‘Jeopardy!’ Contestants Speak Out After ‘Worst Final Question’ Ever

[The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for the Tuesday, June 24, episode of Jeopardy!]

Jeopardy! fans were left scratching their heads after the final question. Contestants also spoke out about their answers, as it was another Triple Stumper.

Emily Croke, from Denver, Colorado, returned for her second game on Tuesday, June 24. She played against Nicholas Moline, from Mooresville, Indiana, and Micah Fritz, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Croke won $13,201 during her first game, in which she had a connection to the final clue.

The game did not start off well for any of the contestants, as the first three clues were triple stumpers. Fritz, a teacher, finally answered the fourth clue right, putting $800 in his bank. He then selected the next clue, which turned out to be the Daily Double. In “Scammers,” he wagered up to the allotted $1,000. The clue read, “After prison, this man, whose last name is synonymous with a type of scam, was said to have become a business manager for Mussolini.” “Who is John Fishing?” Fritz threw out there after not knowing the answer. He lost $1,000, dropping down to -$200. The correct response was Ponzi.

The rest of the round did not go too well. By the first commercial break, Croke, a stay-at-home mom, had -$200. Moline, an attorney, had $200. Fritz still led with $400.

Although the totals weren’t any better by the end of the round, everyone was at least out of the red and into the thousands. Fritz had $2,200. Moline had $1,600. Croke moved up to second with $1,800.

In Double Jeopardy, the contestants had a lot fewer Triple Stumpers and built their banks up more. Croke found the first DD of the round. She had the lead with $5,400 and wagered $5,000. In “Words about Nerds,” the clue read, “A hyperintelligent nemesis of Superman in comic books likely gave us this portmanteau word for someone who’s crazy smart.” Croke shook her head and answered, “What is a supergenius? I don’t know.” She was wrong and dropped down to $400. The correct answer was a brainiac.

By the second DD, Croke moved into second place, but it was Fritz who found the clue. He was in first place with $7,000 and wagered $3,000 in “Colorful Geography.” “Amid a real estate boom in the 1950s, an Australian tourist destination called the South Coast was rechristened this” was the clue. He answered correctly with The Gold Coast and improved to $10,000.

By the end of the second round, Fritz had a huge lead with $15,200. Croke was in second with $6,800. Moline had $1,600. The category for Final Jeopardy was “Websites.”

The clue was a Triple Stumper. It read, “A 2006 WSJ article described this website as having ‘row after row of blue…hyperlinks & nary another color or graphic in sight.'” The correct answer was Craigslist.

Moline answered, “What is Google?” He wagered $0, so he left with $1,600. Croke answered, “What is Reddit?” She wagered $0 as well, leaving her with $6,800. Fritz’s response was “What is Wikipedia?” He only wagered $1,000, leaving with $14,200. Fritz was the night’s winner and would return for game two on Wednesday.

Both Croke and Moline spoke out about their responses on ironically, Reddit. “Rough game. For FJ, I got stuck on Reddit, and it didn’t quite feel right, but I couldn’t come up with anything else. Turns out Reddit was founded in 2005, so the timeline theoretically could have been right, but it didn’t really take off until around 2010, so I doubt it was getting written up in the WSJ as early as 2006. I feel like the clue needed a little more to go on, given that so many early popular websites were basically just lots of hyperlinks. Maybe something like ‘this site was founded 11 years earlier…’ to at least pin it to the ’90s? Edit: This is what Reddit looked like in 2005,” Croke explained.

Moline said, “I could see Craigslist in my head, but up on stage, I couldn’t get the word out, so I just wrote Google. It had probably been a decade since I thought about Craigslist.”

Fritz did not comment on the thread.

Fans also thought this was one of the worst final clues ever. “One of the worst FJ questions ever,” a Reddit user said.

“I’ve seen worse, but I’d like to see better,” said another.

“That FJ wasn’t great,” added a third. “I ended up getting it and understanding what they were going for, but it feels very unpinned — I mean, technically it’s pinned because you can go look up that WSJ article, but as far as gettability, every website used to be rows of blue hyperlinks.”

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