Rare Jeopardy! moment stuns host Alex Trebek in final round

There was only one contestant left on Tuesday’s Final Jeopardy! segment

A rare Jeopardy! moment left even host Alex Trebek stunned on Tuesday’s episode.

Only one contestant was left for the “Final Jeopardy!” segment. At this stage of the game, only contestants whose earnings for the episode are not in negative territory are left. Most of the time, all three contestants remain in the running — but that can change in practice.

That was the case on Tuesday, when contestants Natt Supab and Alex Switzky were knocked out at the “Double Jeopardy!” stage.

Thus, competitor Kevin Walsh was the only one still on the stage when Trebek unveiled the “Final Jeopardy!” clue. Tuesday marked Walsh’s fourth day on the game show.

“The stage looks like a very lonely place right now,” Trebek commented when faced with only Walsh. “I cannot recall the last time we had only one player in ‘Final Jeopardy!’."

Trebek announced that the clue belonged to the “literary pronoun” category, then read out loud: “Thanks to a horror film, this novel returned to the bestseller lists in 2017, some 30 years after reaching number one.”

Walsh correctly guessed that the correct answer was Stephen King’s novel It, which was turned into a movie in 2017, with a second instalment following in 2019.

The answer brought Walsh’s earnings to $81,700 over the course of four days.