Jeopardy! has itself a new champion after Wednesday night (May 29), but it came at the expense of another contestant who fell into the trap of a “brutal” Daily Double clue.
On Wednesday’s episode, one-day champion Abby Mann, a digital scholarship librarian from Normal, Illinois, returned to the Alex Trebek Stage to take on Adriana Harmeyer, an archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, and Brian O’Shea, a gifted specialist & teacher from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The game started pretty tight in the Jeopardy round, with the scores relatively close heading into Double Jeopardy. Mann led with $4,800, O’Shea followed closely with $4,600, and Harmeyer trailed with $3,800.
Things changed in Double Jeopardy, especially thanks to the two Daily Doubles. Harmeyer landed the first Daily Double, bumping up her total by $4,000 and giving her a solid lead. Meanwhile, O’Shea found the second Daily Double but ended up losing $6,000 after falling for some tricky wording.
Under the “White House Weddings” category, O’Shea’s clue read, “The 1st ceremony was in 1812 when Lucy Payne Washington, this first lady’s sister, married Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd.”
O’Shea confidently answered, “Martha Washington,” incorrectly latching onto the Washington part of the clue.
“No, I’m sorry,” host Ken Jennings said as O’Shea’s total dropped to $200. “In 1812, it would have been Dolley Madison.”
This brutal miss cost O’Shea big time as he ended the episode on -$1,000 and therefore couldn’t compete in Final Jeopardy.
“Oh Brian that was so tough to watch,” wrote one viewer on the Jeopardy! Reddit forum, noting how O’Shea failed to read the full question on more than one occasion. “Answered ‘Breaking Bad’ when they were looking for ‘Walter White.’ Answered ‘Buzz Aldrin’ when the answer was ‘Apollo 12.’ And then in the big DD I think if he would’ve slowed down and taken his time he might have gotten it because he seemed like a history guy. Tough game for him.”
“Brian seemed like a good player, too. He just kept making bad, quick decisions,” said another.
“I felt bad for Brian–including the name of the bride (Lucy Payne Washington) in the clue was some brutal negbait. Unless you already knew that piece of trivia, you had to ignore it and re-focus on the year, 1812,” another user added.
Another wrote, “Yes, the year was a giveaway it couldn’t be Martha. Madison was the president at the start of the War of 1812. Brian stated it so quickly & confidently, if he had just taken a moment to consider the date he might’ve changed his mind.”
“The Washington part may have been a small red herring, but Payne was a useful bit of the clue pointing to Dolley’s maiden name,” said another.
While the game ended on a sour note for O’Shea, Harmeyer took advantage, entering Final Jeopardy with $16,200 over Mann’s $12,400. Both women answered the final clue correctly, but Harmeyer’s wager of $10,000 saw her win the episode with $26,2000, giving us a new Jeopardy! champion.
