Jeopardy! Weekly Game Recap (6/26-6/30): Four New Champions in Mayim Bialik's Last Week of Hosting (2024)

After a very closely contested match between her, Ron Nurwisah, and 5-time champion Ben Goldstein, Donna returned the following Monday to defend her title as reigning champion against challengers Ryan Clary and Caroline Gulick. The first round was very competitive, all three players playing in close proximity of each other until the last clue, which was the Daily Double.

Caroline was the one who found it, in United Kingdom Election Constituencies: “Bordering Dover & Folkestone & Hythe, this district on England's east coast has a few ancient "Tales" to tell." Wagering $1,600, Caroline correctly responded with “What is Canterbury?," taking her score up to $6,200 for the first round. Donna finished with $3,800, with Ryan in third place at $2,800.

Ryan went on to find the first Daily Double on the first clue of the Double Jeopardy! round, in Classical Music: “Tan Dun, an Oscar winner for this 2000 Ang Lee film, recently composed an operatic work called "Buddha Passion".“ Ryan answered correctly with “What is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?,” and added $2,000 more to his score for a total of $4,800, compared to $6,200 for Caroline and $3,800 for Donna.

He proceeded to answer the $1,600 and $2,000 clues in the same category correctly as well, bumping him up to $8,400 before going towards the War of the Words category, starting at $1,200. Just when it looked like Ryan was going to steal the game from the ladies, Donna answered the clue correctly, followed by the $1,600 and $2,000 clues to take the lead away from Ryan, $8,600 to $8,400. Despite being the best player of the first round, Caroline was mostly radio silent in Double Jeopardy!

The second Daily Double was, again, found on the last clue. After Caroline and Ryan got the other two, it was Donna’s time this time. She wagered $1,000 on the clue in Scientists, but was the only one to answer incorrectly. Despite this, she still had a commanding lead with $18,800 compared to $11,600 for Ryan and $7,400 for Caroline.

The Final Jeopardy! category was 20th Century Events, and the clue was: “It was immediately reported, "The flames are still leaping maybe 30, 40 feet from the ground the entire 811 feet length of" this.” Ryan and Donna both correctly responded with “What is the Hindenburg?,” Ryan adding $10,222 to finish with $21,822, and Donna adding $4,000 to win with $22,800 for a 2-day total of $40,200.

Chris Ban

Donna returned the next day to face challengers Erin Gold and Chris Ban. The first round was competitive between Donna and Erin, with Erin having a slight advantage at the end of the round, $6,000 to $5,200. Chris was stuck in the red at (-$600), but things quickly turned around for him in the Double Jeopardy! round, when he went on a tear in the War Films category, even capitalizing on a True Daily Double wager of $1,800.

It remained a pretty close contest between the three following that, with Erin finding the other Daily Double in Banking “A” “B” “Cs”. However, she answered incorrectly and lost out on a $2,000 bet. All three players struggled in the final category, A Space Odyssey. At the end of the round, Donna had a slim lead with $8,400, Chris was closely behind with $8,000, and Erin had $7,600.

The Final Jeopardy! clue was in 19th Century Literature: “In 1896 new spider species were named for a wolf, a panther & a snake from a work published 2 years earlier by this man.” Chris was the only one who responded with the right response, Rudyard Kipling, adding $5,000 to become the new champion with $13,000.

Chris’s reign as champion didn’t last too long, as he ran into Vic Goel and Bryan White his next game. Not only did Bryan put the game away with $18,400 at the end of the second round, but even the $4,200 that Vic accumulated wouldn’t have helped Chris, as his $4,800 would only improve to $9,000. It was a dominant game from Bryan all around. In Final Jeopardy!, all three players were correct with Vic adding $4,000 for $8,200, Chris adding $3,750 for $8,550, and Bryan adding a supplementary $1,730 for a winning total of $20,130.

Bryan’s next game was just as dominant as his first, with both of his challengers Alicia Korenman and Tenysa Santiago struggling to get any footing on Bryan. This result came regardless of the fact that they were both able to prevent Bryan from catching any of the Daily Doubles. Tenysa found the first one in the first round, answering incorrectly, and then the second one of the second round, losing out on a combined $3,000. Alicia missed the first Daily Double of Double Jeopardy!, losing out on $1,000. With $14,200 for Bryan, $5,200 for Alicia, and $1,600 for Tenysa, the game was already over before Final Jeopardy!.

The final clue of the game in The Movies read as follows: “Centenarian ceramic artist Beatrice Wood helped inspire one of the main characters & the narrator of this film from the 1990s.” All three players responded incorrectly. A rather timely clue about the Titanic, Tenysa responded with Ed Wood, losing out on $400 for a final score of $1,200. Alicia went with Toy Story, losing $1,500 for a final score of $3,700, and Bryan answered Ghost, losing $2,323 to win with $11,877 for a two-day total of $32,007.

Ilena Di Toro

In Bryan’s third game, against Courtney Johnston and Ilena Di Toro, he started off as dominant as he did in his first two games, running up $3,200 before finding the first Daily Double on the 11th clue of the round in Welcome to the Big Urban Area. However, he did not answer correctly, dropping down to $0 after pushing all the chips forward. The rest of the round didn’t go very smoothly for any of the players, as Bryan held the lead with just $2,200, compared to $1,200 for Courtney, and $0 for Ilena.

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The Double Jeopardy! round began with Ilena sweeping up the first Daily Double on the third clue of the round in Historic Greats, picking up $1,000 after identifying Prussia as the kingdom Frederick the Great brought into European ascendancy. While the game was close most of the way, no one managed to get above $10,000 before the round was over. Bryan came close to doing so, finding the last Daily Double on the 29th clue in The Sailor Man. By this point, all clues revealed in the category had been triple stumpers and Bryan had $8,200 to put at risk. Ilena had $4,600 and Courtney had $4,000. Bryan bet $1,100 and answered the clue right, bumping him up to $9,300.

There was only one clue remaining, worth $800. Bryan had wagered enough for a lock game if the last clue was also a stumper. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t. Ilena answered the clue correctly, bumping her score to $5,400 and putting her within reach of Bryan’s total. This also meant that Courtney had the opportunity to steal the game as well, since a cover bet and wrong answer from Bryan would put him below a maximum doubled score from Courtney ($8,000 for Courtney vs. $7,799 for Bryan). Of course, however, Courtney and Ilena both had to answer with the accurate response for a chance of stealing it.

In Final Jeopardy!, the three players had to determine which country’s national anthem translated as “His Majesty’s Reign,” in which the right response was Japan. Courtney answered “France,” losing out on $3,810 for a final score of $190. Ilena answered correctly, adding $4,100 for a final score of $9,500. Bryan, however, was incorrect. He went with Norway, losing $1,600 to finish in second place with $7,700, which proved his Daily Double bet as being insufficient at that moment. Ilena won the match and will continue her run this Monday with Ken Jennings as the host. This was Mayim Bialik’s final episode of the season.

Thank you so much for reading this article. To all paid subs, the special script for you should be here by Friday at the latest. Sadly, I got caught in a bunch of different projects and had to hold off. Still, I promise not to disappoint.

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