DOWN GOES JEOPARDY JAMES! DOWN GOES JEOPARDY JAMES!!!
I DON’T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!!! Actually I do because a bunch of sites like the New York Post wrote about the leaked video on Sunday, Jerry Thornton blogged it Monday morning, and Twitter was a spoiler landmine all day with noted fun sponge Darren Rovell tweeting one out to pimp his article to 2 million people by using the “Already aired in multiple markets” excuse because a few states nobody knows about air Jeopardy in the morning, which subsequently caused my eyeballs to roll through the back of my head.
But even despite all that, I still held out hope that maybe this was a setup by Jeopardy like when the Game of Thrones recorded multiple fake endings to the show and invited characters who had nothing to do with the finale to the location of the final scene. I’m actually still holding out hope this wasn’t real after watching it unfold live on my TV. You could even hear Alex was completely shook by the way everything unfolded with that “OH GOSH…WHAT A GAME, OH MY GOD”. Last week I actually told people I couldn’t do anything on Monday night because I had to make sure I was home to blog James passing Ken Jennings in the money standings as long as he had even an average game. However, it looks like the king is dead.
Or is he? Everybody following James knew that Monday was going to be the day that he passed Jennings. Are we supposed to believe that James conveniently has the worst game of his life on his coronation day?
Nope, Big Brain James didn’t choke during the biggest game of his career. He clearly took a dive! How else would you explain him coming up jusssssst short of Ken Jennings? James was only $66,484 behind Ken’s record of 2,520,700 and averaged $77,000 in winnings per game during his streak. I mean he was literally betting money in Final Jeopardy so he could win enough money to shout out birthdays of family and friends instead of trying to Ken from the records book ASAP. This was all clearly a fix from the jump. James somehow coming out of nowhere to dominate Jeopardy right as Alex Trebek announced he was sick and then losing right after Trebek announced his cancer is in near remission is just too fishy for me to swallow. Even the way James was tweeting once the spoilers hit the internet was far too gracious and cheeky for a trivia robot.
James Holzhauer was a plant by the Jeopardy producers for when the show needed him most that would get rid of him when he was no longer needed while also making sure Ken Jennings money and games streaks stayed in tact.. #STAYWOKE
OK, now that I’m done drinking my Jeopardy James Kool-Aid for one last time and trying to make everyone else do the same, it’s time to down some truth juice and tip my cap to Emma Boettcher for toppling James fair and square before I become the latest Barstool writer accused of being a misogynist. Emma faced an absolute monster in the trivia thunderdome, stared the titan down, then beat him at his own game. James went 25-for-25 in answering questions but Emma went 21-for-21, hit two Daily Doubles, and went all-in on one of them. So being super smart and super gutsy is how James started his dynasty and Emma did the same thing to take said dynasty down. James knew the only chance he had to win was for Emma to get Final Jeopardy wrong, which of course she didn’t. Hence the $1,399 bet.
Emma took down the king of Jeopardy playing his own game and should be applauded for doing so, no matter how crazy the timing is. She’s the Kingslayer and we must all bend the knee to Jeopardy’s newest ruler.
Now Jeopardy can return to being a nice show to have on in the background that casually play as we unwind from work and occasionally laugh at some socially awkward trivia weirdos not knowing basic sports facts instead of being the latest focal point for why people who try to win competitions are toxic or what’s allowed in today’s #SPOILERS culture.
That being said, I don’t like this idea, I LOVE it.
I know some people think people getting upset about Jeopardy spoilers is silly. But what’s the difference between spoiling a bunch of people playing a sport, a long-running TV show like Game of Thrones, a sprawling movie franchise more than a decade old like Avengers:Endgame, a movie that just came out with no fanfare, or a person playing a gameshow? Like a wise man once said, either it’s all a joke or none of it is. You can’t get mad about someone spoiling who run a race between athletes swimming in a pool, who ended up on the Iron Throne in a fictional dragon show, if superheroes were able to save the world on the big screen, or someone telling you the end of the movie as you enter the theater if you can’t appreciate people not wanting to know if Trivia Robot 2.0 is going to break Trivia Robot 1.0’s record and when he is going to lose in the most impressive winning streak we have seen in years in all forms of competition.
Actually I guess I even could be spoiling for people that work nights or watch on DVR. I guess it is what it is.
Anyway, thanks for the memorable run James. Can’t wait until you leave a wake of dead bodies in the next Tournament of Champions before your inevitable showdown with Ken Jennings and Watson. And thanks for being a good sport all the way through the end of your legendary run.
TL;DR- RIP my dog JEOPARDEY JAMES
P.S. Thoughts and prayers to Jay for having a decent game in his own right but still getting run over by two separate trains at the same time. Jeopardy clearly stacked the deck against James during what would have been a historic episode based on the fun fact segment of the show alone.