Three Cs

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am big fan of the TV show, Psych. Since I have time this summer, I decided to start at the beginning of Psych and watch the entire series. I just finished the first season, and I’d like to share eight parts that I found particularly funny and a few others that I love for different reasons.

1. Shawn and Gus’s first (on-screen) interaction

The friendship between Shawn and Gus is one of the best parts of Psych. Their first interaction sets the tone of that friendship with good-natured ribbing and proof of how well they know each other. I particularly enjoy the two quotes below:

2. Shawn choosing words for the contestants in the National Spelling Bee.

To give himself time to investigate the scene of a crime, Shawn locks the spellmaster out of his box and impersonates him. When Gus refuses to tell him a word, Shawn has the contestants spell words from the spellmaster’s grocery list. The look on the contestants’ faces when they receive the words ‘banana’ and ‘onion’ are priceless. Shawn’s definition of banana (“a yellow fruit; also a kind of pudding, a delicious pudding”) and his example sentence are funny, too.

3. Shawn and Gus’s interactions with George Takei

I thought it was cool that they got the original actor who played Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek to guest star in Psych. While pretending to be George Takei’s assistants, Shawn and Gus pull off a lot of entertaining antics. Throughout the episode, various characters mention a debacle that happened at a Comic Con in San Antonio but never go into detail about it. At the end of the episode, Mr. Takei sees Shawn and Gus go on stage and make “predictions” as a psychic duo when he is supposed to be speaking, which leads him to make this funny claim:

4. Gus trying to be “stealth”

When Gus finds out that Shawn has been tailing him when he goes to the planetarium every Thursday, he tells Shawn to “consider him stealth” and that he’s going to be “like a jackal.” Then, on “not Thursday,” he pulls into the planetarium parking lot, attempting to drive unpredictably. When he enters, he is outraged to find that Shawn has started working at the front desk there. When Shawn sees Gus, he uses the PA to announce Gus’s arrival to the entire building.

5. Gus using his favorite pick-up line for the first time.

While flirting with a planetarium worker, Gus uses his most common pick-up line for the first time, at least on screen. I thought it was funny the first time I watched it, but it’s even funnier knowing how much he uses it later.

6. How tanning actually was connected to the case.

After two men with spray tans turn up naked in a field, Shawn claims that spray tanning will be an important part of the investigation right before he sees the third victim…who is extremely pale. When Shawn reveals the culprits near the end of the episode, he proves they are married because they have matching tan lines where their wedding rings should be, which leads to this great interaction:

7. Shawn impersonating a woman using Gus’s online poker profile.

Shawn decides that the best way to lure out the young man they are searching for is to make him believe that Gus’s online poker account belongs to an attractive-sounding woman. When he makes up a name for this fictional woman, Gus is not impressed.

8. Juliet being very “method” while she is undercover.

Most of the time, Juliet seems like a responsible, straight-laced individual, but when she is undercover, she gets very into character. The first time viewers saw this was in the last episode of the first season when she goes undercover at a sorority house. Personally, I enjoy seeing this more outlandish side of Juliet because it shows why she and Shawn make such a good couple, despite how different they seem at first glance.

Bonus: Three Heartwarming Parts and One Awesome One

Buried beneath the humor, Psych has more depth than one would think at first glance. In Season One, some of the sweet parts that stood out to me were: (1) Shawn believing and supporting the former police captain who has Alzheimer’s because he did the same for Shawn when he was young; (2) Shawn, Gus, and Juliet solving a case but making Lassiter think he did to get the detective back on his feet; (3) Lassiter getting Shawn’s motorcycle back for him as a thank-you for proving the innocence of a woman he suspected was being framed.

There is also one awesome part in the pilot when Shawn shows what a great cop he could’ve been, not just with his detective skills, but with his shooting prowess as well. When he goes to the shooting range with Lassiter’s partner, he shoots each of the holes she shot on the target, showing an incredible amount of accuracy and leaving the detective in awe.

Those are my favorite parts from the first season of Psych. What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to see more like it.