Now that I've seen
tonight's episode, it still makes no sense. The FJ category was Sports Legends and the clue was
When Johnny Bench broke his record, this man wrote, “I always thought the record would stand until it was broken”. All three contestants responded correctly.
Here were the scores going into FJ (and the wagers):
Jonathan $15,800 (wagered $2,500)
Mary $12,600 (wagered $3,300)
Bilal $5,400 (wagered $5,395)
As I wrote yesterday, "the 2nd place contestant needs to wager just enough to pass the leader's current score AND put the 3rd place contestant out of reach." Mary's optimal wager was $3,201 and she rounded that up to $3,300. Totally fine. She was correct and ended with $15,900, a temporary $100 lead. If he wants to win, Jonathan is locked into a wager of $9,401. Except... he didn't do that at all. He wagered a small amount of $2,500 for reasons that are unclear, but it was enough to retake the lead. So Jonathan won, but he left room for Mary to win if she had placed a more aggressive and less strategic wager.
From the link above, the site owner commented:
If you watch the episode, you can tell that Mary and Jonathan are very animated during the closing credits. She is stunned and he looks like he got away with a crime. The show's Twitter account will sometimes post the video, with sound, of this aftermath. (For example,
Monday's episode, when Matt had just lost.) I'd be interested to see if they post this one.
By the way, in the grand tradition of
Jeopardy! irony, Mary's last name is Garvey, and she lost on a baseball clue.