Jeopardy! viewers were devastated as fan favorite contestant Mehal Shah’s gameshow run came to an end following a ‘tough but ultimately fair’ Final Jeopardy ruling

Jeopardy! fans were left “heartbroken” as fan favorite player Mehal Shah lost the tournament after a “tough but ultimately fair” ruling.

During the Thursday, Jan. 30 episode of Jeopardy, contestants Will Stewart, a political organizer originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Ryan Manton, a systems administrator from Columbus, Ohio, and Mehal Shah, a software engineer from Seattle, Washington, all took the stage for the Tournament of Champions quarterfinal game 4.

In the riveting game, all three players were tested on a number of trivia topics ranging from ‘Asian History’ to ‘Starts and Ends with the Same Vowel.’ But the question that was up for debate was the challenging Final Jeopardy question. In the last round of the show, host Ken Jennings delivered a clue from the ‘Latin Phrases’ category that read: “After Camillagate, a fire at Windsor castle & marriage problems in her family, Queen Elizabeth II dubbed 1992 this.”

In response, Mehal buzzed in with the answer: “What is Annus Horriblis?” And while he was very close to the correct answer, which was “Annus Horribilis,” Ken refused to accept it. Explaining his reasoning, Ken said: “Mehal, you were just a syllable away, but because you dropped a vowel, you were a syllable off and we cannot accept that response.”

Contestant Mehal Shah’s Final Jeopardy answer was not accepted despite near-correct response ( 
Image:
Jeopardy!)
In a newly posted Reddit thread, fans reacted to Ken’s decision to refuse Mehal’s answer agreeing that although they were sad to see him go, it was ultimately the right call. One viewer wrote: “heartbreaking for Mehal. I didn’t have the answer but knew when ken said ‘im sorry we can’t accept that’ that it would be some kind of benedict/benedick harriet tubma type of thing. ah well, that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. all three contestants played great and it was a super exciting game to watch!”

Another fan responded: “Ugh, one of those ‘tough but ultimately fair’ rulings for the FJ response. Not sure how many FJ clues (let alone ones in the ToC) have asked for a two or more word Latin response outside of quid pro quo, habeas corpus, and E pluribus unum. I think the debate over this clue is more of if it should have been in this ToC or in Masters instead…much like with the palindromic dates. clue.”

Mehal himself also took to the Reddit thread reflecting on his loss and Ken’s tough ruling. He wrote in part: “I wasn’t mad at the judges at all, even though my face may look frustrated. In the post game chat, I remarked that I had a ruling go in my favor in CWC Semis that was arguably the difference in the game there – Polyharmonic was worth a swing of $4000. I felt pretty bad going back into the Green room, but having my fellow compeitors there, particularly my fellow Wildcards Drew and Will really made a difference.”