Even longtime host Alex Trebek was caught off guard on Tuesday’s “Jeopardy!” when only one contestant was left standing during “Final Jeopardy!”
Kevin Walsh secured his fourth win in a row with no trouble after his two competitors, Natt Supab and Alex Switzky, finished the regular game with scores too low to go on to the bonus round.
“The stage looks like a very lonely place right now. I cannot recall the last time we had only one player in ‘Final Jeopardy!,’ Trebek said.
Walsh, a story analyst from New Jersey, was tasked with the question: “Thanks to a horror film, this novel returned to the bestseller lists in 2017, some 30 years after reaching No. 1.”
He correctly guessed Stephen King’s horror novel “It,” which was published in Sept. 1986 and was made into a two-part film that premiered in Sept. 2017.
Wagering what Trebek called the “modest” sum of $4400, Walsh brought up his daily earnings to $18,800. That meant his total earnings over his four consecutive wins was a whopping $81,700, which Trebek thought he could bring up to $100,000 by the next episode.
A lone-person “Final Jeopardy!” is rare but not unheard of. According to TVLine, the last time a “Jeopardy!” contestant was left alone during the bonus round was on March 12, 2015, with contestant Kristin Suasville.
Watch Walsh win in the clip above