Warning: This page contains spoilers for the January 20, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Cold War Craft) for Monday, January 20, 2025 (Season 41, Game 96):
A U.S. Navy website says its journey from New London to Norway in 1957 opened up Arctic waters previously ruled by the Soviets
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Jen Feldman, a high school teacher from Brooklyn, New York
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Drew Goins, a journalist from Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
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Joey DeSena, a development engineer from Raleigh, North Carolina
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Week #4 of the 2025 Jeopardy! postseason begins with the semifinals of Champions Wild Card, with your first set of semifinalists being Joey DeSena, Drew Goins, and Jen Feldman. Drew’s play has been the #1 story of the past few weeks as he went viral and performed very well during Second Chance and the quarterfinals of Champions Wildcard.
Due to scheduled coverage by all major US broadcast networks today of Inauguration Day, as well as basketball coverage on FOX afterward, there is going to be a nationwide pre-emption if your local station normally airs Jeopardy! in daytime, with Chicago and Houston being the largest affected markets. I would be surprised if results were available on this website before 5:35 PM Eastern due to these pre-emptions.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: What is the USS Nautilus?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Named after Jules Verne’s fictional submarine from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. Being powered by nuclear energy, its capabilities—being able to dive deeper and travel faster without having to surface—made it very effective against both the prevailing anti-submarine defense wisdom as well as under-ice travel. Between August and October 1957, the Nautilus traveled from New London, Connecticut to Norway underneath the Arctic polar ice, a journey that “allowed access to the previously protected waters of the Soviet Union.” Today, the Nautilus sits preserved as a museum ship at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut.
Remembering that Nautilus exists should be the key for our contestants today to getting this Final Jeopardy clue correct.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Monday, January 20, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.; Museums; Farm Tools & Machinery; British Sitcoms; This Or That; Back Words & Forward)
Drew got off to the best start, while Joey found—and missed—the Daily Double. After 15 clues, the scores were Drew $4,200, Jen $1,400, Joey $0.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Drew 6 correct 1 incorrect
Jen 3 correct 0 incorrect
Joey 3 correct 2 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Jen regrets not naming the theme song to “What We Do In The Shadows”.
Drew feels bad for responding “mouse” for a clue where the correct response was “rhesus monkey”.
Joey regrets not buzzing in on a “50 Shades…” clue.
Drew picked up another 8 correct as he extended his lead after the interviews.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Drew 14 correct 1 incorrect
Jen 5 correct 0 incorrect
Joey 5 correct 2 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Drew $7,200
Jen $2,400
Joey $800
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: French Geography; 18Th Century Writing; Broadway; Psychology; Let’s Talk About Politics; Starts With “D”)
Jen picked up $5,000 on DD2, and a great guess on DD3 from Drew gave him $4,000—and that ended up being enough to barely give him a runaway going into Final.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Drew 29 correct 2 incorrect
Jen 10 correct 0 incorrect
Joey 12 correct 3 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 26 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Drew $26,800
Jen $12,600
Joey $9,200
We have one correct response to this Final, from Joey; Drew is a finalist!
Tonight’s results:
Joey $9,200 + $611 = $9,811 (What is the Nautalis? Go for it, Drew!!)
Jen $12,600 – $2,600 = $10,000 (What is – watch more women’s sports!! – <3)
Drew $26,800 – $0 = $26,800 (What is a mouse??? Thanks Jen and Joey! <3) (Finalist)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) MUSEUMS $1000 (clue #13)
Joey 1600 -1600 (Drew 4200 Jen 800)
2) 18th CENTURY WRITING $1200 (clue #18)
Jen 7200 +5000 (Joey 9600 Drew 18800)
3) PSYCHOLOGY $1200 (clue #20, $5600 left on board)
Drew 19600 +4000 (Joey 9600 Jen 12200)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -10
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Joey 3 4 5 3 4 5*
Drew 4 5 3 4 5 4
Jen 5
DJ! Round:
Joey 3 4 4 5 3 4 5 2
Drew 5 5 3 3 4 5 5 3*
Jen 4 4 3* 2
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Drew 4.14
Jen 3.60
Joey 3.86
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 26 (0.27 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Drew $24,000 Coryat, 29 correct, 2 incorrect, 50.88% in first on buzzer (29/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
Jen $8,800 Coryat, 10 correct, 0 incorrect, 14.04% in first on buzzer (8/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
Joey $10,800 Coryat, 12 correct, 3 incorrect, 24.56% in first on buzzer (14/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $43,600
Lach Trash: $6,600 (on 8 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $3,800
Lead Changes: 0
Times Tied: 0
Player Statistics:
Joey DeSena, career statistics:
86 correct, 21 incorrect
2/4 on rebound attempts (on 15 rebound opportunities)
31.93% in first on buzzer (91/285)
6/7 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $21,600)
2/5 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,720
Drew Goins, career statistics:
145 correct, 17 incorrect
5/7 on rebound attempts (on 22 rebound opportunities)
40.94% in first on buzzer (140/342)
8/9 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $25,400)
3/6 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $19,067
Jen Feldman, career statistics:
66 correct, 10 incorrect
5/5 on rebound attempts (on 25 rebound opportunities)
21.40% in first on buzzer (61/285)
2/5 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $1,900)
1/5 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,400
Andy’s Thoughts:
- A massive thank you to KARE in Minneapolis for airing the show as scheduled.
