Listen: answering even very simple questions on a game show has got to be a difficult thing. You’ve got bright lights beating down on you, you’re caked with makeup someone else troweled onto your face, you’ve got a studio audience full of strangers and tourists and Terry, your wonderful husband of eight years. Wheel of Fortune has all that plus your speculation about the inner monologue of Pat Sajak, so when people really chunk it, you can’t blame them. You can laugh at them and share the video with everyone you’ve ever met, but you can’t pass judgment.
And then you come upon this dazzling two-plus-minute fireworks display of failure. Last night, three adult human beings struggled to solve a very soluble puzzle, and instead piled one bad decision on top of another in a more catastrophic way than anything I have seen since the firecracker scene in Boogie Nights. Wheel of Fortune really went there last night. Let me walk you through it, because you won’t want to face it alone.
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0:00: Right away, we see the phrase, which has basically been solved by this point: ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR CAP. Perhaps not a phrase we hear every day anymore, but certainly one any native speaker of the English language has come across. Plus, on a show like Wheel, where one can reasonably expect to shout EXCITING BOARDWALK ATTRACTIONS into Pat Sajak’s face, one wants to come in with an open mind. So right away, a player decides to solve. But since we are 2 seconds into a 127-second clip, we steel ourselves for the worst.
0:09: Okay. The phrase is not ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR HAT, but that’s close. Maybe that’s how her dad says it, whatever, language is fluid. I have a friend who instead of “dressed to the hilt” says “dressed to the hills,” and it’s been funny since high school, so nobody is going to correct her. This is a bad guess, but it is not a disaster. Not yet.
0:22: Christopher goes for a G. There is no G in CAP. But we have to wonder which word he was trying to build there. Was Christopher trying to make the phrase ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR BAG?
0:24: Thomas, who must be jumping out of his goddamn skin, spins.
0:30: Thomas lands on BANKRUPT. Thomas is going to be furious.
0:32: That’s right, Thomas: let the emotions out through the body in a safe way, like the doctor says.
0:36: Laura is going to solve, again. Pat Sajak is dubious, and because we have 90 more seconds of this, so are we.
0:41: What, I wonder, would be the origin of the phrase ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR LAP? Is it, like, hey, I know you’re under a whole pile of stuff, and it seems like it’s weighing you down, like it will crush you, but it’s only feathers, and this new seemingly-difficult thing is just one more, and you can still stand right up, and…vacuum up all the feathers, which actually would be a pretty difficult task, so Jesus, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s not the answer.
0:42: LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS HERE. Vanna White, who has been turning letters on this show since its debut in 1867, who literally does this for a living, who never makes a mistake, actually does a little false start there. Even Vanna, who has seen it all, is like: there’s no way I’m not about to go and turn all these goddamn letters. But she is wrong. Vanna White cannot believe this shit.
0:43: Neither can stoic old Pat Sajak, who delivers an incredulous “nnnnyyyeeeeewwwww.”
0:49: Back to Christopher, who by now knows you don’t put feathers in your bag…
0:55: …and has just learned you don’t put feathers in your dad.
0:58: Back to Thomas, who is reeling from a BANKRUPT…
1:03: …and lands on LOSE A TURN. Thomas is about to become the first supervillain whose costume is a Bill Blass sportcoat and a black henley.
1:11: Laura can solve the puzzle, or she can spin, and because she is out of phrases that don’t exist, she spins, and we silently hope they’ve added a spot on the wheel that’s just GO SIT IN YOUR CAR.
1:19: Laura lands on $700, and you, and I, and Vanna White all brace ourselves.
1:23: Laura correctly guesses P. She’s got this.
1:26: There you go, Laura. One consonant left. But you don’t even need it. Come on, Laura, push through. This is just another feather in your way.
1:30: Laura’s going to solve. Here we go.
1:36: Oh my God. Vanna White stifles a dry heave. ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR…MAP. There are not feathers on maps, Laura, not even on maps of zoos. But listen, I have another friend who I have heard say the word “epitome” the way it looks like it should sound, like “EP-i-tome,” and then maybe twenty years ago I got an email from him that used the word “apitamee” to mean the same thing, and not a week goes by that I don’t wonder whether he’s made that mental connection yet, and this is a successful guy, this is a guy who has bought a house, so I know these things are possible, but COME ON.
1:39: Christopher spins again, and it is here that we notice there are still thirty seconds left. This puzzle foolishness cannot continue, only because we are out of shitty possibilities. It is here that we begin to think: a piano is going to fall on one of these people.
1:47: Christopher lands on BANKRUPT. Christopher cannot react. Christopher has left his body. He has fully disassociated, as has Laura, as has Vanna, as have you and I.
1:53: Thomas, God bless him, is going to spin. Thomas is a gambling man. Or Thomas just needs to physicalize the frustration.
1:59: Thomas lands on $500. Thomas guesses a C, in the clipped over-enunciation of the truly enraged.
2:05: Thomas will solve. It is ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR CAP, he tells Pat (and Laurie, and Christopher). We do not know how he celebrates, because this endless clip still somehow cuts off too early. Does he pump a fist? Does he hold his hands out, palms up, at Christopher and Laurie, and just kind of keep them suspended there, in the international sign for “GUYS?” Does he pull out his phone and sign up for a trial subscription to Betterhelp, where you can be matched with a therapist in just 48 hours? We don’t know, and we won’t know, and that’s okay because we’ve had it.
I need a drink. Who has the wine?
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