Andy here for the first half of a double recap (Jeanie’s got the second half!) Steve Rininger and Abby Fisher are the challengers for Lauren Girard; Will Lauren make it onto our ToC standings list with her 3rd win? J! round categories:
POETIC PUNISHMENT
CENTURY OF THE INVENTION
_O_O
GEOGRAPHY: DROP A LETTER
SOMEONE’S IN THE KITCHEN WITH DINAH
Lauren got the first two clues in SOMEONE’S IN THE KITCHEN and then found the Daily Double under the $600 slot! She bet the full $1,000 she was allowed to and saw the following clue: Charles Lubin named his line of cheesecakes this, honoring his 8-year-old daughter. Lauren got the clue correct to move to $1,600.
Abby did quite well in both _O_O and CENTURY OF THE INVENTION, getting 3/5 in each, to have the lead at the end of 15 clues! Scores were:
Abby $3,600
Lauren $3,000
Steve $1,800
Abby is a diehard Red Sox fan! She said in her interview that she married her husband in spite of his being a Mets fan! (If I were dating a Mets fan I might consider marrying them out of pity, to be honest…) WITH DINAH $200 prompted an amusing reaction from Abby: In the early ’70s he starred in “Deliverance” & “The Longest Yard” & dated Dinah Shore. Abby went “I can see him in my head…” but couldn’t remember his name!
It was a very close game after 30 clues, Lauren had the lead! The scores were:
Lauren $6,200
Abby $5,600
Steve $4,800
DJ! round categories:
TIME TO JAZZ-ERCISE
TAKING A “DIVE”
THE CIVIL WAR
CURRENCY SPECULATION
LINES FROM THE OSCAR-WINNING ROLE (name the character)
KILLER WORDS, MAN
Lauren and Abby got off to the best start – nearly splitting the first 11 clues! Abby got 5, Lauren 4, Steve 1. However, it was Lauren who got to the first Daily Double, under LINES FROM THE OSCAR-WINNING ROLE $1600. Scores were:
Lauren $11,000
Abby $10,000
Steve $5,200
Lauren bet $5,000. Her clue: 1980: “Hey, Ray…I never went down, Ray. You never got me down, Ray.” I’m really not a fan of these mid-range bets. If you don’t like the category and think you’re going to get it wrong, bet smaller. If you do like it and think you’re going to get it right, bet bigger! You’re not in a great spot if you get it wrong, and you don’t really put the game out of reach if you get it right! Moving along through the game, Abby played the final Daily Double on the 19th clue of the round, under CURRENCY SPECULATION $800! Scores here:
Lauren $17,600
Abby $10,400
Steve $9,200
Abby bet just $3,000. *facepalm*. Her clue: Wouldn’t she be happy to know she’s on the First Spouse ten-dollar gold coin seen here
Abby failed to notice the dates and gave the incorrect response of “Martha Washington”, falling to $7,400. Of the final 10 clues, the players got 2 clues apiece, with 4 Triple Stumpers! The final clue was unplayed! Of Steve’s 5 gets in this round, 3 of them were either at the $2,000 or $1,600 levels! I think he might have had buzzer issues! If Lauren had bet more on that Daily Double, she’d have a lock game! But she doesn’t… Scores going into Final Jeopardy!:
Lauren $20,400
Steve $11,200
Abby $9,400
FJ! category: ARTISTS FJ! clue: On his deathbed he told police, “What I have done is nobody else’s business”; one theory is he was protecting others
Abby 9400 – 9398 = 2
Steve 11200 + 11000 = 22200
Lauren 20400 – 5000 = 15400
Steve is now the champ!
Here I am. My Coryat for the 3-21 episode was 17600 (22000 without negs). Today’s contestants:
 |
| Steven Rininger of Chicago IL |
 |
| Mary Jo Shoop of Arlington VA |
 |
| Rachel Liptak of Temecula CA |
Rachel liked Track and Field. She went there when she answered the first clue correctly, and back there when Steve moved away from it. She got 4 of the 5. I negged twice and clammed once, then we got an easy one in the 1000 spot!: “Flo Jo’s sister-in-law, in the 1988 Olympics she set the world record for most total points in the heptathlon.” I have to offer another “?”
Despite the perky wave when she was introduced, Mary Jo look uncomfortable to me throughout this game. She selected clues on the slow side too, but we saw them all so I won’t complain too much. She found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round. She’d just answered one right and had 200. Rachel had gotten 6 right and had 2600, and Steve had gotten one right and had 800. Mary Jo wagered 1000 on another easy one in We Put Characters on Trial: “It’s no surprise that this Thomas Hardy title stonemason gives unclear responses on the witness stand.” Mary Jo eventually said she had no idea. (I feel sure she didn’t study for the show.) I, however, have no idea what this next clue is about in the same category: “On trial for jewelry theft, this creature who sometimes goes by Smeagol took a plea agreement.”
I did know this one in Ivy League Alma Maters, thanks to watching The Apprentice: “Arlen Specter, for his B.A., & Donald Trump, for business school.” Hey, it was a triple-stumper! Steve said “Columbia,” and he’d neg one more time with that before Mary Jo responded correctly with it at the bottom of the category. That was the last clue before the break. Mary Jo got that one right since her Daily Double. Steve got the 2 wrong and 2 right.
This leads me to a question. It’s been suggested to me that I present scores sort of the way Andy does, rather than in a paragraph form. Does it matter to you? Let me know.
At the end of the round, Steve had gotten 3 right and one wrong since the break and had 2000. Rachel had gotten 9 right and one wrong, and had 8000. Mary Jo had gotten one right and had 1200.
Steve found the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy, in State Song Lyrics. He’d just gotten 2 right and had 4000. Mary Jo had gotten one right and had 1600. Rachel still had 8000. I’d have gone big here, since the first three in the category were easy. Steve wagered 2000 on this clue: “‘Your freeborn single star, sends out its radiance to nations near and far.'” Hey, it’s not an ampersand! Anyway I got this one wrong, and Steve got it right.
When I saw Compass Point Movies, I expected to see “North by Northwest,” but I didn’t recognize it here: “Hitchcock couldn’t film inside the U.N, for this 1959 thriller, so he re-created its rooms on a soundstage.”
I do believe I swept It Was the ’60s. I was surprised this was a triple-stumper in the category: “Future Pope John Paul II was part of this 1962-65 council & helped draft its constitution on the Church & the modern world.” And this after Rachel said “Lateran II”!
Mary Jo got the second Daily Double of the round, in We’re on Mars!. She’d gotten 6 right since Steve’s Daily Double, and had 10000. Rachel had gotten 8 right and the one wrong and had 14000. Steve had gotten
2 right and had 8000. There were 5 clues after this one. Mary Jo wagered 2000 on this clue: “Valerie Ambroise won an essay contest and named this rover for a 19th-century African-American woman.” Mary Jo had it wrong.
At the end of the round, Steve still had 8000. Mary Jo got 2 more right and had 9600. Rachel got one more right and had 15600. The Final Jeopardy category was Science Words. This was the clue: “This biological term for cell division was borrowed in 1939 to describe a form of energy release.” I thought about this one the whole 30 seconds and settled on a response just to have something. It turns out it was right!! Steve and Rachel got it right, too. Mary Jo lost 6299, Steve added 7601, and Rachel added 3601, making her the new champion. My gut reaction was if I were Steve, I wouldn’t have wagered expecting Rachel to have this wrong. But it was almost everything he had. Anyway we’ll see Rachel Monday.