The mole, The Mole’s winner, and whether any money was left (2024)

The editing of Netflix’s The Mole season 2 might be clunky, with the interviews constantly interrupting the action and dialogue hacked together like a puzzle created by a four-year-old with rusty scissors.

But friends: It absolutely fooled me! I was convinced for eight episodes that one person was undeniably the mole because of how under-edited they were. Then that person got red-screened, and I was flabbergasted.

The editing got me—and just screwed over that player by basically ignoring them for the entire season.

Yes, the storytelling is my least-favorite part of The Mole, and though I retain that complaint, this season is considerably better than last, with more from our new host, far better missions, and richer locations.

So let’s dive in to the final two episodes, in which the mole and the winner were revealed and, in another nice change, we got a detailed accounting of the mole’s activity with extemporaneous insight, rather than last season’s abbreviated version with obvious producer-scripted lines.

Just when you think the players who don’t want to earn money are gone, the final five found new ways to blow even more money.

Episode 9: ‘Night at the Museum’

We left Hannah deciding whether to take the $20,000 that she found in one of five baskets, or leave it for a chance at an exemption. The other players talk about selecting her to go on that mission, and Ryan says, “I wouldn’t have been comfortable with myself.” Hello, mole!

Hannah told the story, and then said, “uh, it’s not over” before explaining, in some hacked-together audio, that she could go for an exemption.

But she did not! “I’m taking the money,” she said, and the pot is now $105,000, more than season one’s $101,500 grand total.

The quiz that evening eliminated two players, and the first to get a red screen was Ryan. WAIT WHAT? I was so, so convinced by the editing that she was the mole. “I’m kind of speechless,” she told Ari. ME TOO, Ryan, me too!

That leaves me with Michael or Sean as my top suspects, both of whom have done obvious things throughout the season.

Deanna was out, too. Ugh! Deanna was one of my favorite players. “I’m an investigator. I’m very good at it, and I still don’t know who the mole is,” Deanna allegedly said in a wild frankenbite.

Right before the title card, Michael said, “I’m just curious who everyone else thinks it is. And is it me?” That convinced me it is not him, because I am still allowing the editing to sway me, so that leaves Sean.

The players stayed in the capital of Panang, George Town, and hung out, and I liked seeing them in these downtime moments, even if they are kind of like the set-up scenes from The Real Housewives.

“You’re actively seeking to get money, or you’re not,” Muna told us. With no exemptions left, that’s absolutely right.

Sean pointed out that Michael has a little twitch of a smirk when he lies, and we saw a flashback to that. Interesting.

The players left their hotel for the next mission wearing black jumpsuits. “The mole is in this car right now,” Hannah said. “Because let’s be real: we all knew it was one of us four, most likely one of you three.”

For the mission, they had to steal two pieces of art protected by lasers. It seemed like The Mole just ripped off a season-one challenge from The Traitors. But this version had a fun twist: they weren’t dodging lasers from below, but from above.

One player was dangled above in a harness, and the others had to use ropes and pulleys to move that person around. Basically, it’s a human claw game that requires teamwork, and in which any sabotage would be directly out in the open. Awesome.

They had to find two pieces of art with the correct mark, and would win $30,000 per piece, but lost $2,000 for any dropped artifacts. Ari introduced this via phone, i.e. once again the players did not hear what we did.

Hannah noticed the red stamps, and then paintings showing the first eight tasks; a red stamp of a monkey was in the ninth position.

Michael wanted to hang from the ropes, even though he’s physically the largest person. “Why would we put the biggest, tallest, strongest person hanging above the laser?” Hannah said in an interview. But in person, she agreed.

Michael found the first artifact. Then he put a pot between his feet and dropped it. Why not blow some cash? It’s just money.

“That was so obvious. That was horrible,” Sean said when Muna pulled a rope the wrong way, and then he interrupted the challenge to start an argument with Hannah and Muna about them sabotaging.

After navigating Michael around, Michael knocked over a third vase after fumbling with it as if he was a cartoon character. “Michael has been so obvious in his sabotage,” Hannah said, and “he’s hiding in plain sight.”

That ended the mission, and they ended up with $30,000 minus $6,000, for $129,000 total. When Ari greeted them, he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the four of you look quite so miserable.”

During the quiz, we learned Hannah voted for Muna. Sean thinks it’s Michael. Muna is between Michael and Sean, but leaning Michael.

Hannah was out, having voted for Muna as the mole. “You were so smart, you were so strong, and you never lost your sense of humor, even in the most stressful of times,” Ari told her. I really thought she could win, but Hannah said, “I still have no idea who the mole is.”

Episode 10: ‘Who is the mole?’

“On paper, Michael looks like the most obvious mole,” Muna told us. “He’s been playing a very strategic game.” But then she said there have been moments when Sean showed “how bad of a liar he was—a five-year-old could tell that he was lying.”

