[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Wednesday, January 8 episode of Jeopardy!]
A Jeopardy! player got the redemption they were seeking in their second chance at the podium in the Wednesday, January 8, episode, snagging their place in the Second Chance Tournament finals. Here, we break down the game, which was nearly won by juts $1, and who’ll be competing in this week’s SCC finals, set to air on Thursday, January 9.
Playing in the January 8 game were Sam Cameron, a finance manager from Fargo, North Dakota; Ferdinand Percentie, a day trader from Altamonte Springs, Florida; and Lindsay Denninger, a writer from Smithtown, New York. Cameron staged an impressive catch-up in the second round, finding two Daily Doubles in quick succession of each other and answering both correctly, although he seemed shocked that he got the first one right. That round also featured a Wheel of Fortune-inspired category called, “No, Ryan. I Would Not Like to Buy a Vowel.”
Percentie caught up to Cameron with his correct Final Jeopardy answer, surpassing his score by just $1 through a smart wager. But Cameron answered correctly as well, increasing his $19,400 score by $1,001. The final scores were Cameron with $20,401, Percentie with $19,401, and Denninger with $2,199.
Who made it to the Jeopardy SCC finals?
As host Ken Jennings said at the episode’s end, Cameron will now compete against returning players Drew Gloins and Enzo Cunanan. Goins enters tomorrow’s game with $36,801 in winnings, Cunanan has $19,400, and Cameron has $20,401.
(L-R) Jeopardy! SCC finalists Drew Gloins, Enzo Cunanan, Sam Cameron (Jeopardy, Inc.)
Cameron opened up about his second chance on Jeopardy! on the Reddit discussion board for the episode, admitting he felt “strange” returning to the set so soon after filming his first episode. As he shared in his comments, he had only filmed his first episode a few weeks prior to filming SCC, and he considered not coming back. He also talked about Gloins and Cunanan’s previous performances in their past games.
“It felt very strange to be the most recent returning player; I’d only taped originally about a month-and-a-half beforehand,” Cameron wrote on Reddit. “I won’t lie, losing the first time around felt pretty devastating, so when I got the message asking me to come back, I genuinely debated about whether I wanted to dip my toes back in so quickly. Ultimately, I made the promise to myself that if I returned, I would only do so with one goal in mind — to have fun. I never expected to get another bite at the apple, so I really only wanted to use this second chance to ‘repair my relationship’ with the show I loved so much. I wanted to enjoy the experience instead of dreading it, to soak in what it felt like to be on the set, to leave feeling gratitude instead of shame no matter what happened. With that attitude in mind, I flew out west the very next day after my original watch party.”
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“Getting ready in the green room again was the most intimidating experience of my life,” the comment later adds. “Like, everyone who gets on Jeopardy is smart to begin with, but these folks had all proved that they were specifically good at PLAYING JEOPARDY, if that makes sense. Even hearing everyone chatting gave me the worst imposter syndrome I’ve ever had — like at any moment they’d suddenly realize that they’d messed up in including this random bumpkin from North Dakota among this group of talented geniuses and send me packing. Seeing the lightning buzzer speeds during the practice round didn’t help that, especially since that was one area in particular I’d felt self-conscious about in my original game. Ferdinand in particular was an absolute buzzsaw even up against Drew and Enzo, who we’d later see win their own matches.”
“Realizing I was going to be the last semifinal taped gave me flashbacks to my first game — waiting in the back for that long really ended up shaking my initial confidence, so I tried to remind myself when I finally got up there why I’d come back in the first place,” he continued. “I was there to have fun, and nothing else mattered. I felt 100% certain I was going to get absolutely destroyed, but there was almost a peace in that. If I was going down, I was going down content.”
“I really don’t remember much about the game itself – I remember completely blowing my first DD, pulling the second DD answer out of my actual ass, and dreading being the one to find the third DD,” he added. Now, he can “finally call myself a Jeopardy champion. But more than that, I was able to find a sense of peace with why I wanted to appear on the show in the first place, and I’m endlessly grateful to the Second Chance Competition for allowing me that change in perspective.”
Catch the first of two SCC finals games on Thursday, January 9.
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