Warning: This page contains spoilers for the April 25, 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 1990s Bestsellers) for Friday, April 25, 2025 (Season 41, Game 165):
In this 1995 book, Pilgrim is taken to Tom, whose job it is to utter secrets “softly into pricked and troubled ears”
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Jenn Gardner, a nonprofit arts administrator from Houston, Texas
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Simon Liebling, a resident physician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Liam Starnes, an undergraduate student from Barrington, Illinois (5-day total: $103,002)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
We have a new 5-time champion in UChicago undergrad Liam Starnes, who has been impressing viewers with his knowledge and making many of them feeling very old at the same time. As the show doesn’t release contestant ages, there’s no way for us to definitively determine who the most recent 5-time champion was that was younger than Liam is during their respective runs; I have a couple of possibilities that I can think of, but again, I don’t think it’s a stat really worth tracking, nor do I think the show should facilitate the tracking of this specific stat.
That being said, be prepared for lots of rage online this evening: a number of markets, most prominently New York and Philadelphia, will be pre-empting tonight’s game because of ABC’s coverage of the NFL Draft. Check your local listings. 99% of the time, I can generally see why episodes of Jeopardy! get pre-empted, but this is one case where I absolutely do not comprehend why NFL Draft coverage—moreover, this isn’t even the first round of the draft—needs to occupy space on network television on a Friday evening. Anyone who actually cares about this can watch it on ESPN, where the coverage is also airing. In my opinion, ABC deserves all of the negative reception that will come its way this evening for this programming decision.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: What is The Horse Whisperer?
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.)
Later adapted into a 1998 movie starring Robert Redford and Scarlett Johansson, The Horse Whisperer was Nicholas Evans’s 1995 bestselling debut novel. Pilgrim is Grace Maclean’s horse; Tom Booker is the title “horse whisperer” who helps re-train Pilgrim after a riding accident nearly kills both Grace and Pilgrim; meanwhile, Grace’s mother Annie has an affair with Tom.
I’ll be honest: I think this would have been an excellent Final Jeopardy clue in the year 2000, when the book and movie would have been more in the public consciousness. Transplanting this clue to the year 2025, though, makes this significantly more difficult, in my opinion. (I also don’t think this is what others meant when they begged for Jeopardy!‘s writing to return to that era.) Looking further into J! Archive, it’s also been a missed Daily Double twice in the last decade—but I apparently found the subject matter so unremarkable that I’d forgotten about both of those instances. This definitely feels like a subject where the writer’s room has a better memory for it than North America at large, especially because its 2022 appearance as a Daily Double was in the second row of the board.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Friday, April 25, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Explorers; Occupational Song Titles; Absolute Power; Homophones; Now You’Re Cooking; The Impatient 19Th Century Reader)
Liam got off to a hot start, picking up 10 correct and the Daily Double to hold a huge lead after 15 clues. At the interviews, the scores were Liam $9,000 Simon $1,600 Jenn $0.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Liam 10 correct 0 incorrect
Simon 2 correct 0 incorrect
Jenn 2 correct 2 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Jenn worked for one week dissecting freeze-dried fireflies.
Simon had to exit Denali, pursued by a bear.
Liam once scored $259,000 in a game of Wii Jeopardy.
All three players gave at least four correct responses in this segment; Liam continued to lead.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Liam 14 correct 0 incorrect
Simon 6 correct 0 incorrect
Jenn 7 correct 4 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Liam $11,000
Simon $3,200
Jenn $800
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: The Wizard Of Oz; Ruby Slippers; We’Re Not In Kansas Anymore; & Your Little Dog Too; If I Only Had A Brain; There’S No Place Like “Home”)
This one was decided by a couple of mistakes by the challengers: Jenn responded “anenome” instead of “anemone”, while Simon bet just $1,000 on a $3,600 Daily Double when significantly behind Liam’s score. Had Simon gone all in on DD# like he should have in that position, or had Jenn responded with the correct pronunciation, Liam would not have had a runaway going into Final.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Liam 21 correct 1 incorrect
Jenn 17 correct 7 incorrect
Simon 11 correct 1 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 30 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Liam $20,600
Jenn $8,800
Simon $7,800
Nobody got this Final Jeopardy correct; Liam is now a 6-day champion! He’ll go for #7 on Monday.
Tonight’s results:
Simon $7,800 – $1,001 = $6,799 (What is The Poisonwood Bible?)
Jenn $8,800 – $6,900 = $1,900 (What is the da vinci code)
Liam $20,600 – $18 = $20,582 (What is A Clockwork Orange) (6-day total: $123,584)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) ABSOLUTE POWER $800 (clue #8)
Liam 3000 +3000 (Simon 1000 Jenn 400)
2) WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE $2000 (clue #12)
Liam 12600 +6000 (Simon 2000 Jenn 400)
3) IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN $2000 (clue #14, $17600 left on board)
Simon 3600 +1000 (Liam 18600 Jenn 400)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 175
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Liam 5 5 3 4 3 4*
Simon 4
Jenn 4
DJ! Round:
Liam 4 3 4 3 4 3 5* 4
Simon 3 4 5*
Jenn 1 1 2
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Liam 3.86
Simon 4.00
Jenn 2.00
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 30 (0.18 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Liam $14,400 Coryat, 21 correct, 1 incorrect, 29.82% in first on buzzer (17/57), 3/3 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
Simon $8,800 Coryat, 11 correct, 1 incorrect, 19.30% in first on buzzer (11/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
Jenn $8,800 Coryat, 17 correct, 7 incorrect, 42.11% in first on buzzer (24/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $32,000
Lach Trash: $12,000 (on 11 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $10,000
Lead Changes: 1
Times Tied: 1
Player Statistics:
Liam Starnes, career statistics:
122 correct, 18 incorrect
7/9 on rebound attempts (on 27 rebound opportunities)
33.33% in first on buzzer (114/342)
9/11 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $34,590)
3/6 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $14,867
Simon Liebling, career statistics:
11 correct, 2 incorrect
0/0 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
19.30% in first on buzzer (11/57)
1/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $1,000)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $8,800
Jenn Gardner, career statistics:
17 correct, 8 incorrect
0/0 on rebound attempts (on 2 rebound opportunities)
42.11% in first on buzzer (24/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $8,800
Liam Starnes, to win:
7 games: 61.872%
8: 38.281%
9: 23.685%
10: 14.655%
11: 9.067%
Avg. streak: 7.623 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- Due to today’s game being a runaway, no wagering suggestions will be posted.
