DANGER! champion Adriana Harmeyer scored a breathtaking 15th victory on Tuesday that Ken Jennings made clear he wasn’t sure she could achieve.
Adriana once again won the nail-biting game with her Final Jeopardy skill, leaving the audience and fans at home gasping for breath.
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Ken, 50, opened the June 18 match by praising his “phenomenal” strength in Final Jeopardy, having gone 12 out of 14 on the crucial clues.
This statistic proved decisive when the West Lafayette, Indiana, archivist faced off against Drunk History’s Mark Gagliardi and speech teacher Colleen Matthews.
In danger! round, Adriana advanced once again with $6,800, Mark had $2,800 after a true failure of $2,200 in the Daily Double, and Colleen had $3,400.
During interviews, Colleen said she moved to a New Mexico high school based on a murder mystery book, which elicited gasps.
On the other hand, Adriana said that she and her husband had their first date over drinks (specifically tea).
In Double Jeopardy!, things got competitive as the two opponents put their faces in the game and racked up big scores.
‘A long, long time…’
Colleen got the remaining two Daily Doubles right, but got both wrong – the second one was especially painful as she knew the author.
Colleen also almost came first on the last clue, but got her Flemish cities mixed up – that is, it still wasn’t an escape for Adriana.
Even after the three big misses, Colleen had $10,600, Adriana narrowly led with $13,600 and Mark had $7,200.
The “GEOGRAPHIC NAME IS ALMOST THE SAME” clue was: “Legend has it that in 1876 a dragon built for the “Ring” cycle had its neck sent to this Middle Eastern capital, not the right German city.”
Mark made a big mistake, falling to $5, and Colleen got it right as “Beirut” and took the lead with $14,400.
It was all up to Adriana when Ken singled her out with a surprising comment.
He highlighted how insecure she seemed during the 30 seconds and didn’t write anything until the end.
“Adriana has been oblivious to Final Jeopardy, but she looked at this one for a long, long time,” he said bluntly.
Adriana revealed that she, in fact, invented “Beirut”.
“At the last second, she did it!” Ken exclaimed as the audience gasped.
Adriana added $10,000 to earn $23,600 for a total of $349,600 in 15 days.
“She just keeps going!” Ken added as she shook her head and smiled in disbelief. “Great game from all three.”
‘UNBEATABLE!’
Fans flooded social media, marveling at Adriana’s remarkable streak, and pointed out that her victories are exciting because she often doesn’t run away, but always makes Final Jeopardy.
“This game was very stressful because we love Adriana,” wrote one Redditor.
“Wow, even without fugitives, Adriana seems unbeatable right now,” wrote another.
“It’s so fun to watch because normally super champions run away on a daily basis but Adriana is really good at FJ so it doesn’t matter,” wrote a third.
“In normal play, Adriana is the second person in program history to have at least 11 consecutive correct FJs (James Holzhauer is the first at 27),” noted a fourth.
“The only way I can see Adriana losing at this point is if she is losing in FJ and the leader doesn’t make a mistake, because Adrianna is almost perfect in FJ. .
“What I really like about Adriana is the fact that her style of play seems understandable to the viewer,” agreed a sixth fan.
“There’s no DD searching, full betting or anything crazy like that. It’s just jumping in quickly and getting to know the content really well.”
A seventh wrote: “Colleen was prevented from winning the game because she missed two of the Daily Doubles. She also had a higher Coryat than Adriana. Such is the power of eleven FJ in a row!”
Yet another predicted: “Adriana will definitely get a spot at Masters next time between ToC, JIT and producer’s choice.”
And one more joked: “They’re going to have to rename the Second Chance Tournament to the ‘Contestants who came second to Adriana’ tournament haha.”
SLAY-DRIANA HARMEYER
Meanwhile, Adriana first arrived on the May 31 episode and was at court throughout June, becoming the first super champion of season 40.
Fans are going crazy as it has been almost two years since there has been a 10+ day winner, the previous being 13 day champion Ray LaLonde.
Adriana has already surpassed Ray and now has the longest streak since 21-day champion Cris Pannullo in the fall of 2022.
However, Adriana plays nothing like Cris, who scored 48/49 in 66 Daily Doubles.
Instead, Adriana has a traditional strategy that sets her apart from every other Streaker in the post-Holzhauer era.
She is a rare, top-down player who refuses to hunt for Daily Doubles.
She has only found 14 of the 42 clues hidden in her sequence and doesn’t jump around the board to find them.
She relies on pure knowledge, getting an astonishing 305 correct and 33 incorrect on the overall clues and 13/15 on Final Jeopardy.
“Adriana is a sneaky, ice-cold player. She doesn’t hunt DD much and isn’t very aggressive with her bets, but on DJ’s end, she has an out-of-control game!” one fan recently wrote on Reddit.
“Just pure buzzer skill and huge knowledge base. I hope she continues her trend, I’d love to see how far she can take it!”
About internal risk! podcast, the team also talked about Adriana’s refreshing and traditional style.
“Yes, we haven’t had anyone who plays so straight yet. I know Alex [Trebek] I would have loved a player like Adriana.”
“It was refreshing to see that and see her be so successful at it, and I wanted to know what a category meant before I got to the meat of the tracks.”
The other qualifiers for the upcoming Tournament of Champions (all women) are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel and Lisa Ann Walter from Celebrity Jeopardy!
That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely participate as well.
LIFE LEADING TO DANGER!
Adriana is a clinical assistant professor and archivist of University History at Purdue University Archives and Special Collections.
She is married to her husband Neal, whom she got into a relationship with in 2013 over their love of learning. He was in the audience during her race and they share a son.
His Q&A stories shed light on his Jeopardy! journey, in which she shared how intensely she has prepared for this moment her entire life.
She honed her skills on a 1990s CD-ROM version of Jeopardy! starting when she was seven. She only stopped playing after the record broke in half.
She also read an entire collection of the “gently used” World Encyclopedia as a child.
She recalled her “disappointing” failure to be selected as a Teen Week contestant, although the wait is certainly paying off.
She also credited her late grandmother, whose necklace she wears, with getting her on Jeopardy! while watching religiously.
During her 12th win, she shared that her money-making dream is to become a librarian, which made Ken laugh because it’s so… Dangerous.
‘WRONG’ ABOUT STEREOTYPE
In a new interview on Monday, Adriana talked about her new TV fame.
She shattered the stereotype surrounding her home state of West Virginia.
Adriana spoke with The Parthenon about Appalachian stereotypes surrounding education.
“They’re wrong, like, they’re completely wrong. Personally, I don’t see any reason to let things stop me,” she said.
“There are great people everywhere and I hope more people try to do things that interest them.”
Adriana will be looking for her 16th win on Wednesday’s episode, which would tie her with Ryan Long for the 10th longest streak of all time.
Danger! airs at 7pm ET on ABC – check your local listings.
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