In Tuesday’s Jeopardy! episode, returning champion Ian Taylor, a food sales representative from Cleveland, Ohio, faced off against new challengers John Liu, a marketing analyst from Santa Monica, California, and Aimée Record, a middle school teacher from Long Island, New York. Ian entered the match with one previous win and a total of $19,601. The game’s initial categories included “Alaskan Cities,” “Singing Through the Centuries,” “Reality & Competition TV Shows,” “Going Deep on the Fast Food Menu,” “Sorry, No Shake Today,” and “The Machine’s Broken.”
In the Jeopardy! round, Ian faced an early setback, losing $1,000 on a Daily Double in “Singing Through the Centuries” by failing to answer correctly that Plato referred to the Greek poet Sappho as “The Tenth Muse.” By the first break, Aimée led with $2,400, while John held $1,800, and Ian trailed with -$1,200. Moving into Double Jeopardy!, the contestants encountered categories such as “Historic Women,” “Time for Some Drama,” “An ‘A’ in Psychology,” “Join Up!,” “Movie Outlaws,” and “Prefixes.”
John Liu made a bold but costly move during Double Jeopardy! when he wagered all of his $5,400 on the category “An ‘A’ in Psychology.” Failing to phrase his response properly, he missed the answer “aphasia,” the term for language and speech impairment, which cost him his entire stake. However, he rebounded later with a successful $1,600 bet in “Historic Women,” correctly identifying Constantinople as the city linked to Empress Theodora, wife of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. At the close of Double Jeopardy!, John led with $5,600, while Ian and Aimée trailed with $3,400 and $600, respectively.
The Final Jeopardy! clue fell under “News from the Stork,” asking contestants to name the location of Argentina’s Esperanza Base, where a child named Marisa de las Nieves was born. Both John and Ian correctly responded with “What is Antarctica?” John’s conservative $2,201 wager secured him a victory with a final total of $7,801. Ian finished with $5,601, while Aimée ended the game with $2.