It sounds pretty cocky, sure, but we won! Let me have this one! Haha. Although I'm not entirely sure if I can rightfully claim merit to it because it was mostly luck and something I didn't know the brain could do (in real life).
There were some interesting tidbits, a little banter and tons of dead air before the fateful last question.
Host: In the movie Gone Girl, the characters were played by... *short pause*
Jen: Holy crap! I know the answer to this! Rosamund Pike!! Ben Affleck!!
Host: *continues speaking* ...were played by Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck.
Jen: Fuck!
Host: Who was the author of the novel the movie was based from?
Jen: Fuck!!
Of course all those in italics, I just said in my mind. At that point, I was still conscious of the cameras. A bit embarrassed and worried that I didn't know the answer, I looked over to Kriz hoping he's familiar with the book and/or the movie.
Nope. He has not read the book nor seen the movie.
We already had two strikes and only one lifeline left. If we failed to answer the question, we were gonna lose all the money we racked up.
It sounds so shallow now but we were living in a nightmare at the time. We were so confident with our previous streak of correct answers, we thought for sure we had it in the bag.
We had to use our last lifeline wherein we can ask for help from random people on the streets, and even that was just as stressful! We stopped a total of four passersby and three of them won't even talk to us. The third one even asked for a photo op with the host! It was such a disaster (for us). The fourth eventually stopped to hear the question but also didn't know the answer.
By this time, all the bets were off the table. We were no longer censoring ourselves. We were slouched in the backseat. We couldn't hide the faces of frustration. I think we just didn't know how to lose. It was as "real" as reality television could get.
~*Then it happened...*~
I closed my eyes and imagined the many times I have walked over to the Bestseller shelves of Fullybooked BGC. For sure, I have seen that book there. Yes, it was that specific!
With my eyes closed, I looked for it. I looked for it until I found it. It was not very straightforward but I really did see it in a way.
I saw letters floating in front of my eyes!
There was a letter "F", a letter "N", a letter "I", a letter "L", a letter "G" and a letter "Y."
For a good 10 seconds, I rapid fired names I can spell using these letters. Then the host began counting down for us to give the final answer. When he asked for the last time, I blurted out a name combination.
"Gill Flynn"
I knew for sure it was not the correct answer. Something was not right. Something was missing. I knew for sure we were going home losers.
Then the host slowly faced us.
Host: You know what? The author of the novel is Gillian Flynn, and we are taking Gill Flynn!
It took a second for those words to register and next thing we knew, we were shouting and hugging out of sheer joy!
...
Ending this post right here so I can get back to reading... *drumroll* ...you guessed it! Gone Girl is currently my MRT book. The story above is what would best explain the overly excited winning reactions you saw on TV. Catch the episode again during reruns!
