‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Reacts to Wrong Answers, Ending Game on ‘Sour Note’

Meredith Jacobs June 5, 2023, 7:30 pm

Jared Watson on 'Jeopardy' — Jeopardy, Inc.

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the June 5 episode of Jeopardy!]

Making just one mistake can cost a contestant the game on Jeopardy!, but fortunately for a champ, that wasn’t the case, even with two in the latest episode.

Quality control specialist Jared Watson returned for his third game, this time facing off against marketing coordinator Harrison Seidel and graduate student Annabelle Winter. He did win — he’s now a three-day champ with a total of $56,202 — and after the June 5 episode aired, he took to Reddit to address two answers that were headscratchers.

First was his answer for the $200 clue in the category The Philippines. It read, “The Japanese Garden is a good place to get away from the bustle of the 12 million or so people living in the area of this city.” Jared said, “What is Tokyo?” while the correct answer was Manila.

“Ah yes, the venerable Filipino city of…Tokyo? I really can’t explain what I was thinking there except to say that I clearly forgot the category. I can’t wait to have the Internet throw that one back at me all day,” Jared wrote on Reddit, calling it a “total brainfart” and adding “no excuse except to say that sometimes…it just happens” to a viewer’s comment.

'Jeopardy!' Fans React to Mayim Bialik's 'Awkward' Pauses

Then came Final Jeopardy. The category was Acronyms and the clue read, “It was originally a code word used by telegraph operators; Barack Obama used it in his Twitter handle.” Both Harrison and Annabelle got it correct (POTUS) while Jared wrote “STOP.”

That was him “waaay overthinking it. I knew President Obama used POTUS in his Twitter handle, but the telegraph portion of the clue threw me off, because I had assumed that acronym to be much more recently created,” Jared explained in his comment on Reddit. “Thankfully it did not cost me the game, but it was definitely a sour note.”

If you were wondering what Jared was thinking with “STOP,” that’s what host Mayim Bialik asked him during the credits, he also shared. “I could only reply ‘I have no idea,’” he admitted. “Feel free to find a better, pithier answer if you wish.”

Tune in on June 6 to find out if Jared becomes a four-day champ, and check out some viewer reactions to the latest game below.