Warning: This page contains spoilers for the January 3, 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 19th Century Fiction) for Friday, January 3, 2025 (Season 41, Game 85):
In Chapter 9 of an 1851 work, a preacher in a New England port city delivers a sermon about this Old Testament prophet
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Kaitlin Tarr, a ceramic artist from Denver, Colorado (Yesterday’s total: $1)
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Colleen Matthews, a speech-language pathologist from Hillsboro, Oregon (Yesterday’s total: $8,400)
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Will Yancey, a lecturer of history from Banquete, Texas (Yesterday’s total: $20,000)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
After a very strong first two rounds yesterday where he picked up 23 correct responses, Will Yancey holds a large—but certainly not insurmountable—lead going into Day 2 of this 2-day final over Colleen Matthews in second and Kaitlin Tarr in third. Will’s “effective lead” is only $5,800 over Colleen—meaning, if Colleen leads Will by more than $5,800 today going into Final, she would win if both players get Final correct and bet everything. Kaitlin, having left $1 behind in Final Jeopardy yesterday before her miss, starts today effectively a shade under $10,000 behind Will. (Editor’s note: This math is in fact correct, due to the fact that only half the deficit must be made up before Final Jeopardy.)
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: Who is Jonah?
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.)
Chapter 9 of Herman Melville’s 1851 work Moby-Dick describes Father Mapple giving a sermon at the Whaleman’s Chapel in the port city of New Bedford about Jonah and the whale (from the Old Testament Book of Jonah)—obviously fitting considering the overall cetacean theme of this famous Melville work.
Assuming contestants and viewers remember that the show is looking for the name of the prophet here—which is sometimes difficult to do under the pressure of the stage (and the Final Jeopardy music)—this should be a reasonably straightforward connection between Moby-Dick and Jonah. This is the sort of clue that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see in Final Jeopardy at any point in the last 25 years, and I think it’s a good clue for Day 2 of a final. Slightly more straightforward clues are a good way to make sure that players have done their Final Jeopardy math properly—a more difficult task than usual.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Friday, January 3, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Historic Americans; 10-, 11- & 12-Letter Words; Sci-Fi Fill In; Clothing Time; Named For A Place; & The Emmy Goes To…)
It took all of 15 clues for Colleen to reel in much of Will’s advantage; after 15 clues, she led with $5,000; Kaitlin had $2,800 and Will $200.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Colleen 7 correct 0 incorrect
Kaitlin 4 correct 0 incorrect
Will 2 correct 2 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Kaitlin would like to thank her mom, dad, and brother.
Colleen would like to thank her son Evan.
Will would like to thank his birds and his wife.
As he always seems to, Will found the Daily Double and used it to pick up another $1,000. He went 4-for-5 in the 10-, 11- & 12 LETTER WORDS category to claw back some of the deficit today to Colleen (he still holds the 2-day lead, though.)
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Colleen 11 correct 0 incorrect
Kaitlin 8 correct 0 incorrect
Will 8 correct 2 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Colleen $6,400
Kaitlin $6,000
Will $3,400
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Your 19th Century Beard Tickles!; Models; Slang From Your Start-Up Job; “R” We There Yet?; Only Birders…; In The Building)
Colleen gained only $3,000 on DD2, while Will went conservative on DD3, picking up just $1,000. Coupled with 10 correct responses from Kaitlin, this led to an end of the Double Jeopardy round where all three players were nearly tied overall with four clues to play. As it was, a pair of late correct response from Will gave him the effective lead going into Final Jeopardy.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Kaitlin 18 correct 1 incorrect
Colleen 17 correct 2 incorrect
Will 17 correct 6 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 26 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Kaitlin $16,000
Colleen $12,600
Will $7,600
Will and Colleen were correct in Final; that makes Will your champion! He advances to Champions Wildcard, beginning January 13!
Tonight’s results:
Will $7,600 + $7,600 = $15,200 + $20,000 = $35,200 ($35,000 + Champions Wildcard) (Who is Jonah?)
Colleen $12,600 + $12,000 = $24,600 + $8,400 = $33,000 ($15,000) (Who is Jonah?)
