PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now on to 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 two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?
BILL KURTIS: Faith and Patton have two. Adam has three.
SAGAL: All right. All right. We have flipped a coin. Faith has elected to go first. Faith, fill in the blank. On Wednesday, President Trump signed a bill authorizing new sanctions against blank.
FAITH SALIE: Russia.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: For the first time in its history, the blank hit the 22,000 mark.
SALIE: Dow.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: According to senior U.S. officials, incoming Chief of Staff John Kelly told blank that his job was completely secure.
SALIE: Oh, Jeff Sessions.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: According to a report from The Detroit News, half of the mayoral candidates in that city are blank.
SALIE: Felons.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A man attempting to rob a Subway restaurant in Rhode Island was foiled when two employees on duty blanked.
SALIE: Showed him their foot-long.
SAGAL: No, just ignored him until he left. This week, video game maker EA Sports announced they were including blank teams in NBA Live '18.
SALIE: WNBA.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Following the first delivery of its Model 3, electric car company blank's stock rose considerably.
SALIE: Oh, is it Tesla?
SAGAL: It is.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After sending out over 2,000 messages in a bottle, a lonely Scottish man looking for love finally got a response from blank.
SALIE: A mermaid.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He got a response from the Scottish environmental protection agency.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They told him to stop littering.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Craig Sullivan said he was looking for a soulmate and was inspired by The Police song "Message In A Bottle," so he filled 2,000 containers with romantic notes and dropped them in beaches around Scotland. Sadly, he was forced to stop after several complaints led to a reprimand from the Scottish version of the EPA. Unfortunately, things got worse when he then got inspired by The Police song "Roxanne" and was arrested for solicitation.
(LAUGHTER)
PATTON OSWALT: Thanks, Sting.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Faith do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Six right, 12 more points, total of 14. And she's in the lead.
SAGAL: All right, then.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right, Patton. You're up next.
OSWALT: Oh, God.
SAGAL: Fill In The Blank. Here we go. On Thursday, it was announced that special counsel blank had impaneled a Washington grand jury.
OSWALT: Mueller.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: And meeting with generals on Wednesday, President Trump said the U.S. was losing the war in blank.
OSWALT: In Afghanistan.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Wednesday, the White House announced it was banning travel to blank.
OSWALT: To - oh, Russia.
SAGAL: No. In this case, North Korea. On Monday, a judge found former Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff blank guilty of criminal contempt.
OSWALT: Arpaio.
SAGAL: Yes, Joe Arpaio. According to a shocking new study released in the U.K., 1 in 8 teenagers in England have never blanked.
OSWALT: Smoked.
SAGAL: Seen a real cow.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This week, donut chain Dunkin' Donuts announced they were considering dropping the blank from their name.
OSWALT: Donuts.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Sunday, Commissioner Emeritus Bud Selig was inducted into the blank Hall of Fame.
OSWALT: Baseball.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Florida police investigating a teenager on fraud charges sealed their case when they found...
OSWALT: I'm sorry, I'm just going to say meth. If it's Florida, I'll say meth.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, they found blank while searching his home.
OSWALT: Meth. Meth.
SAGAL: No, they found...
OSWALT: Nope, meth. Florida, it's meth.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, they might have had meth, but what they found that really tipped them off that this was the kid committing fraud was they found him sitting on his bed writing a fraud to-do list.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This teenager, very enterprising.
OSWALT: He was on meth.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He had already scammed over a million dollars worth of falsified unemployment benefits. He used stolen identities. When police knocked down the door to his house and they found him in his bedroom writing a fraud to-do list, including items like buy three phones - one clean, two dirty. Secure stolen credit card numbers from the dark web. Pick up some 2 percent milk. Police sadly got to the teen before he had a chance to get to the final item, which was, quote, "stop writing this list."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, did Patton do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Pretty good for a rookie - five right, 10 more points, total to 12. Faith still leads with two.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right then, how many does Adam need to win this?
KURTIS: He needs six.
SAGAL: All right, Adam, then this is for the game. Fill In The Blank. On Tuesday, the Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Christopher Wray as the new blank.
ADAM BURKE: FBI director.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Monday, a court ruled that politicians who block people on blank violate free speech laws.
BURKE: Twitter.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Church officials in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa were surprised to find parishioners complaining about the church's newest feature, blank.
BURKE: Disco ball.
SAGAL: A giant robotic spider sitting on the roof.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, it was announced that the cryptocurrency blank would split into two separate companies.
BURKE: Bitcoin.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Best known for his plays "True West" and "Buried Child," actor and playwright blank passed away at the age of 73.
BURKE: Sam Shepard.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A British woman's daily beauty regimen was interrupted this week when she blanked while applying fake eyelashes.
BURKE: Went into labor.
SAGAL: No, when she mistakenly tried to glue a dead fly to her eyelid.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Oh, my gosh.
SAGAL: Now, you might wonder what good Twitter has done the world. Well, now you know. It brings stories like this to us.
OSWALT: That is so Goth, man.
SAGAL: Apparently, this woman has terrible eyesight, which makes supplying false lashes especially hard. This would explain why instead of a lash, the woman accidently picked up a dead fly and spent several minutes trying to glue it to her lid. Fortunately, she realized her mistake before leaving the house or she would have spent the rest of the day wondering why all these spiders were trying to make a web right near her face.
(LAUGHTER)
OSWALT: I don't know why she glued that dead fly.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I think she died.
OSWALT: I think she died, yeah.
SAGAL: Bill, did Adam do well enough to win?
KURTIS: Not quite. He got four right, eight more points, total of 11. That means Faith wins.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Congratulations, Faith.
SALIE: Thanks.
SAGAL: Done with panache, as per usual. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.