‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Reveals She Gave Ken Jennings a ‘Hard Time’ After Confusing End to Show

Kelli Boyle October 25, 2023, 8:34 pm

'Jeopardy' October 25, 2023 episode. — Jeopardy, Inc.

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Wednesday, October 25, 2023 episode of Jeopardy!]

Final Jeopardy triple stumpers are pretty common nowadays, but Jeopardy! fans are “amazed” that the final clue in the October 25 episode bested all three players. And in fact, the confusing category and clue prompted the winner to question host Ken Jennings after the show.

Competing in the game were Phillip Howard, a Naval officer from Santa Clarita, California; Emily Sands, a project manager from Chanhassen, Minnesota; and Carlos Chaidez, a civil engineer from Burbank, California. It was a fairly high-scoring game on all of their parts; the scores going into Final Jeopardy were Carlos with $13,400, Emily with $25,200, and Phillip with $9,200. Carlos bet, and lost, it all in the final round, and Emily came out on top with a final score of $23,599. Phillip ended in second with $8,400.

The final category was “Historic Letters.” The clue read: “A letter from him begins, ‘On the thirty-third day after I had left Cadiz, I reached the Indian Ocean.'” The correct answer was, “Who was Christopher Columbus?” The contestants guessed Magellan and Marco Polo, but were all incorrect. Fans on the Jeopardy Reddit discussion board wondered how this answer was missed, but admitted that the Columbus answer did seem too obvious.

“Amazingly, everyone was incorrect on FJ,” the Reddit recap reads. As one fan wrote, “Kinda surprised no one got FJ. It seemed too obvious that I almost thought Columbus was the wrong answer. I think they probably overthought that one.”

“I was surprised about Final Jeopardy too, I actually did get that one right,” said another. “I can understand it seeming a bit too obvious of a choice for some people though, or thinking of explorers who actually did reach Asia.”

One fan tried to decipher Carlos’ thought process behind his answer. “On FJ, I wonder if Carlos crossed out Vasco de Gama because he remembered that de Gama had already come up in DD1,” they commented.

'Jeopardy!' Champ Addresses 'Embarrassing' Bet That Nearly Cost Them the Game

Another fan argued that the category was unfairly confusing. “I’m puzzled about FJ, specifically the category title,” they said. “To whom would Christopher Columbus be writing a letter and, more importantly, who would deliver it? I briefly considered Magellan but remembered he died before completing his voyage, so I settled on Marco Polo. I figured there was already commerce between Europe and China, so he could give his letter to someone returning to Italy. A letter is not the same as a journal; there has to be a sender, a recipient and a carrier. With no commerce between North America and Europe, how is that possible?”

Champion Emily took to the comments section to provide some insight, revealing that she pressed Ken Jennings about the confusing prompt after the game ended.

“Final Jeopardy: I didn’t quite have the runaway so I wagered to cover Carlos going all-in,” she shared. “I was surprised none of us got this clue and I even gave Ken a hard time after the show. ‘You couldn’t even give us a year?’ He said that would make it too easy (which is probably true).”

“Big props to Carlos and Phillip for making it a fun game,” she went on. “I recall at one point turning to Phillip and agreeing that it had been a pretty good game with only one triple-stumper in the Jeopardy round.”

What did you think of the final category and clue? Did you get it right? Let us know in the comments below.

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