‘Jeopardy!’ Quietly Tips Its Hat To Patton Oswalt’s Late Wife, Michelle McNamara

One thing that you need to know about writers: even though we’re competitive and don’t have as thick a skin as we pretend to have, we almost always have each others’ backs, especially when it comes to people whose work we admire.

The writers on Jeopardy! have done a great job tipping their hat to writers they love, either via category names, clues, or both. And on Tuesday night’s episode, they paid tribute to the late true crime writer Michelle McNamara with the last two categories of that night’s single Jeopardy round. When word reached McNamara’s widower, comedian Patton Oswalt, he was understandably blown away:

Someone immediately responded with the screenshot, which showed that the last two categories are “It’s Chaos” and “Be Kind”:

As multiple outlets pointed out, Oswalt mentioned the phrase “It’s chaos; be kind” during his 2017 Netflix comedy special Annihilation, where he discusses the immediate aftermath of McNamara’s sudden death and how he and his daughter were able to cope. The phrase was McNamara’s mantra about life, which makes sense coming from the author of I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, which many think contributed to the arrest of the Golden State Killer earlier this year.

Oswalt tweeted his thanks to the J! folks after he saw the categories for himself: