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Warning: This page contains spoilers for the April 7, 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 American Literature) for Monday, April 7, 2025 (Season 41, Game 151):
His 1821 novel was inspired by stories told to him by John Jay of Jay’s experiences with spies during the Revolution
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Taylor Mattox, an IT specialist from Columbus, Ohio
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Erin Li, a psychiatrist from Queens, New York
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Mike Dawson, a technology manager from Portland, Oregon (1-day total: $21,601)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Another week of Jeopardy! play begins with Portland’s Mike Dawson defending his title today against Queens’s Erin Li and Columbus’s Taylor Mattox. Mike will very likely need another victory (or a field expansion) at this point in order to see an invitation to Champions Wildcard; he’s just 0.22% to qualify at this point.
The NCAA men’s basketball championship game airs tonight, making for a smattering of pre-emptions on CBS stations in the Mountain, Pacific, and Hawaiian time zones. If you think you may be affected, check your local listings or Matt Carberry’s Google sheet.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: Who is James Fenimore Cooper?
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.)
James Fenimore Cooper, best known for his series of five novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, was inspired by John Jay’s stories of spies in the American Revolution to write his second novel, 1821’s The Spy, the work that brought Cooper to prominence. In the work, Harvey Birch was based upon real-life spy Enoch Crosby, who had helped Jay during the Revolution.
In terms of difficulty, you basically have to know of The Spy in order to be certain of Cooper; otherwise, you’re essentially flipping a coin between the two most prominent New York authors of the era (Cooper and Washington Irving), especially since Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was also from the early 1820s.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Monday, April 7, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Nameless In Shakespeare; Gang “Way”; Ear, Ear; Movie Title Fill In The Blank; Fine; Dandy)
Mike found the Daily Double very early and used it to build an early lead. After 15 clues, the scores were Mike $4,400 Taylor $2,800 Erin $1,400.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Mike 5 correct 0 incorrect
Taylor 5 correct 0 incorrect
Erin 4 correct 1 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Taylor was a professional bowler in 1989.
Erin had a bar trivia team named The Psychosomatics.
Mike was on Japanese TV in a pair of “vox pop” interviews.
Mike picked up 8 correct responses after the break, extending his lead.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Mike 13 correct 0 incorrect
Erin 9 correct 1 incorrect
Taylor 5 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Mike $8,000
Erin $3,600
Taylor $1,800
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Malice In Wonderland; Medieval Histories; Scrabble Scores; Habitats For Humanity; On The “M”ap; Her Mom’s A Singer)
Both challengers found the Daily Doubles in this one; Erin picked up $3,000, but Taylor lost $3,000. Mike picked up 13 correct, including three at the $2,000 level, to lead going into Final Jeopardy.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Mike 26 correct 2 incorrect
Erin 19 correct 1 incorrect
Taylor 10 correct 3 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 30 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Mike $22,000
Erin $15,000
Taylor $3,600
This Final Jeopardy was a Triple Stumper; which might have been advantage Erin. But I’m guessing she thought that Mike wasn’t going to make a cover bet in this scenario, and she chose to go all in. Unfortunately for her, Mike did cover, and Mike’s now a 2-day champion. He’ll go for win #3 tomorrow.
Tonight’s results:
Taylor $3,600 – $3,000 = $600 (Who Nathaniel Hawthorne?)
Erin $15,000 – $15,000 = $0 (Who is Crane?)
Mike $22,000 – $8,001 = $13,999 (Who is Irving?) (2-day total: $35,600)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) NAMELESS IN SHAKESPEARE $1000 (clue #2)
Mike 0 +1000 (Erin 0 Taylor 0)
2) ON THE “M”AP $2000 (clue #3)
Erin 6000 +3000 (Mike 8000 Taylor 1800)
3) MEDIEVAL HISTORIES $1200 (clue #11, $20000 left on board)
Taylor 3000 -3000 (Mike 14800 Erin 11400)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 50
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Mike 4 5*
Erin
Taylor
DJ! Round:
Mike 4 4 5 3
Erin 4 5* 3 2 5
Taylor 2 3*
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Mike 4.17
Taylor 2.50
Erin 3.80
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 30 (0.20 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Mike $22,000 Coryat, 26 correct, 2 incorrect, 47.37% in first on buzzer (27/57), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Taylor $6,600 Coryat, 10 correct, 3 incorrect, 17.54% in first on buzzer (10/57), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
Erin $14,000 Coryat, 19 correct, 1 incorrect, 31.58% in first on buzzer (18/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $42,600
Lach Trash: $4,600 (on 4 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $6,800
Lead Changes: 4
Times Tied: 1
Player Statistics:
Mike Dawson, career statistics:
45 correct, 5 incorrect
2/3 on rebound attempts (on 9 rebound opportunities)
38.60% in first on buzzer (44/114)
1/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $1,000)
1/2 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $18,500
Erin Li, career statistics:
19 correct, 2 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
31.58% in first on buzzer (18/57)
1/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $3,000)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $14,000
Taylor Mattox, career statistics:
10 correct, 4 incorrect
2/2 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
17.54% in first on buzzer (10/57)
0/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$3,000)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $6,600
Mike Dawson, to win:
3 games: 58.281%
4: 33.967%
5: 19.796%
6: 11.537%
7: 6.724%
Avg. streak: 3.397 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- Mike is now 2.46% to qualify for the Tournament of Champions and 34.00% to return for Champions Wildcard.