Michael suspects Sean, too, while Sean said, “Muna is the smartest player in this game. … Her sabotages are little jabs you might not see but over time you start to feel.” In other words, Muna doesn’t really sabotage at all, does she?

Sean said Micheal was “involved a little bit in every piece of downfall we’ve had in this game,” and noted that “every team he’s on does not win.” Interesting.

For their final mission, the players are taken to a road in between two fields that have been dramatically mowed. They face three grids, and must cross them to win money.

There is only one path, though, and together they have 20 seconds to see the correct solution. It’s a game of memory, basically, played all together.

The grids were worth $10,000, $15,000, and $25,000, for a max of $50,000, but this is Netflix’s The Mole, where no one wants to win any money.

“Don’t blow this,” Ari told the players, and then added, “Get it?” Ha! Ari really has been one of the best parts of this season.

Sean told us that, “If I have to take a moment to sabotage, just a little bit, to get eyes and suspicion on me, I’m going to take that chance, which is going to ruin her game in the end,” arguing that Muna doesn’t know the mole is Michael. But what if Muna thinks you are the mole, Sean?

So Sean went first, and for his last step, Muna said, “It’s not diagonal.” Muna said, and Sean replied, “Yeah, diagonal, copy,” stepped on the wrong space, and blew $10,000.

Then it is Michael’s turn to be an obvious saboteur, and he ignores Sean and Muna who scream at him to take one final step (“diagonal left!”) and Michael steps on the wrong space and blows $15,000. Why even bother with the missions?

“That’s on me, I thought it was diagonal right,” Sean said after lying to Muna. “Sean is the mole,” Muna told us.

It’s up to Muna to take the final grid, which is three times as long, and she relies on her own memory, and gets the $25,000.

“We just banked $25,000,” Michael told us in an interview. “That is a huge achievement.” No, you and Sean burned $25,000, and Muna earned $25,000—a big difference!

The final pot is set: $154,000, about $50,000 more than season one, but still middling compared to other reality TV competitions.

As the players and Ari walked away from that final mission, Ari dramatically snapped, and in slow motion, the last mine blew up, a nice visual touch.

Before the final quiz, the players had dinner with Ari. “Is it more about the money, or is it more about being the champion, the winner, the person who came out on top?” he asked them, which really is the question of the season.

“I’m the same age my mom was when she had to leave and flee her country and come to the U.S. by herself,” Muna said. “Getting this money to give back to my mother—I mean, there’s no amount of words.”

Michael said that “the money will 100 percent help me and my family in the future,” and added that, “In this world today, I’m so lucky to be a gay man who has a family behind me, supporting me every step of the way, so any money I do hopefully win from this, I want to do for myself and for them.”

Sean told the others that “I retired from law enforcement to allow my wife to go on a journey to become a dental hygienist.” Allow? “She’s been the breadwinner since I retired, so for me to win this, it goes toward her student loans, my son Jordan’s student loans, and it can validate me as a father, a husband that can still provide even though I’m not working any more.” Just when I thought that’s a whole lot of yikes, he said, “That was weak, I apologize.”

They take the quiz; the other players reunite, and learn who was eliminated. They’re shocked to see Hannah, and I’m shocked to see Tony and Hannah make out, continuing their audition for Perfect Match.

After the players assemble, and Ari starts the proceedings by asking the mole to reveal themselves.

Sean is the mole. The eliminated players freak out a little; Muna and Michael do not. Q asks, “Was any of it real?” Sean says, “I don’t know.”

Hannah says he was “the best mole ever, by far,” and I cannot agree with that.

Ari revealed that both Michael and Muna voted for Sean as the mole, and that the difference between the winner and runner-up was two quiz questions.

The winner: Michael. I expected it to be Muna—probably, again, based on the editing, never mind Michael’s nonstop sabotaging—but good for him.

Then it’s time to see Sean’s sabotage, which began immediately with the paintball mission and the shot he missed.

For the treasure hunt, he says he was briefed that the raft was the weak spot, so “I just kept cutting knots that were way too short for them to lose, and I put holes in the wood.”

The best part of this was that we got cell phone video footage of Sean talking about his sabotages throughout the season. “They buy me like this whiny house dad that gets scared and nervous,” he said, and that came into play for the heist mission, when he pretended to be scared of heights. “I’m not afraid of heights at all,” Sean said.

The movie night mission seems to be what gave Sean away, but he thought of it as cover. “This is the bombshell, this is the big secret behind Sean, there is no way in hell they would hire an undercover cop to be the mole,” he said.

“I’m sabotaging to the point where I’m affecting the game but they have no clue,” Sean said, as we saw him swap a photo at the gala and “start a bidding war” at the exemption auction. Sean said he thought “there was no doubt in mind that it would drain the entire pot,” which, of course, it did.

Sean said, “you’re making this so easy for me,” and that is the understatement of the season. Do we even need a mole when all the players are working against their own best interests?