- Title: Psych – No Trout About It
- tv.com: link
When a out of control car chase ends in the wrecks of both Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) and Gus’ (Dulé Hill) cars as well as disrupting a holiday marathon, the new mayor sends in a consultant to take a hard look at The Santa Barbara Police Department. The first thing Harris Trout (Anthony Michael Hall) does is to fire Shawn (James Roday) and Gus. In an attempt to win back their jobs, Shawn relates the series of events that led to that morning’s fiasco through a series of flashbacks inter-cut with Trout’s questioning, beginning with their client (Joey Slotnick) who hired the pair to discover who poisoned him and is responsible for the theft of $10 million dollars from a safety deposit box in the bank where the victim worked.
After reuniting the man with his wife (Rebeka Montoya) who lied about her recent trip to Mexico City, Shawn and Gus begin to suspect the woman knows far more about her husband’s deteriorating health then she initially lets on. There suspicions are confirmed when she and her lover both turn up dead (as does the biker who the group chased through the charity race). Using his unique form of logic, Shawn discovers the hidden member of the team allowing the group to catch the killer, but not without a cost.
The scenes of the investigation are typical for your average episode of of Psych, but the season finale does ramp up the crazy for the scenes in Chief Vick’s (Kirsten Nelson) office as the psychic and the detective relate the major events of the investigation which includes a reveal that leads to Lassie to attempt to choke Shawn to death in the middle of the police station. We also learn McNab’s (Sage Brocklebank) stripper name and get Shawn’s inability to correctly identify the type of poisoning which marks the return of one of my favorite Shawn-isms, “I’ve heard it both ways.”
The season ends with more Psych craziness, the last-second capture of the killer, and with a series of big changes going into the show’s eighth and final season. These include Vick’s 6-month suspension, Trout’s promotion to interim Chief of Police, the demotion of Lassie from head detective, and the re-firing of both Shawn and Gus (as well as McNab). Hall makes an interesting choice as as the crazy circus’ new stern commander-in-chief, and he will be returning for at least the beginning of Psych‘s final season. Before we get to that, however, Psych will return in December for the long-promised musical episode.
I was hoping at some point towards the end Shawn was going to really impress Trout by reading him properly (better than he did at the beginning of the episode), but I guess they wanted to end things with Trout having the upper hand in order to keep the suspense going until next season.
Not as satisfying of an ending as I’d like, especially with such a long break, but hopefully they’ll resolve it quickly in the next season. (I just hope Chief Vick’s suspension is only during the duration the show is off the air.)