u/CadeBW

I wanted to get some opinions on the ruling on Final Jeopardy! in a recent episode. The categorie was "Advertising & Show Biz."

This was the clue:

"Celebrating the 20th anniversary of a film in 2024, this restaurant chain offered collectible cups & a digital release of the movie"

Jonathon & McShane (a.k.a. One Baddie After Another) answered "What is Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle?" Colin Jost explained that even though that was the right movie, "we were asking for the name of the restaurant" and they were ruled incorrect.

I was quite surprised by this ruling and thought it was not consistent with how responses are handled outside of Final Jeopardy. I always thought that as long as the correct response was contained in a response given by a player (and barring any further restrictions based on the category), the response is accepted as correct. I feel like this happens all the time. I don't have time right now to go looking for examples on the archive, but I feel pretty confident, for instance, that if a clue was asking for "this title fruit in a Fannie Flagg novel" and a contestant answered "What is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe", Ken might clarify "tomatoes is correct" but the response would still be accepted.

Are the rules different in Final Jeopardy? Has this ever happened before in Final Jeopardy? Or are the rules different in Pop Culture Jeopardy? Or am I just wrong about the judging precedent?

Regardless of how you feel about what happened in tonight's episode, I think we need to take a step back and just appreciate the hilarity of this Final 5. It's literally this subreddit's nightmare scenario. The univerise is trolling r/survivor. It's so absurdly disappointing that it almost wraps around to being incredible.

If you did a poll the day the cast was announced, and asked everyone to vote on who they were least excited to see return for Survivor 50, I think there is a genuine possibly the top five would be some combination of Joe, Jonathon, Tiffany, Aubry and Rizo. Maybe, maybe Savannah would have been there too, simply because nobody knew who she was. I know all of these players have fans, especially outside of the Survivor subreddit, but "Watch the final 5 be Joe, Jonathon, Tiffany, Aubry and Rizo" legitamately sounds like a joke someone would have made on the cast reveal thread. The fact that not even one Colby/Cirie/Coach-type name managed to slip through is unbelievable.

And the subtitle being "In the Hands of the Fans" just makes the outcome all the more beautiful.