‘Jeopardy!’ Fans Slam ‘Terrible’ Final Clue – See Ken Jennings’ Reaction
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the October 9 episode of Jeopardy!]
Jeopardy! champ Mark Fitzpatrick sailed to his fourth win on Wednesday, October 9, but the episode wasn’t without its wave-making moments, including a contestant being introduced as “a girl-between-gigs.”
Content manager Fitzpatrick from Riverside, Connecticut entered with a three-day total of $58,000, facing Robert Franke, a data analyst from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and Colleen Kelly (her profession above) from Melrose, Massachusetts.
In the Jeopardy! round, despite losing $2400 on a True Daily Double, Mark was at his most comfortable, gameplay and personality-wise. After a humorous anecdote about a study abroad “boat-train” mixup with a German accent punchline (“Clazzic Americans”), he had rebounded to $5,400, Rob had $2,600, and Colleen $0.
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In the mix was a $600 clue in the “TV Coupling” category, entailing naming famous TV couples. The clue was: “Sheldon & Amy, pure genius.” Colleen correctly responded: “What is The Big Bang Theory?”
Mayim Bialik played Amy Farrah Fowler on the iconic CBS sitcom before becoming Ken Jennings’ co-host. Bialik was axed from Jeopardy! role last December, never to return to the franchise. Naturally, fans took notice of the shameless… homage.
“Always gets me when a Big Bang Theory clue comes up in the post-Mayim era,” one Redditor wrote in the thread for the episode.
“In a few years, they should do a category when the answers are just all Jeopardy hosts, from Art Fleming, to Mayim Bialik, even George Stephanopoulos,” quipped another.
In Double Jeopardy!, Mark extended his lead on back-to-back Daily Doubles and never looked back, breezing into Final Jeopardy with a runaway of $23,600, Scott with $6,200, Colleen with $5,600. Final Jeopardy, however, was not such a breeze, according to fans.
The “Word Origins” clue read: “This word for one who cuts a trail comes from a name of a character in an 1840 novel.” For the third straight game, it was a triple-stumper, as no one came up with “Pathfinder.” Mark bet $0, winning a four-day total of $81,600 and an all-but-guaranteed ToC invite.
Ken explained to the players: “There is a James Fenimore Cooper novel called The Pioneers but also one called ‘The Pathfinder’. About Natty Bumppo. ‘Pathfinder…’” he re-enforced.
Other fans took to the same Reddit thread to discuss the Final Jeopardy clue, with many struggling to make sense of it.
“Is anyone able to explain the FJ question to me? It said the name of the character… But the answer wasn’t part of the characters name, unless I’m missing something really obvious,” one user wrote.
“Yeah what? I’m not familiar with the book so just taking Ken at his word, but if his explanation is accurate that’s two straight poorly written FJs,” wrote another.
“A Final jeopardy where you have to discern between two synonymous James Fenimore Cooper titles is pretty dang hard,” wrote a third as a fourth said: “Cut a trail”? Wonky wording for the last clue.”
One more roared: “That FJ was terrible. So it’s a book in a series, nope. It’s not the name of a character, nope. It’s not a word origin. One who finds a path. Is path a word from 1840? So we are saying the word pathfinder, abjectly two words stuck together’s origin is from a nickname that is one of many applied to a character in a series of books. Sounds like crap to me.”
Final Jeopardy savant Jennifer Quail shared how she got there: “I knew when I saw ‘trail’ in there that couldn’t be it, figured it was Cooper, figured ‘Deerslayer’ was obviously wrong, and thought the correct answer.”
Fans have noticed that Final Jeopardy clues are oscillating lately between very difficult and very easy. Tuesday night’s “World Flag’s” triple-stumper was seeking “European Union,” but all the players and many viewers at home were thinking of a specific country based on the wording. Meanwhile, viewers were stunned that no one knew Monday night’s spelled-out “Coca-Cola” answer. The week before, the players were tasked with identifying The Office based on what was essentially a mini-synopsis.
What did you think about Final Jeopardy, Mark’s ToC odds, and the Mayim Bialik flashback? Let us know in the comments (any “Bazingas” will be flagged for review.)