- The viewers who have been asking for me to violate copyright law today have also been banned from the comment section.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
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I figured a submarine – unfortunately, didn’t think of the Nautilus.
Growing up in Connecticut and being familiar with Groton/New London’s importance to the Navy, this was a pretty easy Final for me. I’m not sure that it will be easy for most contestants, however, and would be surprised to see it be a triple-get.
I didn’t get it myself—but I had the reaction of “I should have remembered that” when hearing the answer.
And there’s at least one regular in my comments who has served on Navy subs; this Final will quite likely be the quickest insta-get ever for him.
When I read the correct reponse totoday’s Final Jeopardy,I knew that it had to be the first nuclear submarine. And, that is as far as I got until I looked for the first nuclear submarine online, found that it was the Nautilis, the article that first came uo, and, section that dealt with awards, and, commendations, where the journey mentioned in the answer clue, was listed.
Yes, Jeopardy was preempted from it’s usual time slot in Chicago, which I should have realized, even after seeing the inauguration schedule, which seemed to have everything, except the Balls, in the morning, early afternoon. I’m a little surprised that who ever does the premption lists, didn’t do one for this
The inauguration coverage has already run over an hour later than it was supposed to and is still going strong, so maybe imprecise timing may have been anticipated along with the possibility of different stations making their own determination “on the fly” to go ahead and cut away or not. I would not want to attempt to make a pre-emption schedule for something like this, assuming some people would be more critical of it being wrong than they would have been of there not even being one.
I took the ‘opened up Artic waters’ pretty literally and thought an icebreaker ship…
I remember hearing about the Nautilus, even though I was just a kid back then and not really into current events yet. I’ll be impressed if any of these young contestants get it right.
Finally, a Final Jeopardy I got right. Lately, I’ve been missing far more than getting them correct.
I got it right, too. I swear I can remember coverage of it and since I was not even in school yet, I’d guess either my father made a big deal of it or that it was such a big deal that there was lots of media mention of it even in subsequent years. [Perhaps during the cold war when I was old enough to understand, but not young enough to be sheltered from such knowledge, though perhaps I should have been sheltered because I used to have nightmares about the sky being red from nuclear bombing. I would be terrified within the dreams, but not in a way that caused me to wake up screaming, so my parents were never aware of these dreams.]
Today’s final provided a trip down memory lane for me. Back in the 1950’s, before Legos became popular in the United States, we used to build plastic models of cars, airplanes, boats and, yes, submarines from kits. One of my favorite models was my model of the USS Nautilus. Unfortunately, one of the things we did with our models that belonged in water was to blow them up with one- or two-inch fire crackers. Sadly, my USS Nautilus met an untimely fate at the hands of mischievous boys. That was fun back in the days before video games and the Internet. Anyway, because of that, I knew today’s final right away. p.s. No, I didn’t build models to sniff the glue (although, some did), lol.
Thank you for posting. News coverage is preempting everything in NY. At least this recap keeps me “in the know”. Looking forward to seeing Drew in the finals. He is a fine example of why Second Chance is such a great idea. Played quite well in his first game – AND if the stars and DDs lined up differently last fall- may have won. This is why I never judge ANYONE by their first (sometimes only) game.
Just curious. Would “the 1st nuclear submarine” be an acceptable answer? I didn’t know the name of the vessel, just the fact.
People have tried descriptors in the past, even unique ones, and they were not accepted.
The show aired at its usual time of 6 pm in Denver. Being a former Navy sailor, I knew FJ immediately.
Maybe Drew would’ve gone bigger on DD3 and Final would’ve been moot anyway, but Jen absolutely needed to go all in on DD2.
The show was on at the usual time here in the LA area. Advantage of being on the West Coast for sure.
I didn’t know FJ.
Retro congrats to Drew for making the final and we’ll see him again on Thursday!
What is a mouse?
I think, this is the beginning of a beautiful signature runaway FJ response.