Deal or No Deal (USA)/Episode 321A/321B

Episode 321A/321B
Season 3, Episode 21
Airdate	December 12, 2007
← 3x20 Episode 320	3x22 → Episode 326A/326B
Deal or No Deal (USA) — Season Three

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Episode 321A/321B is the twenty-first episode of the third season of Deal or No Deal, and the one hundred twenty-ninth episode overall.

Cast:

Gameplay

• In order to surprise Efren and to get him to, perhaps, play on further, Howie brought Efren's parents into the studio and introduced them, then hid them away until later. Efren's game then resumed, with one more round of small numbers, and the banker offering up $179,000. Howie then announced they would help him with one of the three things, mentioning each in turn, and then pointing to Efren's parents approaching the podium. After this reunion, Efren soon became the shining star of DonD, continuing to remove small numbers, and turning down $224,000, $281,000, and $340,000 despite the supporters' reservations. By this time, the board looked similar in structure to Jay Garrity's perfect board: $10, $25,000, $750,000, and $1 million. The resulting case - $25,000 - changed the game's character into a twist of fate: The board had the exact same amounts as Michelle Falco, only this time the $1 million amount was the top prize. The banker was forced to pony up a sum never bettered in a regular game: $493,000. One of Efren's supporters had a sister who needed caring for, and she attempted to reason with him: "You promised to take care of her all the time. Not 1/3 of the time." However, Efren refused the offer, and put all the pressure on Lindsay Clubine, who opened her case with her trademark large-number swoon to reveal the $1 million prize. The board still reeked of Michelle, because she could have just as easily opened the $1 million herself. The banker, seeing the large spread between $10 and $3/4 million, dropped his offer very low: $296,000. Knowing the forthcoming "Deal Wheel" could still triple his winnings to even more than Michelle's offer of $880,000, Efren dealt, and his case had the $10 amount. The lead-in to the Deal Wheel suggested the option of spinning or not would be given, but it was actually obligatory.

• The Deal Wheel works as follows: The contestant will spin the wheel around, and drop a large ball bearing into a slot at the top of a flight of stairs, which (akin to Plinko) would drop through pins and into the wheel, and through more pins which could drop it into 10 slots labeled "1/2", 15 labeled "2X", and 5 labeled "3X", which would send Efren's winnings to $888,000. After it drops it into a slot, the wheel's continuing motion will pitch it up and back into the pins until it falls into a slot and stays there until the wheel stops moving. Efren's ball was stuck in one of the 1/2 slots, but just barely rolled out; it still, however, landed in a 1/2 slot. Thus, Efren suffered the largest loss in Deal history: $493,000 down to $148,000.

• Anthony Moreira, of Cuban descent, looked for $3 million on Deal. The first two rounds were good, but after the third round, the other two of the top three were gone. Anthony pressed it down to 8 cases, including the next three biggest numbers, and quickly lost the fourth and fifth prizes. Since Anthony was a big The Office fan, Howie brought in the accountants from the show, who advised him on his number decisions. One of them claimed to have predicted every case amount correctly, and even flat-out stated where the $200,000 amount would be, but facing a Demetres Boyd board, Anthony dealt for $40,000. Anthony avoided case 12 (the accountant's prediction) and was soon facing a dilemma: Either the banker was right in his prediction that $200,000 was in his case, or the accountant was correct in declaring it to be in case 12. The accountant was right. The Deal Wheel doubled his winnings to $80,000.

Notes

• Efren could have made the best deal by dollars - $493,000 for $10 - in the show's history, had he taken that amount of money.
• If Efren had taken that and tripled it, he would have come close to $1,500,000 in winnings.

Trivia

The Show

• The Deal Wheel has received the show's harshest criticism yet for the fact that it lacks a bailout option. If Efren had won the $1 million and then lost half of it on the wheel, the media backlash would have been staggering.

• The wheel was brought back for later episodes, and helped two more, but also halved two more deals. This has led to this gimmick being highly disliked among fans.