‘Jeopardy!’: Can Champ Survive Season-Long Curse?

This… Is… Jeopardy!

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the October 24 episode of Jeopardy!]

Jeopardy! fans finally have another winning streak on their hands as of Thursday, October 24’s episode, but can Will Wallace do what his fellow Season 41 champs haven’t and make it through the tape day?

Wallace, a game design director from Austin, Texas, entered with a two-day total of $28,799. He faced Dan Meyer, a fundraising professional from Chicago, Illinois (rocking some nifty earrings), and Kiki Jamieson, a nonprofit consultant from Toronto, Ontario.

Both his challengers got off to strong starts, with Meyer scoring an early lead with the first Daily Double. After 15 clues, Meyer had $3,600 to Jamieson’s $3,400 and Wallace’s $1,600. After the Jeopardy! round, Wallace (having shared he traveled to Vienna solely based on the quality of The Third Man) closed the gap with $5000, Jamieson $5,800 and Meyer $5,400.

In Double Jeopardy, Wallace aced the second Daily Double under the “Ballad” category as “Casey Jones” and seized the lead. Jamieson found the last Daily Double after running the “4-LETTER OPPOSITES” category but she was incorrect, giving Wallace back the lead and making for a neck-and-neck Final Jeopardy.

With Wallace at $13,400, Jamieson at $10,800, and Meyer at $8,200, the “On The U.K. Music Charts” clue was unveiled: “‘Candle In The Wind 1997’ knocked this song that asked a title question from the top spot as the U.K.’s all-time bestselling song.”

His challengers were incorrect, Meyer betting $0, Jamieson dropping to $5199. At this juncture, Ken Jennings remarked that Wallace, who earlier shared he performed in an Americana festival in Britain (and was mistaken as British), wrote his answer “pretty quickly.”

Indeed, he got the sole Final Jeopardy, correctly responding: “What is Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and leaping to $26,799 for a three-day total of $55,598.

Fans took to the Reddit thread for the episode where many celebrated the arrival of the first three-day champ since Rishabh Wuppalapati (and with better handwriting). However, some pointed out that Wallace’s biggest challenge may be ahead: winning Friday’s game is something nearly no champ has done all season.

“Good to see that there were no unused JIT/ToC rounds in this game,” the user began joking about the difficulty of the previous match. They added: “If Will wins tomorrow, he’ll be the second champ this season to survive a Friday game. Only two-day champ Jen Feldman has managed that thus far, and that was in spite of a Final Jeopardy Triple Stumper.”

Another fan wrote: “Shoutout to Will for loving The Third Man. If you haven’t seen it before, give it a shot and prepare for an incredibly bizarre soundtrack straight out of Spongebob SquarePants.”

A third user who discovered Wallace’s LinkedIn account wrote: “Will has a lot of games in his resume, I hope he talks about one or more during his upcoming winning streak.” They listed his video game credits which include Wordscapes: Solitaire (2024) and more than seven Star Wars games.

Wallace buzzed into the thread to quip that he is not looking to boast about his game design resume on the Alex Trebek stage: “I’m off the clock! No shop talk, just lots of Neil Young and Orson Welles. The Wookiees can’t find me here.”

One more fan simply wrote: “Hi! I really like watching you, I hope your run continues into next week. Can I get your autograph?”

What do you think, are you enjoying Will Wallace’s winning streak? Do you think he’ll survive the Season 41 tape day curse? And what hobby should Kiki Jamieson take up next (the drumming sounds promising!) Let us know in the comments section!