Jeopardy! has been stumping many a player with its Final Jeopardy clues as of late, but the Wednesday, May 31 game proved to be a difficult game overall for both players and viewers at home.
Playing in the episode were Ilhana Redzovic (a returning champ with total winnings of $20,400) from Chicago, Illinois, Kyle Marshall from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and Lisa Gargiulo from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Ilhana would walk away victorious for the second night in a row, but her win would also come after another triple-stumper clue in Final Jeopardy, plus $0 in winnings after the first round.
Ilhana was leading the first round when she answered a Daily Double incorrectly. Having bet it all on this bonus clue, she lost $2,200 in one fell swoop. The category was “Dude, Here’s Your Car.” The clue: “Lamborghini’s Sesto Elemento was named for its pioneering use of this, from which much of the car is made.” But even with $0, Ilhana was still in the lead. The scores at the first break were Ilhana with $0, Kyle with -$200, and Lisa -$200.
Lisa struggled to get out of the red in the second round, lowering her score to -$600 by the second break. At this point, Kyle was in the lead with just $2,200 and Ilhana was in second place with $1,800. The players each recouped their losses in Double Jeopardy, with the scores heading into the final being Ilhana with $10,400, Kyle with $10,200, and Lisa with $4,600.
The final category was “Sports & the Movies,” with final clue that stumped them all being: “A Geena Davis Institute study found shortly after a 2012 franchise film’s release, women’s participation in this sport rose 105 percent.” The correct answer was archery, but some fans on Reddit noted that given the category title and Geena Davis-related clue, A League of Their Own wouldn’t have been a bad bet. Ilhana wagered nothing, leaving her in first place with $10,400, Kyle in second with $400, and Lisa last with $1.
“I don’t know if it was just me, but that was pretty dismal. Better than I could have done given the difficulty I found in today’s clues, but yeah. That Jeopardy round score was pretty low across the board. It seems like everyone had trouble staying out of the negative,” one fan commented on the Jeopardy! Reddit page.
“Got off to a rough start but got very interesting at the end, with some fascinating and surprising FJ bets,” replied one user.
“I found today’s board (like Monday’s) kind of tough. It turned out to be an interesting game at the end, though,” chimed in another fan.
Others said the final clue stumped them too. “I was thrown off about FJ thinking of League of Their Own, but the date should have narrowed it down,” one user noted, as another replied, “Same. I saw Geena Davis and sports and movie and that’s all I thought I needed. Oops! Is there crying in Jeopardy?”
Did you find tonight’s game to be harder than most? Sound off in the comments below, and check out some fan reactions to the episode on Twitter here:
#jeopardy first round = ouch ????????????????????????????????????????
— ????????✨kathy????????✨ (@kathyhyoung2) May 31, 2023
me when the jeopardy question is “this duplicitous chantuse climbed to the top of the billboard charts in 2022 with the long awaited SOS”
pic.twitter.com/1HxeM9ngjy— priDEMONth (@sicksadchris) May 31, 2023
Ilhanna has intense Clea Duvall vibes & I love her for it #Jeopardy
— Annie (@BadgrGrl21) May 31, 2023
That final jeopardy question didn’t make sense
— Briana (@bnanacole) May 31, 2023
When I saw geena Davis institute I immediately thought of baseball, but archery does make sense since she almost qualified for the Olympics #jeopardy
— Jerzygirl45 (@jerzygirl45) May 31, 2023
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