, even on a bike or whatever.
- Other great faces include Jon Kelley's in the scene where Paul was blabbering on about how he was talking to a lemon (MOLE + N????).
- Oh my God, the fight. I was like, howling and rolling around. I love how it got started over something as stupid as birthdays or whatever, and then Clay totally manipulated Paul into freaking out. And then Clay threw a lemon at him!!! "I WAS ASSAULTED WITH A PIECE OF FRUIT!!!" And the song will live on forever. PAUL-FREE! IN VAN #2!
- I think I like Nicole waaaayyyy better than Paul, even though they're both so obnoxious, because it's clear this is part of Nicole's game and she can control her emotions and the...let's say less charming aspects of her personality, and Paul is just an ass. Oh, and she's hilarious in her assitude (to coin a word). "ARE WE GONNA SHOOT SOMETHING?????"
- Craig would have rocketed to my favorites list if he wasn't there already with that "these people are insane!!!!" comment.
- Something about Alex just amuses the crap out of me. I think it's the hair. It reminds me of soft-serve ice cream.
- Awfully Moley behavior? The way Craig said "exemption" (like "hey hey Jon! Secret code that I know about because I'm the Mole!"). The way Mark insisted on getting the same journal, and the way they focused on it.
- I couldn't have been the only one that looooved that moment at the end, after the elimination, where Nicole was talking about how she thought Kristen was intelligent and capable, and then... CUT TO KRISTEN BOOBIES IN THE HOT TUB!!!
- I think all the sane people are going to leave. At this rate, the final three will be Paul, Nicole, and fullyCRAZY!!!!Mark. And when CRAZY!!!Mark finds out he's in the final three, every vein in his neck will explode. Gloooorious.
- Who do we all think was a second ahead of Kristen? I'll bet Nicole... if she's not the Mole. Hey, if she's not, she's got a gimme question in every quiz from now on (the two questions they ask on every quiz are "who is the Mole?" and "is the Mole male or female?")...
- GIRLS QUIT SUCKING.
- CRAZY!MARK!!!! CRAZY!MARK!!!! CRAZY!MARK!!!!

Who's actually the Mole? I don't know; you can easily make a case for any of them. My gut says Clay, but that's just a blind guess, and I'm not charging, guns blazing, into the "CLAY4MO!!!!!!" camp, claiming every second of the show somehow secretly proves he's the Mole. It's just a stupid gut thing, probably more because he reminds me of S1's Mole, Kathryn - he's a lawyer, intelligent, relatively under-the-radar, and he's a "cool cat" who can occasionally explode (Kathryn cried and fainted, Clay blew up at Paul). I wouldn't be surprised if any of them were the Mole at all, though. The only one I would have been SHOCKED was the Mole was Kristen, and we know what happened to her. I guess my least suspected person is Paul; he's not a very guarded person. All that said, I don't think any of the players know who the Mole is, either. They all seem to be spreading their answers around on the quizzes, and when they don't they get eliminated; Liz, Bobby, Victoria, and Kristen all played this way the night they were sent home. We know Paul suspects Craig and Alex suspects Nicole, and that's about it.

As a final note, I want to know how long people take, on average, to finish the quizzes. Less than a minute? Three minutes? Ten minutes? Inquiring minds want to know.