Ken shouts ‘no!’ in feisty Jeopardy! moment as champ wows fans with big 2nd win (2024)

JEOPARDY! champ Adriana Harmeyer stayed winning on Thursday, raking in a promising two-day total of $46,200 and plenty of praise from fans.

While Adriana trounced to victory, her fellow contestant Brad Miller faced a feisty moment with host Ken Jennings.

The Indiana art archivist was back for more after a strong $26,200 debut win on Wednesday.

Everyone was looking to see if she could have the season's next big streak after such a big first win.

In the Jeopardy! round, despite a blank on a $2000 Daily Double, Adriana stormed ahead with $9,000, Brad had $1,600, and the third contestant, Sandee Baker, had $1,800.

In Double Jeopardy!, things got testy when a Third Eye Blind clue went less than pitch-perfect.

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'NO!'

Ken, 49, read, "This ordinal band sang about a "semi-charmed kind of life" in a song with a lot of doo doo doo, doo doo-doo doos."

From there, Adriana didn't look back, adding $4,000 on the second Daily Double, while Brad in a distant third added $500 on the last one.

Nearly two-thirds into the round, it was already game over, meaning her opponents were just playing for fun, while Adriana never had a moment of struggle leading at every break.

By Final Jeopardy! she cruised to a runaway with $22,200 (and 28 correct responses, 2 incorrect) while Brad had $3,700 and Sandee had $3,000.

The "American Banking" clue read, "Around 1930 a bank named for this N.Y.C. area known as a slum was the USA’s largest savings bank by total deposits."

Only Brad was correct with "Bowery," and Ken struggled to hide his surprise he got it.

Adriana only dropped $2,200 to win $20,000 and a no-nonsense two-day total.

'VERY IMPRESSIVE!'

Fans took to social media buzzing about the sudden power player and predicting she'd make the next Tournament of Champions already.

"Great game by Adriana, and she feels like she has a good shot at four or more at this rate!" one Redditor wrote.

"Adriana got to respond to 30 clues and got 28 of them correct! Very impressive," wrote another.

Adriana will face two more challengers tomorrow night to see if she can spend the weekend as a three-day champion.

So far, the qualifiers for the next ToC (all female) are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel and Celebrity Jeopardy!'s Lisa Ann Walter. That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely join the fray as well.

'FUN INTERNET QUIZ'

Adriana is a clinical assistant professor and archivist University History in Purdue University's Archives and Special Collections.

She said in a recent interview that she took the show's online test for fun and was blindsided to be contacted a few weeks later.

"I had taken the online test a couple of times before, but this time I'd went online one evening and took the test for fun."

"I didn't expect anything to come out of it - I just thought of it as another fun internet quiz."

THAT WAS KEN-DID

During Adriana's first win, opponent Brian O'Shea suffered a painful Daily Double miss thatKen didn't exactly sugarcoat.

Brian found the last Daily Double under "WHITE HOUSE WEDDINGS" for $1600 and opted to wager $6000, or nearly his entire third-place score, to get in the game.

The clue read, "The 1st ceremony was in 1812 when Lucy Payne Washington, this first lady's sister, married Supreme Court justice Thomas Todd."

Instantly grabbing onto the "Washington" part of the clue, he quickly and confidently replied, "Martha Washington!"

"No, I'm sorry,"Ken, 49, bluntly told him as Brian banged the podium with a distraught expression, left with $100.

The host pointed out his answer didn't track date-wise, and how he brushed over the date, implying he didn't read the whole clue.

Ken explained, "In 1812, it would have been Dolley Madison."

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Brian was a good sport and selected the next clue, though he did not have time to recover his score.

Jeopardy! airs at 7 pm ET on ABC - check your local listings.