On Friday, Mattea answered a question/clue that could only have been written by a White House correspondent who is trying to suck up all the air time at a press conference by asking a multi-layered, cantilevered, dipsy doodle, twist and turn question of the press secretary. Friday's Final Jeopardy question, under the category of Musical Inspirations went:
“Tuileries” & “The Great Gate of Kiev” were 2 of the artworks that inspired this classical work completed in 1874.
Who writes this stuff? Former White House correspondents?
Friday's show was a bit of a nail bitter for Mattea. And we couldn't see it unless you time shifted your DVR to record it as some time early Saturday morning because the network pre-empted both Friday's Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune for more N.F.L. draft nonsense from Las Vegas.
It was sort of a reverse Heidi game preemption. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune were bumped by a football-related telecast, while perhaps the more popular shows were shuttled into the wee hours of the following day. At least they were seen. When The unfinished Jets-Raider game was cut off at 7:00 P.M. EST in 1968, for the ultra-punctual start of a telecast of the children's story Heidi, the football game was never gotten back to because it was live, and soon climatically over. (The Jets lost.)
The N.F.L. used to consider anything Las Vegas a forbidden zone. It was radioactive. They now embrace it like a long-lost cousin. The N.F.L. draft is a thoroughly made-for-TV event created to showcase football's current crop of draft choices hugging their mothers and showing off designer clothing with outlandish styling and linings.
Maybe the top universities in the nation should showcase their incoming freshman classes in the same manner when the admission letters go out and the acceptance letters are returned. But face it. Nerds are nowhere near as colorful as football players in civilian clothing hugging relatives.
Mattea didn't have it wrapped up by the time Final Jeopardy came around on Friday. If she doesn't get it right, and her opponent in the middle, Julian Glander, gets it right after betting an amount that puts him over Mattea's $17,000, Mattea is sunk.
Drum roll. The second contestant, Terri Huggins doesn't know the answer. Can't even offer a response beyond a blank. Her $800 shrinks to $1 after a $799 bet.
Julian bets $6,001 from his pot of $11,000. If he gets the answer right, his total will be $17,001, a dollar (U.S.) over Mattea's current total. Mattea, not knowing Julian's bet, has to get her total to an amount just over double Julian's total as a defensive maneuver and get the answer right, because of the possibility of Julian getting it right.
Julian answers Swan Lake. Nope. Sorry, that's not correct. Ken Jennings seems disappointed. With Julian's incorrect answer the field is open for Mattea to win unless she bets something stupid and gets it wrong.
Not happening: doing something stupid and getting it wrong. Mattea craftily, and quite conservatively bets $5,001, and gets it right. And what is the answer? 'Pictures at an Exhibition,' a piano suite by Modest Mussorgsky, inspired after visiting an art show, as Ken Jennings informs us.
What kind of person knows the answer to a clue like that? Where did Mattea spend the 23 years of her life? Schools, libraries, museums, concert halls, movie theaters, sporting events, book store displays, marathon binges with TV? All of the above? You betcha.
Game set match. Checkmate. Mattea racks up her 19th win, bringing her total to $460,184, not James Holzhauer territory after 19 wins, but you've got to keep winning to stay in it, and Mattea is doing just that.
The Stanley Cup finals roll around by the middle of June. Perhaps Mattea will still be the champion when there is a 2022 N.H.L. champion.
They can play the Canadian national anthem and she can drink from the Stanley Cup alongside the captain of the winning team. Stay tuned.
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