Kaitlin $16,000 – $11,605 = $4,395 + $1 = $4,396 ($15,000) (Who is Joseph?)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) 10-, 11- & 12-LETTER WORDS $800 (clue #22)
Will 1000 +1000 (Colleen 5800 Kaitlin 3600)
2) “R” WE THERE YET? $800 (clue #17)
Colleen 10400 +3000 (Will 3000 Kaitlin 11200)
3) SLANG FROM YOUR START-UP JOB $1200 (clue #20, $11200 left on board)
Will 3800 +1000 (Colleen 13800 Kaitlin 11200)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 155
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Will 5 3 3 4 2 4*
Colleen 4 2 5 2 3 2 1 5 1 3
Kaitlin 1 5 4 4 3 2
DJ! Round:
Will 3 4 1 3 4 5 3*
Colleen 5 2 3 4 5 2* 1† 2
Kaitlin 1 2 3 4 5
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Will 3.38
Colleen 2.89
Kaitlin 3.09
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 26 (0.31 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Will $7,600 Coryat, 17 correct, 6 incorrect, 36.84% in first on buzzer (21/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 1 rebound opportunity)
Colleen $10,400 Coryat, 17 correct, 2 incorrect, 26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57), 1/3 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
Kaitlin $16,000 Coryat, 18 correct, 1 incorrect, 28.07% in first on buzzer (16/57), 3/3 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $34,000
Lach Trash: $10,400 (on 8 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $9,600
Lead Changes: 4
Times Tied: 1
Player Statistics:
Will Yancey, career statistics:
83 correct, 20 incorrect
5/7 on rebound attempts (on 14 rebound opportunities)
35.96% in first on buzzer (82/228)
8/10 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $6,000)
2/4 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $14,650
Colleen Matthews, career statistics:
65 correct, 9 incorrect
3/5 on rebound attempts (on 16 rebound opportunities)
26.75% in first on buzzer (61/228)
2/4 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $1,000)
4/4 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,650
Kaitlin Tarr, career statistics:
84 correct, 15 incorrect
4/6 on rebound attempts (on 15 rebound opportunities)
37.28% in first on buzzer (85/228)
2/4 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$3,200)
0/4 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $14,000
Andy’s Thoughts:
- Friendly reminder to Kaitlin: The site is called “J! Archive, not “Jeopardy! Archive”.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Kaitlin $16,000 ($1) Colleen $12,600 ($8,400) Will $7,600 ($20,000))
Kaitlin’s current score: $16,001
Kaitlin’s maximum possible score: $32,001
Colleen’s current score: $21,000
Colleen’s maximum possible score: $33,600
Will’s current score: $27,600
Will’s maximum’s possible score: $35,200
Will: Standard cover bet over Colleen is $6,001. If you want to tack on a little extra, that’s okay—but going more than $6,599 means that you might leave yourself open if Colleen bets zero. (Actual bet: $7,600)
Colleen: Standard cover bet over Kaitlin is $11,002. However, being that an incorrect response means a defeat, you might as well go all in to force a cover bet out of Will. (Actual bet: $12,000)
Kaitlin: You have to be correct to have any hope of victory. You might as well go all in to force a cover bet out of Colleen. (Actual bet: $11,605)
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The year led me to Moby Dick, and Jonah was the only obvious answer from there (though, literally, it was a big fish, not a whale that swallowed Jonah).
Regardless of diverse opinions as to whether the Bible is “true”, even the earliest versions (such as the Dead Sea scrolls, which have been carbon-dated to somewhere within 400 B.C. to 250 A.D.) contained information which at the time was more legend [which is not necessarily untrue] than “eyewitness accounts”, with abundant opportunities to be affected by the scribe’s knowledge and/or translation skills. During the 4th century B.C. Aristotle had classified whales and fish as “blooded animals” so presumably he considered whales and fish separately, but it was centuries before it was common knowledge that whales were mammals. So it makes sense that some versions of the Bible (AND different books of the same Bible) then and later would say “big fish” or “great fish” and some would say whales.
Jeopardy! relies on the King James Bible which says “great fish” but this clue was about the book Moby-Dick and it says that Father Mapple spoke about Jonah and a whale.
I said literal. In the Hebrew it is dag gadol – the original ‘version’. That is big fish. But thanks for lesson 😉
Ditto, same logic in getting to the correct response.
I’ve been re-reading some Hawthorne recently, so “1851”, “preacher”, and “New England” took me down a “The House of the Seven Gables” rabbit hole – D’OH!
Maybe this is new math, but after yesterdays’ game, Kaitlin ended up with $1 and Will had $20,000. So how is Kaitlin just a shade under $10,000 going into today’s game?
Because anything earned in the main game today can be potentially doubled in Final Jeopardy. Thus, she only needs to make up $10,000 of the deficit before Final—the rest of it can be made up during Final.
(Admin note: This reply also applies to Diane. There is no math error here.)
Saw the Moby Dick movie a week or so ago..so it came right to me. Orson Welles had a brief but memorable role as the preacher that set the tone.
I’ve realised that there must be something about Moby Dick in the clue, but I was choosing between Daniel and Ezekiel, which rhyme with Ishmael. Silly me.
That 3k bet by Colleen on her DD was disappointing.
I was no more a lesson to you than your comment was a “lesson” to Andy and everyone else. Mine was just to perhaps add clarity to anyone who did not understand that neither usage is exactly wrong. In fact the older the Hebrew text saying dag gadol, the more likely it predated anyone knowing that a whale is NOT a “big fish”. It sort of gets into the same territory as whether Eve was specifically offered an “apple”.
This was a reply to MarkO, but the screen lost my filled in ‘Name’ and gave an error. After I re-filled it in, it posted as a “new/standalone” comment.