I don't think contestants should focus too much on misleading other contestants. Come on, bring some money to the pot. It was an easy job for the Mole this season...
Ok, well I hope you'll be ok with me coming back to this point again.
I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone on this point. I have thought about it all, let it sink in and discussed it with a number of people on the Moleforum I visit (avid Mole watchers that is, over the last 12 seasons).
Different visions and interpretations prevail, so I'm not saying I speak for everyone.. But I do speak with a number of people I trust and have proven themselves to be good Molehunters too, because basically it's about seeing beyond the 'obvious' and trying to put yourself in the Mole position. Which is why I never ever, once even, believed it was Liesbeth. I had my doubts initially about Tim, and felt the edit suggested it wasn't him - should have stuck to that obviously, also he doesn't seem the type to be able to handle it.. But all is clear with 20/20 hindsight obviously.
I understand your comment because I did feel it came across that way. Actually I blame the producers for that.
I think we were not dealing with an inactive Mole in fact (to me, Patrick was far less active eg though he had no excuse for being so other than his cowardess of being detected or getting suspicion on him going to extremes such as keeping his fakemoles around.. Not cool at all imho.
)
If group dynamics had been different in this bunch, eg had the same dynamic like it did in Season 2011, there would have been a much better chance of Anne-Marie getting a lot more leeway/ options to sabotage. As it stands she was much more conscious of the suspicions as they were expressed freely and openly, putting her in a very awkward position as all eyes were fixed on her (well some of them anyway
) and she didn't want to give away the game. Who could have anticipated William suggesting what he did or people taking that from it - or all contestants being honest to each other about their suspicions (well except for William clearly? ) .. I think the production should have caught on to that a lot sooner than they did and somehow intervened.. they did not.
What was left was in part 'damage control' imo (dissuading two people who initially suspected her somewhat due to production decisions partly due to her arriving first at the plane changing the clock/ 3-1=2 thing, and the contestants actually saying they had a question on their first test asking if the Mole had changed the challenge time from 3 to 2 hours put her really in the frame imo.. I would suspect her and that is definitely a mistake of the production imo....) yet she still tried to sabotage.
You could say it was down to others and in part it was indeed, as it has been for years now tbh..
But look at the extra clips of the Mole sabotages, for instance.
She managed to persuade Hadewych (who stated suspecting her intuitively from day one, based on merely a hunch and went all in for her..) to say the one photo she knew she was going to be asked about (Marit's parents) might belong to Tim instead, because of his posture. She knew Marit was onto her partially, though she distrusted everyone at that stage apparently.. So she wouldn't take her word for it for sure.. Using Hadewych whom Marit clearly trusted was a very smart move, which made sure Marit used that as her basis - Challenge failed because of that first and foremost... (Marit mentioned she did take that as her main basis that challenge).
Or the extra footage of the Ronda-kidnap challenge..
When I was translating I was really wondering why Hadewych mentioned all these cities on the shore mainly tourist places.
Well guess what? Anne-Marie suggested it on the phone and Liesbeth concurred.. In the extra footage we see Anne-Marie suggesting tourist places on the shore (which, yes, are very well known for this in the Netherlands, a lot of us vacation there..)
So we see Hadewych mentioning lots of different places there that were far off from where they were yet plausible enough to be called.
Hence it took a long time to find them.
Apart from this she stalled by keep driving at a snail's pace in first gear for a long time, and she went the wrong way in Ronda costing them a lot of time (Hade wouldn't allow her to manage the phone so she found another way.
)
I actually think they were probably out of time, since the whole missing the right exit was crucial, considering how much time it took to go to Ronda, but the production probably felt it was a pretty sad affair anyway, the pot being so low..
I'm just trying to say that things are not that simple and straightforward to appreciate what a mole could or could not do.
Personally I think her claiming that arrow and throwing away the chalk were pretty gutsy and have nothing to do with being reliant on others to Mole.. The fact that they sometimes did on purpose or just out of clumsiness.. Well what could she have done about that as a Mole specifically??
To me she's not on my 'top' list of Moles but I don't think she did a bad job at all either, all things considering.
That's a matter of opinion though surely.