PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Hey, it's time for our final game, Lightning Fill In The Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can, each correct answer now worth 2 points.
Bill, can you please give us the scores?
BILL KURTIS: Helen has 1, Maz has 2, and Dulce has 3.
DULCE SLOAN: (Laughter).
SAGAL: (Laughter) All right. Well, that makes it very easy. Helen, you're in third place. You'll be up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, daily blank cases in the U.S. exceeded 100,000 for the first time.
HELEN HONG: COVID-19.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Thursday, social media site blank shut down a group attempting to destabilize the vote-counting process.
HONG: Facebook?
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, the FBI said they would investigate Trump supporters in Texas who surrounded Joe Biden's blank.
HONG: Campaign bus.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Reverend Raphael Warnock and Senator Kelly Loeffler are headed to a runoff in the state of blank.
HONG: Georgia.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, an Idaho man was fined for cooking chicken in a blank.
HONG: Chicken in a bowl just made for turkeys.
SAGAL: No, in a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park.
SLOAN: Ew.
SAGAL: I know. Following weeks of protests, blank has stalled the implementation of their nationwide abortion ban.
HONG: Oh, Poland.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: During a hearing on Wednesday, the U.S. Postal Service said it did what it could to find missing blanks.
HONG: Ballots.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: This week, two kayakers in California had their whale-watching tour interrupted when a humpback whale blanked.
HONG: Like, ran into them, like, upended them.
SAGAL: No, even worse - ate them and then spit them out.
HONG: What?
MAZ JOBRANI: Did they die?
SAGAL: No, they're fine. The two of them were riding directly over the whale when it opened its giant mouth and tried to eat them. Fortunately, this was one of those kayaker-tasting events where you just swish them around in your mouth a bit before spitting them into a bucket. The woman emerged completely unharmed, which is wonderful because if the whale swallowed them, they would've had to wait for their marionette son to come rescue them.
Bill, how did Helen do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She had six right for 12 more points. She now has 13 and the lead.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)
SAGAL: Well done, Helen. All right. I believe Maz is next. Here we go, Maz. Fill in the blank. This week, Senator blank won reelection in Maine, a state Democrats had hoped to flip.
JOBRANI: Collins - Susan Collins.
SAGAL: Yes, Susan Collins.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, Puerto Rico voted narrowly in support of becoming a blank.
JOBRANI: State.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Thursday, video streaming site blank said they would leave up a video falsely claiming that Trump won the election.
JOBRANI: YouTube?
SAGAL: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, a Michigan CBS affiliate apologized after a graphic mistakenly reminded people to blank last weekend.
JOBRANI: Vote.
SAGAL: No, it was supposed to tell them to turn their clocks back, but they forgot the letter L in clocks.
HONG: (Laughter).
SAGAL: On Thursday, private space company blank launched a GPS satellite into orbit.
JOBRANI: SpaceX.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Best known for portraying James Bond, Scottish actor blank passed away at the age of 90.
JOBRANI: Sean Connery.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: During coverage of the vote count in Georgia...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...ABC News featured video of voters in blank.
JOBRANI: In Florida.
SAGAL: No, in Georgia. But it was the Republic of Georgia.
JOBRANI: (Laughter).
SAGAL: While talking about voting in Atlanta, the capital of Georgia, ABC News cut to a clip of people standing in line outside a school in Tbilisi, which, to be fair, is also the capital of Georgia. Even worse, ABC had to cut back to Tbilisi when hundreds of Trump voters traveled 6,000 miles to chant stop the count at a bunch of confused Georgians.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Maz do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Maz had five right for 10 more points. He now has 12.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)
KURTIS: But remember; Helen still has the lead with 13.
SAGAL: All right then. How many, then, does Dulce need to win?
KURTIS: Dulce needs five to tie and six to win.
SLOAN: (Laughter).
SAGAL: All right.
KURTIS: (Laughter).
SAGAL: Here we go, Dulce. This is for the game. According to reports, around 60,000 Americans voted for blank for president
SLOAN: Kanye West?
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Thursday, the U.N. rebuked Israel for demolishing 76 Palestinian homes in the blank.
SLOAN: The West Bank?
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After they called the election for Arizona, a group of Trump supporters in Maricopa County began chanting blank sucks.
SLOAN: Biden sucks?
SAGAL: No, Fox News sucks. This week, the CDC gave cruises the go-ahead to set sail again, but they said that blank will not be allowed on board.
SLOAN: Food.
SAGAL: No, passengers. According to a report, Prince William of Great Britain had a serious case of blank in April.
SLOAN: Cancer?
SAGAL: No, COVID-19. This week, soccer star Mesut Ozil...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...Was caught going 97 mph down a British highway. But he told officers it was only because blank.
SLOAN: It was an emergency.
SAGAL: No, it was only because he thought his speedometer was in kilometers. Now the argument kind of makes sense. Ozil is from Germany, where all speedometers are in kilometers. Plus, in Germany, going 97 mph on the highway is the slow lane. The athlete has pleaded guilty and is hoping for a fine rather than a suspension because he says he needs his car every day. But that might not be the best thing to say when you just tried to get out of a ticket by claiming I don't know what all these numbers on the dashboard mean.
Bill, did Dulce do well enough to win?
KURTIS: Well, she had two right for 4 more points. She now has 7, which means with 13, Helen is this week's champion.
SAGAL: There you go.
HONG: Whoo.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)
SAGAL: You see?
JOBRANI: I demand a recount.
SAGAL: No.
JOBRANI: I demand a recount.
SLOAN: Nice.
JOBRANI: Stop the counts.
HONG: (Laughter). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.