- Your reminder that no response is more incorrect than a blank screen in Final Jeopardy. I knew my own response at home to this Final had a 99% chance of being incorrect, but it’s still better to put something down.
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
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Loved this clue and love the fact that I got it correct and finished the week with two in a row.
My reaction: this was a BOOK?
(So, yeah, no, not even close to getting it.)
Yeah, if you didn’t read the book or see the movie, this one is pretty hopeless. The better FJ clues give you a chance to derive the answer, even if you don’t know it immediately. Was pricked ears supposed to suggest a horse?
I saw nothing in the answer clue that would lead me to nowing Pilgram was a horse, either.
This Final was anotherwhere if you knew who/what answer clue was refering to you had this Final.
Being cynical, even the second and third rounds of the NFL draft will probably get better ratings than most Friday evening network programming.
I am not in favor of ABC showing this NFL Draft. Why not just show it where it needs to be shown; on ESPN. The maddening end result is that Jeopardy! is eventually shown, but WOF airs first, then Jeopardy!—here in the SF Bay Area. What is up with that?
Also I am one of those people who have faithfully watched Jeopardy! and have wondered just how young this or that 5 day+ champion is. Obviously, we do know the age of the current 5 day champion Liam as he was born during the initial run of Ken’s time on Jeopardy! some 20-1/2 years ago…I hope Liam goes far in this game.
The pilgrim reference had me thinking of Slaughterhouse Five and John Wayne’s famous line in True Grit.
But I knew they were published many years earlier.
I could never have gotten the correct response.
Wayne used that “Pilgrim” remark in a number of movies. As to this final Jeopardy, I saw the movie years ago but those details didn’t help now. However, seems to me that when a final is a triple-stumper, that says more about the writers than about the contestants!
Having lived through all the hullaballoo surrounding the movie, I was able to get this final due to the presence of the words “Pilgrim,” “Tom,” and “utter secrets ‘softly into pricked and troubled ears.'” I thought back then that the movie was receiving more than attention than it deserved. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. Thus, despite the fact that it came to me right away, I fully expected that it would be a triple stumper, which turned out to be true. I agree with Andy that this clue is way passed its expiration date, so to speak. Congrats to Liam, though, on now being a six-day champion. I’d be happy to see him continue on for a while.
I’ve always loved horses and will watch just about anything with horses in it much [and I liked Robert Redford, too], so I did see the movie. But I also thought afterward that the movie was receiving more attention/acclaim than it deserved! I think we were proved right because not only did it not get any Oscars, the only nomination it got was for “original song”. It also does not have a terrible IMDb rating, but it doesn’t have a very good one.
Like Carol above, Pilgrim made me think of ‘Slaughterhouse 5’. I knew that was not it, but I could have sworn he appeared in at least one subsequent Vonnegut book, so I went down that rabbit hole trying to think of it — a hopeless cause since I was wrong in the first place.
I believe the decision on whether to air the syndicated Jeopardy or ABC’s NFL draft coverage is up to the local affiliate — although some stations are owned by the network. Fewer and fewer people have access to ESPN as there has been a growing trend of “cutting the cable”. If Jeopardy were available on a Game Show Network channel to which you do not subscribe would you be any less frustrated?
I totally agree with you as to your last two sentences and I don’t even like sports, especially football. [Well, to me, football is 2nd worse to basketball because of all the squeaking sneakers!]
I am not sure about your first sentence since Disney owns the ABC network and has a controlling 80% interest in ESPN, so airing the NFL Draft could act to promote their actual coverage and be a good place to air commercials for ESPN. Also, I’d guess an agreement to cover the Draft during hours which will cause pre-emptions is one requirement by the NFL for their entire deal with Disney.
Didn’t watch last night, won’t watch tonight, both due to NFL draft. Didn’t get Final, again, missed a lot lately. Congrats to Liam, keep it going, young man.
My opinion on the reasonableness of this FJ! is that it’s having been a missed Daily Double twice in the last decade is actually a reason to use it because of the reputation contestants now have for having studied past games. It having been a low-value clue before even adds to this hypothesis because I’d guess many would-be contestants don’t “waste time” on reading the low-value clues on the assumption that they probably know those anyway.
Jenn was within range of half Liam’s score on that last clue in DJ. I would’ve like to see her throw up a Hail Mary, even if it was just saying a common last name. You never know.
And at least in DC, WOF & Jeopardy is scheduled for 2:30 to 3:30 am, normally I over record if it is preempted by a live event, but that won’t work tonight because ABC is starting their coverage of the Pope’s funeral at 3;3-