Another nail-biter on Thursday’s Jeopardy! tonight. Returning champ Kevin Laskowski, the Episcopal priest who’d been racking up wins like blessings, almost pulled off a fourth victory. He entered the game with $52,999 in winnings but it was Laurel Day, a project manager, who ultimately triumphed by the slimmest of margins – a single dollar – in a game that kept everyone guessing until the final buzzer.
The first round played out like a slow burn, with Debbie Mercer, a retired special education teacher, initially taking the lead. Laskowski, surprisingly, stumbled out of the gate, missing a Daily Double about outdated Hague Convention rules on… wait for it… bombing from hot air balloons. (Yes, really.) He recovered somewhat by the first commercial break but still trailed Mercer.
Double Jeopardy! saw the game heat up. Day, after a cautious $400 wager on a Daily Double about China’s one-child policy, found her stride, eventually uncovering the second Daily Double and confidently wagering enough to put her within striking distance of Laskowski. A late-game surge, aided by a judging reversal, catapulted her into the lead heading into Final Jeopardy!.
The final category, “U.S. Businesses,” seemed tailor-made for a nail-biting finish. The clue, concerning the dwindling performance opportunities for Chuck E. Cheese’s animatronic band, proved surprisingly tricky. Yet, all three contestants correctly identified the pizza-slinging rodent empire, leading to a frantic calculation of wagers.
And the winner is… Laurel Day, by a single dollar! Her $4,201 wager on Final Jeopardy! brought her total to $18,801, edging out both Laskowski at $18,799 and Mercer at $14,602. A true photo finish.
A curious wagering decision by Day in Double Jeopardy! added to the night’s drama. After confidently identifying the Daily Double clue about Mo Yan’s novel Frog and the one child policy, her mere $400 bet seemed oddly timid. Ah, the vagaries of Jeopardy! strategy.
Jeopardy! airs weekdays on syndicated television. Check your local listings.