- Obviously there was no way for either show to know they were airing today, but it was ironic to see a clue about the Maldives in both the US and UK versions today.
- If you’re in second place going into Final Jeopardy and your read is that the player in the lead isn’t going to make a cover bet, going all-in is the strategic play.
- Having seen our three responses to Final Jeopardy today, I’m still of the opinion that requiring players to know that Cooper was the novelist might be a bridge too far to ask of regular play players; maybe this FJ clue could have been saved for the Tournament of Champions?
- Today’s box score will be linked to when posted by the show.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Mike $22,000 Erin $15,000 Taylor $3,600)
Mike: Standard cover bet today is $8,001. If you think Erin might defend against that, a bet between $2 and $5,998 would also be viable, but you’d have to be pretty certain as to her intentions. (Actual bet: $8,001)
Erin: If you think Mike will make a cover bet here, bet between $0 and $1,000. If you don’t, going all in is viable. (Actual bet: $15,000)
Taylor: You need to overbets to have a chance. Do whatever you like, but you might want to keep a couple of bucks around in case Erin goes all in. I might bet $3,550 here to circle back to the $50 from your interview story. (Actual bet: $3,000)
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I remembered from about 60 years ago while playing the card game AUTHORS that Cooper wrote THE SPY.
We had that card game, as well. In fact, I have my family’s set because I said I wanted it when my parents were cleaning out closets a few years back.
Today’s Final Jeopardy answer clue had nothing for me to even maked an uneducated guess.
But after the game was over, doing a mind numbing chore, my memory told me of a TV miniseries that I at least watched part of about revolutionary war sies. That memory coulsn’t say if Cooper’s book had been any inspiration for the show.
It wasn’t. Googling TV miniseries revolutinary war spies, came up with TURn. That dealth with the Culpeper spy ring. While Cooper may have touched pon Culpepper’s ring, his work wasn’t the inspiration for the mniseries,
To me, today’s final boils down to “Who wrote ‘The Spy’?” If you don’t know that or aren’t even aware of the “The Spy,” then, you probably aren’t going to get this. You simply had to know that James Fenimore Cooper wrote “The Spy.” Clues dealing with Cooper and “The Last of the Mohicans” are probably more appropriate for regular Jeopardy! play as “The Spy” may not be one of Cooper’s most familiar books. For me, as soon as I saw the word “spies” in the clue, I knew it was referring to “The Spy” which meant the response was “Who is James Fenimore Cooper,” although, at first, I was thinking the response was “The Spy.” It took me a moment to realize they were looking for the author and not his novel.
I was in the same boat as you about initially thinking the response should be the novel rather than the author, but I never got past that because I had never heard of ‘The Spy’, so spent all my time trying to think which James Fenimore Cooper novel was most likely to have spying in it (or maybe which was his earliest). I had started with the right author just because my first thought for that era was ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ which could have included a spy in it even though not featuring that, but tried to remember other of his books that might have instead (like ‘The Pathfinder’), thus I ran out of time to review the clue and see that all they wanted was the author!
Welcome aboard, Lisa. There’s plenty of room for you in the boat. Sounds like you knew it all along, you just didn’t know that you knew it. The last part of your comment reinforces my belief that clues dealing with Cooper and “The Last of The Mohicans” would be more appropriate for regular Jeopardy! play.
Cooper was the first thought that came to my mind, but I got stuck on the “his 1821 novel” part and tried to think of someone who was famous for mainly one book.
Would a contestant who placed third have a chance of being invited to Second Chance if that player had a strong game until FJ?
Absolutely!