[The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for the Thursday, June 5, episode of Jeopardy!]
Jeopardy! contestant Joey Quismorio got real about his mental health struggles while on the game show. The contestant returned for his second game after a tough final question determined the win during Wednesday’s game.
Quismorio, a product manager originally from San Antonio, had a one-day total of $17,201. He returned on Thursday, June 5, to play against Sara Fuller, from Athens, Ohio, and Nikhil Joshi, from Montville, New Jersey.
The game did not start off well for the reigning champion. Instead, Joshi, a veterinarian, was on a roll answering most of the clues correctly. By the first commercial break, Quismorio only had $1,200 after answering three clues right and one wrong.
Fuller, a special education teacher, found the Daily Double on clue 21. She was in second place with $2,800 and made it a true Daily Double. In “American Authors,” the clue read, “This novelist died in 1851 & is buried about a quarter-mile walk from the Baseball Hall of Fame.” “Who is Washington Irving?” she answered. That was the wrong answer and Fuller dropped to $0. The correct response was James Cooper. This gave Quismorio a better shot at winning as he was then in second place.
At the end of the first round, Joshi still led with $4,200. Quismorio had $1,600. Fuller caught up, but was still in third, with $1,000.
In Double Jeopardy, Quismorio had the lead for most of the round. He found the first DD late in the game. With a $5,000 lead of $10,400, he wagered $2,000. In “Women on Stamps,” the clue was, “One of 2 women honored in the American Choreographers Series of 2004.” He didn’t give an answer and dropped down to $8,400. After host Ken Jennings said the answer was Martha Graham or Agnes de Mille, Quismorio said, “Ohhh!”
He found the last DD two clues later in “French History.” Since the next two clues after the first one were triple stumpers, the amounts were the same. He wagered $1,000. “On the French Revolutionary calendar, it’s the month the Reign of Terror ended (in 1794) & its leader’s goose was cooked,” was the clue. “What is June?” he answered, which was wrong, dropping him to $7,400. The correct response was Thermidor.
The totals at the end of Double Jeopardy were: Quismorio with $7,400, Fuller with $,1400, and Joshi with $5,400.
The category for Final Jeopardy was “Brand Names.” The clue was, “Founded in 1972, this company got its name from a term meaning ‘hit the target’ in the board game Go.”
The answer was Atari, which turned out to be another triple stumper. Fuller responded with, “What is H&R Block?” She wagered $0 to end up with $1,400. Joshi wrote, “What is Nintendo?” He also wagered $0, to end with $5,400. Quismorio’s response was, “What is Samsung?” He wagered $3,401, giving him a final total of $3,999. That left him in second place and Joshi the night’s winner. Joshi will return on Friday against two new opponents.
Quismorio shared his experience on Reddit and got candid about his mental health. “Hi again, everyone, Joey here – and huge congrats to Nikhil! That FJ! wager totally caught me off guard. Super sharp move, and well played all around,” he wrote.
“As for me… yeah. Very rough game. I’m sorry for how it turned out, especially with those DJ! DDs and my total fumble on FJ!. I know how bad it looked (I did the same top-row selection s**t again – but the boards this week have been tough as hell, and I needed to recalibrate somehow!), and trust me it was painful on my end too. But since I’ve still got a mic for a sec, I wanted to talk about why I think I unraveled, not as an excuse, but because I wish I’d heard more people talk about this before I got on the show.”
“Mental health doesn’t come up a lot in J! retrospectives (as far as I know, at least), but it really should. My anxiety is bad by default. Being on that stage, with cameras in your face, a live audience, and the thought of millions more watching later pushed that baseline to the edge. And standing at first podium, fresh off a game I didn’t fully feel like I deserved to win made it worse. The self-doubt, the sensory overload, the impostor syndrome; it all made my brain short-circuit. I could barely hear the clues, let alone make sense of them,” he continued.
“Again, I’m not saying this to excuse a bad game. I played and performed badly, full stop. But I do think it’s important to say that J! isn’t just about knowing stuff, it’s also about being able to access that knowledge while the lights and pressure are trying to break you. And for anyone who deals with anxiety, imposter syndrome, or any sort of executive dysfunction, that stage can be a minefield. That doesn’t make you less prepared. Sometimes your mind just s**ts the bed, and that’s okay. I’m saying this because I wish I’d heard someone say it before I played: feeling overwhelmed in the moment doesn’t make you any less worthy of being up there.”
“Despite it all, I’m deeply grateful. The people I met, the kindness and camaraderie, the weird little moments in the green room: I wouldn’t trade any of it. And I’m still proud that I made it there at all. If you’re reading this and hoping to play one day, please know it’s okay to come as you are and show that up there. It’s okay to be human,” Quismorio ended.
Fans said that he was “being too hard on himself” and that he was “pure class!”
“On my TV, I didn’t see someone who unraveled, I saw someone who only lost because he ran into two tough DDs back-to-back,” another said.
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This story originally appeared on TV Insider
