Final Jeopardy: On Vacation in Italy (2-22-24)
The Final Jeopardy question (2/22/2024) in the category “On Vacation in Italy” was:
About 30 miles from Florence, a little hill gives this tiny Tuscan town its name, familiar to American visitors
Today’s Champions Wildcard contestants are: Deb Bilodeau, a restaurant server from San Francisco, CA; Jesse Matheny, a customer success specialist orig. from Huntington, IN; and Mira Hayward, a podcast host from Portland, OR.
Round 1 Categories: World Capitals – The Key Word in the Literary Subtitle – 40 Years Ago: 1984 – Advertising Slogans – TV Characters – Building a New Word
Deb found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The Key Word in the Literary Subtitle” under the $400 clue with 6 clues left after it. Deb was in last place with $3,200, $2,000 less than Mira’s lead. Deb bet $2,500 and was RIGHT.
An 1894 series of essays: “Woods” show
Deb finished in the lead with $5,900. Mira was in second place with $5,800. Jesse was last with $4,600. All clues were shown.
Round 2 Categories: From Page to Scream – Brit Speak – How Many Times? – Shall the People Dance – Before the First World War – Blowin’ in the Wind
Jesse found the first Daily Double in “Before the First World War” under the $1,200 clue on the 5th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $7,400, $1,500 more than Deb in second place. Jesse bet $7,400 and he was RIGHT.
The history book “The Sleepwalkers” says that this event not only stirred war fever in Austria but ended the life of an advocate for peace show
Mira found the last Daily Double in “Brit Speak” under the $1,600 clue on the 12th pick of the round. She was in last place with $5,000, $13,400 less than Jesse’s lead. Mira made it a true Daily Double and thought it meant a bobby but that was WRONG.
Also the last name of an English painter, it’s Brit-speak for a police officer show
Jesse finished in the lead with $20,400. Deb was in second place with $10,300. Mira was last with $5,600. All clues were shown.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHAT IS MONTICELLO?
Apparently, the little hill and the town that’s named for it are so little, they don’t even have Wikipedia pages, unless it’s one of the hamlets or towns that are referenced on this Monticello disambiguation page. Monticello Amiata, the second one listed under Italy, is in Tuscany, but it seems too far away. Here’s another little Monticello (pop. 18) I found, 27 miles from Florence.
There have been a number of clues that mention the translation of Jefferson’s home. Here’s one from 2000: MOUNTAINS ($400) This home of Thomas Jefferson sits atop a “little mountain”, which is what its name means in Italian
I think we can expect to see a number of “Jeopardy! Fans Outraged” articles about this final clue. 🤣 Lately, they’re either too easy or too hard!
Mira wrote down “uh oh (in Italian)”. She bet and lost today’s $5,600 so she finished with yesterday’s $2,800.
Deb had no response, just a “thanks to mom + dad.” After betting and losing today’s $10,300, Deb finished with yesterday’s $21,600.
Jesse came up with Washington. He lost $19,800, leaving him with $600 to add to yesterday’s $2,800. He landed in second place with $3,400 and Deb Bilodeau won the tournament. Deb gets $100K and advances to the ToC. Jesse and Mira depart with $50K and $25K, respectively.
A triple stumper from each round:
THE KEY WORD IN THE LITERARY SUBTITLE ($600) A Vonnegut novel much about mortality: “Death”
FROM PAGE TO SCREAM ($2000) “The Turning” is a 2020 film adaptation of an 1898 supernatural story by this author
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Long-Running TV Show Characters”
This character who has been on the air for more than 50 years is only 6 1/2 years old show
IF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS FOR CHANGES TO THE SHOW OR COMPLAINTS, PLEASE SEND YOUR FEEDBACK DIRECTLY TO JEOPARDY!
We may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made from Amazon.com links at no cost to our visitors. Learn more: Affiliate Disclosure.
That was a brutally difficult Final. I tried looking out up on Wikipedia, and couldn’t even find it there, using the words in the clue given. I also guessed Pisa. I wonder if the writers are proud of clues like that, or if they review the responses.
I had to laugh at “Mary Lou Retton”!
lol Jason. I looked each of the Italian Monticellos listed by name in Wikipedia with “distanza di firenze”. You’ll get back a little map showing the distance from Florence. They are all over Italy.
There were just too many misleads in that whole thing, category and clue. Using “little mountain” would not have given it away, imo. Not everyone thinks of -cello when they think of Italian suffixes for “little”
On the plus side VJ, the FJ was at least gettable, and unlike a few of the FJs that I had seen in the past.
Idk how you figure it was “gettable”, Rick. So far, I haven’t seen anyone say they figured it out from the clue.
One person said he knew about it from his daughter. I saw a commenter on youtube say he lived in Florence for 2 years and had no idea what it was. Even websites that like to publish the final answer early in the morning got it wrong and they had plenty of time to look the answer up based on the clue.
I was hard-pressed to find a location myself, even after finding the answer out because the town isn’t on the map.
I thought that the clues alluded to Jefferson’s home (although granted the references to it were ambiguous.
VJ, why don’t you put the answer up early iin the morning?
@Mackie, we’ve had Spoiler Talk for 10 years but we always sent readers to the Jeopardy! website to see the clue before the show aired and we don’t reveal the correct response on there.
Where I am, the show airs at 11:30 a.m. and then we have the Early Spoiler post but only the scores before FJ! are shown. You have to open a spoiler for anything else you want to see.
It’s all because we like to guess🤣
All I could remember was my afternoon in Pisa 50+ years ago, and nothing else came to mind.
When you get players of this caliber, the DDs often make all the difference. The first two weren’t too tough, the last a bit tricky but not impossible. Of course, Jesse would have won had he nailed FJ.
Very surprised no one took a stab at the Vonnegut novel. His most famous one. The skater has been in the news plenty over the years, mostly for his bouts with cancer. I’ve watched probably a few thousand hours of tennis to know what Jimmy and Novak did and do.
I did above average in the Jeopardy game tonight, but the FJ was a tough one. Anyways, all that we could come up with in FJ was the city of Turin.
That is our third Thursday in a row where we have a triple stumper in the final thanks to that pesky geography clue.
Even the title of the category was a stinker 🤣🤣🤣
Congratulations to Deb for winning Champions Wildcard and earning the last spot in the Tournament of Champions. And now we have the complete field for the TOC. Deb will compete against Troy Meyer and Sean McShane on 3/6. The Tournament of Champions begins tomorrow and it’s gonna be exciting.