[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the June 24 episode of Jeopardy!]
Sometimes it’s just not a contestant’s day, and such seemed to be the case for Erin Buker, a stay-at-home mom from San Pedro, California, in the June 24 episode of Jeopardy!—but fans were quick to come to her defense.
Buker faced off against returning champion Drew Basile, a graduate student from Birmingham, Michigan with a three-day total of $53,282, and Graham Hicks, a lighting designer from Ottawa, Ontario. The game ended for her before Final Jeopardy!; since she had a negative score, the second lowest in the show’s history, she did not continue after the Double Jeopardy! round.
Buker answered two questions correctly, then was in third at the first break of the Jeopardy! round and ended that round with -$400. While Hicks found the first Daily Double, returning champ Basile found both in the Double Jeopardy! round and was leading at each break as well; he had $9,800 to Hicks’ $4,600 after the first round. He then led $26,400 to Hicks’ $11,000, going into Final Jeopardy! (Basile once again won, becoming a four-day champ with a total of $75,682.)
Buker, meanwhile, finished with a score of -$7,200. The lowest score in Jeopardy! history belongs to Patrick Pearce, who ended the July 26, 2021 game with -$7,400. (That was the first game with LeVar Burton as a guest host.)
Following the episode, Hicks posted on the Reddit game thread and gave “huge respect to Erin,” adding, “That’s a tough situation to be in and a lot of people would have let it knock them down. Instead she dug in and kept swinging like a tough competitor should.”
Others also chimed in. “Just a gentle reminder before people comment: anyone who makes it all the way the Jeopardy stage is capable of winning multiple games, and anyone can be felled by bad luck,” Alison Betts, who competed on the show in April, wrote. “On top of that, it takes nerves of steel to take the big swings necessary to try to get oneself out of the hole. I saw three wonderful and worthy players on today’s stage. Congrats to all for a well fought game.”
That was a sentiment shared by others. “I feel really bad for Erin… If she’s smart enough to pass the test and get on the show in the first place, then she deserved to be on the stage – it just wasn’t her board today,” one viewer noted. “I know that the some idiots online are probably going to insult her, but she should hold her head high knowing that she made it all the way to the Alex Trebek Stage.”
Another viewer agreed, writing, “I felt bad for Erin, sometimes the board is not on your favor and you just had a really bad day at the set.”
And one person pointed out that host Ken Jennings “was kind in informing her that she went up against the best performance of the season,” with Basile getting a season-high 33 answers correct (Jennings holds the all-time record, with 45). “You were trying to get out and taking risks, and I admire that,” Jennings also told her.
What did you think of the latest game? Let us know in the comments section, below.
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