Jeopardy! viewers are used to surprises — but a recent Final Jeopardy! clue has fans doing a double take, after one contestant’s personal connection to the answer sparked disbelief, speculation, and plenty of online buzz.
Emily Croke was the only Jeopardy! contestant to earn a correct response to the Final Jeopardy! clue on a recent episode, revealing in the end that the clue involved a member of her own family. This information caused series host Ken Jennings to appear shocked, and online fans to immediately question the odds of this happening organically, without the producers of the series pulling strings behind the scenes. Here are all the details of last week’s Jeopardy! family drama.
A Final Jeopardy! Response Kept It All In the Family for Emily Croke
In a serendipitous twist, Croke won in the Final Jeopardy! round by being the only one to respond to the correct question. The clue of the day was: “In 1896, the Vasser-educated wife of this man wrote, ‘Thousands of dollars may be paid for a copy of Shakespeare.’” Croke was the only one who was able to respond with the correct question, “Who is Folger?” But it was Emily’s explanation of how she knew the answer that shocked Jennings.
The winner explained that she was actually a relative of the Emily Folger in question, who was the wife of Henry Clay Folger Jr. The married couple co-founded the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington together in 1932, and the Jeopardy! winner explained the woman from the clue was her great-great-great aunt. The famous Folger family is known for their coffee brand, but this Jeopardy! clue proved the family who started the world-famous coffee business had diverse interests as well, building lasting American legacies that continue to this day.
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The Folger family is filled with family members that made fascinating contributions to the annals of American history. After his father and uncles established the family coffee brand, Folger Jr. earned a law degree after paying tuition to Amherst College by winning essay contests, borrowing the rest. He then continued to Columbia Law School, passing the bar before rising through the ranks of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. By the time he died, Fogler Jr. and his wife had collected together the largest collection of the first folio editions of Shakespeare’s plays. The Folger family has a fascinating history, but the odds that a Jeopardy! contestant would encounter a clue about their own family history without some kind of producer interference seemed pretty high to skeptics, who went online to express these doubts.
Some naysayers online insisted there was no way that Croke would have encountered this clue without the producers knowingly researching her fascinating family history, including the information in the Final Jeopardy! clue. “I can barely wrap my head around the astronomical odds of this happening. That’s insane,” one person remarked. Others shared that the moment just made for a better game.
Seemingly in response to such skepticism, the Jeopardy! Instagram account shared a reel proving that in 2001, contestant Bill O’Donnell encountered a clue about his great-grandfather, George Ferris. The reel was accompanied by a cheeky reminder that a relative coincidence had occurred “At least once!” in the quiz show’s past, implying skeptics that Croke came across the Folger family clue organically were wrong. Whether it was producer interference or serendipitous luck, Croke certainly entertained viewers with her family history lesson on Jeopardy!.
Jeopardy! airs weekdays, check your local listings for network and times.