[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for the Thursday, October 9, episode of Jeopardy!]
Will returning Jeopardy! champion TJ Fisher keep his winning streak alive as he heads into his sixth game?
After five consecutive victories and a total of $100,723 in winnings, the marketing specialist from San Francisco’s iconic Duboce Triangle neighborhood has already secured a spot in the upcoming Tournament of Champions. In his latest appearance, Fisher faces program manager Spencer Janes of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and marketing manager Grace Batiste of Chicago, Illinois.
Fisher started things off with “Origin of the Idiom” for $600. The clue, “It was once a place of execution outside London, but gained its current use as an unclaimed area where WWI troops dreaded being sent,” started the game with a Triple Stumper. This set the tone for the rest of the round.
Fisher found the first Daily Double also in the category “Origin of the Idiom,” and wagered $1,000 against his total of $0. With the clue, “When John Dennis saw a play that used a sound effect he created without permission, he complained they had done this,” Fisher answered, “What is ‘ripped him off’?,” which was incorrect. The correct answer was “What is ‘stolen his thunder’?” The totals now stood at Janes and Batiste with $0 and Fisher with -$1,000.
The gang had yet another Triple Stumper in “Irish History”: “Sharing his name with an Apollo astronaut, this man helped negotiate the 1921 treaty that created the Irish Free State.” No one got the answer of Michael Collins.
The first round was riddled with one Triple Stumper after another, totalling almost a dozen unanswered questions. By the end of the first round, Janes and Batiste each had three correct answers, while Fisher had one correct and two incorrect. The final tallies were Janes with $4,200, Batiste with $2,600, and Fisher with a mere $800.
During Double Jeopardy, Fisher found the first Daily Double on the first try under “Supreme Court Decisions.” For $1000, the clue was, “In 1958’s Cooper v. Aaron, the court unanimously said that Arkansas had to abide by this ruling from 4 years earlier.” The answer was Brown v. Board of Education.
The difficult round had a few more Triple Stumpers for the contestants, including “Alliterative Geography” for $2000, which asked, “This region of the North Atlantic is isolated by 4 ocean currents that surround it.” The answer was Sargasso Sea. There was also “Elegiac Verse” for $800, “Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem with the same name as a mass for the dead has the line “Home is the sailor, home from sea.” The answer was “What is requiem?”
“Elegiac Verse” for $2,000 offered another Triple Stumper later in the game, which had the clue, “A castle in Italy gave its name to this Rainer Maria Rilke book of ‘Elegies.’” The answer was “What is Duino Elegies?”
The category “Anagrammar” also offered a stumper for the trio, with the $1,600 clue: “Another word for dependent, as in clause: INSURED BOAT.” The answer was “What is subordinate?”
By the time the contestants got to Final Jeopardy, Fisher was in second place with $14,400, while Janes nabbed the top spot with $17,000. Batiste was in third with $5,200.
The Final Jeopardy category was “World Organizations,” which offered the clue: “Passing on in 2025, Aliza Magen, who helped track down terrorists in the 1972 Munich attack, became this agency’s top-ranking woman.”
The highest-ranking woman in Mossad’s history certainly made a name for herself in Israel with her historic role in the agency, but was she remembered by the Jeopardy! contestants? Batiste answered correctly and added $5,000 to her total of $5,200, bringing her up to $10,200. But Jeopardy! champ Fisher answered, “What is Interpol?,” wagering $9,199 and bringing down his total from $14,400 to $5,201, giving him third place and losing his title of Jeopardy champ.
Spencer Janes correctly answered “What is Mossad?,” and, with a wager of $12,000 to his total of $17,000, he brought his total up to $29,000, winning the title of Jeopardy! champion.
On Reddit, one fan wrote: “Easy enough FJ, but WAY too vague a category (they need to do better). Heck, it’s even kinda misleading here. Shouldn’t it’ve been like ‘national agencies’ or something?”
Another agreed with the comment: “Yeah, the category had me second-guessing myself, because it sounded like it should have been an intentional org. I wonder if that’s why TJ went with Interpol.”
Many were sad to say goodbye to Fisher, but knew that it wasn’t the last time viewers would see the Jeopardy! champ. “TJs done 🙁 for now,” wrote one Redditor.
Jeopardy!, weekdays, check local listings, stream next day on Hulu and Peacock