It’s easy to get nervous up on the Wheel of Fortune stage, but when mistakes are made it’s hard to understand how a contestant got to that point. For every insanely impressive solve there’s a litany of mistakes that go viral online, and Thursday night’s game was another instance of the latter.
Nancy and Marle’ta were a formidable pairing during this game, but there was one questionable moment on Thursday night. Living Things was the category for this one, and it was a prize puzzle. The puzzle starts at the 7:20 mark of this video, but we’ll skip to the part where the puzzle is on the brink of getting solved and contestants are hoping to add a bit of cash to the pile before they take down the big puzzle.
Nancy and Marle’ta hit the express part of the wheel, which meant if they could keep guessing letters as long as something comes up on the board. They quickly fill out the puzzle, working together to guess the last word, “BIRDS.” It seems like they’re going to work things out, but then…
“Q,” Marle’ta said.
The express train and, well, everything stopped dead right there. Because this is what we’re looking at on the board.
Where is the Q going in this puzzle? EQ_TIC? There’s clearly a rare letter in there, but it’s an X, not a Q. It’s a bad beat for the two, who were on a roll. Pauline and Emily quickly swooped in and won the trip to Costa Rica, leaving the middle pair rightfully crestfallen. At least she didn’t use a conjunction, right?
