‘Jeopardy!’: Amy Schneider Drama as ‘Masters’ Thriller Ends in Triple Stumper

Coming into the sixth night of Jeopardy! Masters Season 2, there were a couple of foregone conclusions: Victoria Groce (with 13 match points) and Yogesh Raut (with 10) were already qualified to play in the semifinals; unless James Holzhauer (who had 6) got shut out again, he was likely to advance as well; it was bound to be a close contest between Amy Schneider (5, with a tiebreaker in number of correct guesses) and Mattea Roach (also 5) for that fourth spot; and Matt Amodio (with just 1 single match point) had zero chance of playing past Wednesday night’s games.

So how did the sextet of champions fare in the final night of Masters games? Here’s a look at the highlights.

Game Eleven

Raut, Holzhauer, and Amodio were matched up for their final “regular” game of this season, but, as mentioned above, the latter was necessarily going to come in sixth (still taking home a healthy $50k prize for his troubles), and Holzhauer was just a point away from locking up his own spot. (Note: This is because, in the other game, Schneider and Roach couldn’t both add three points to their scores, and at least one would end up with 6 or less. If Holzhauer got zero and either Schneider or Roach tied him at 6, it’d come down to most correct answers.)

Holzhauer had a rough start at first — dropping to -1800 with two wrong answers right away — but it didn’t take long for the tides to turn. Plus, Amodio got the round’s Daily Double incorrect and wiped $1,600 from his score. (In the category “Biblical Woman,” the clue was: “‘It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts & of thy wisdom.'” Amodio guessed Hester, it was actually the Queen of Sheba.)

Going into the Double Jeopardy round, Raut had $4,200, Holzhauer had $4,800, and Amodio had $1,400.

In the second round, Amodio once again found a Daily Double and got it right this time. (In the category “Out of the world,” the clue was: “This golden object was stolen by the Persians from India; Pahlavi shahs used reproductions for their coronations.” He doubled his $4,600 by correctly guessing, “What is the Peacock Throne?”) Otherwise, the contestants all kept it competitive during gameplay and wound up coming into Final Jeopardy with Raut at $10,200, Holzhauer at $16,400, and Amodio at $12,400.

In the Final Jeopardy category of “Military People,” the clue was: “In April 2020 Master Chief Roger Towberman became the first enlisted member of this.” Perhaps surprisingly, Raut got it wrong, wagering everything on the guess “What is the Officer’s Club?” Holzhauer and Amodio both correctly guessed it was Space Force. While Amodio bet his entire $12,400 to double his score, it still wasn’t enough to match Holzhauer’s addition of $8,615 for a total of $25,015.”

Game Twelve

In this round, it was Groce, Schneider, and Roach who squared off, and there was a lot more up in the air about this grouping. While Groce was long past qualified for semis, Schneider and Roach were in a dead heat. Unfortunately for both of them, Groce didn’t take her lead for granted one iota and continued to trounce the competition.

Groce got the first Daily Double and pushed all $1,400 of her chips onto the board, with success. (In the category, “Science Fiction,” she correctly identified Keats as the subject of this clue: “In novels by Dan Simmons, the planet Hyperion has a capital named for this poet who wrote an epic about the sun god Hyperion.”) Going into Double Jeopardy, she had a respectable lead with $7,000 to Schneider’s $3,800 and Roach’s $3,600.

The Daily Doubles in Double Jeopardy were both more and less consequential. Roach found one first thing and also wagered it all, and it did not work out in their favor at all. (In the category “Down in the Valley,” the clue read: “This valley a bit over 100 miles East of Pittsburgh gets its name from ‘One Mountain’ in a Native American language.” Roach guessed it was the Susquehanna River, but it was actually the Nittany Valley. About the setback, Roach joked that they need Groce to send the answer over via mindwaves. Alas.)

Groce got the last Daily Double and did not like her chances with the category (“Prehistoric Creatures”), betting just $5. Like it or not, though, she got it right that Saurapods are the answer to this clue: “Therapods ate flesh; these giants such as Apatosaurus & Australotitan used their long necks to eat high plants like giraffes do.”

Going into Final Jeopardy, it was another Victoria Groce runaway session: She led the pack with a mighty $21,005, with Schneider far behind at $7,800 and almost assured to come in last with $2,800.

Interestingly, the Final Jeopardy clue seemed to stump them all, even if they did have some inkling of what the answer was. In the category “Short Stories,” the clue was: “‘Down — steadily down it crept… downward with its lateral velocity. To the right — to the left’ in this 1842 tale.”

Roach declined to answer at all, writing instead, “What is an anticlimactic end to the quarters! Congrats Amy!” With $0 wagered, they finished with $2,800 (in fifth, with a $75k takeaway). Schneider guessed The Gold Bug and also wagered nothing, keeping all of her $7,800 points, even though her answer was wrong. Then, finally, Groce also missed the right answer, opting instead for The Tale Tell Heart, risking nothing and finishing with $21,005. The correct answer was The Pit and the Pendulum, which is a somewhat perfect note to end this part of the series on, as the ax was slowly falling on Amodio and Roach for several games now.

With that, four advance to Friday and Monday’s semi-finals: Victoria Groce, Yogesh Raut, James Holzhauer, and Amy Schneider to whittle their numbers down to three for next week’s finals. Find out the full schedule right here.

Current Leaderboard:
1st – Victoria Groce = 3 tonight, 16 total
2nd – Yogesh Raut = 0 tonight, 10 total
3rd – James Holzhauer = 3 tonight, 9 total
4th – Amy Schneider = 1 tonight, 6 total
5th – Mattea Roach = 0 tonight, 5 total
6th – Matt Amodio = 1 tonight, 2 total

Jeopardy! Masters, Semifinals Night 1, Friday, May 17, 8/7c, ABC