Am I the only one who gets a goofy grin on his face during the opening credits of Psych?
Shawn, Gus, and friends returned to Santa Barbara to help one of their own, Police Chief Carlton Lassiter, in Psych 2 Season 1 Episode 1.
What an ingenious way to make a second Psych movie happen!
Timothy Omundson, a key part of the long-running USA Network series playing Lassiter, suffered a stroke in 2017, from which he continues to recover.
The TPTB came up with a solution for Lassie Come Home: Have Lassiter get shot six times in an ambush then suffer a stroke during the surgery to save his life.
But Lassie was able to remain an active part of the mystery because he was seeing strange sights in the nights at the center where he’s recovering.
Staff members told him it was just the drugs he was on talking. But Carlton, desperate to be told he wasn’t crazy, called Shawn and Gus, who came down from San Francisco to be there for him.
Lassie would have to be desperate to call his frenemies to help him, right?
That did make a kind of sense as Carlton was trying to protect O’Hara, his former partner, and Shawn’s wife, who kept insisting on informally getting involved in a case outside her jurisdiction in the Bay Area.
Like Juliet was ever going to get in trouble with her boss, Captain Vick, who knew what she was unofficially up to the whole time.
There were a couple of great additions early on in this movie. First was Morrissey, the world’s worst service dog, who was certainly a serviceable part of the Psych team as a bloodhound. If only Shawn had any idea how to work with a bloodhound.
Then there was Sarah Chalke of Scrubs fame as Lassie’s nurse Dolores. Chalke delivered the fast-paced Psych dialogue flawlessly, fitting in seamlessly, especially when she flirted with Gus.
The Hitchcockian homages involving the wheelchair-bound Carlton were an enjoyable touch as well, especially the “Rear Window” scene when he and Morrissey observed a bloody man entering the stables.
Richard Schiff, Dule’s former West Wing castmate, was a hoot playing the prickly recovery center founder Dr. Emil Herschel, a different kind of doctor than his kindly neurologist on The Good Doctor.
Then there was Woody, dependable if inept Woody, who went undercover as a psychologist after Herschel banned Shawn and Gus from the facility.
As much as I enjoy James Roday Rodriguez (who has returned to his birth name) as Gary on A Million Little Things, he will always be Shawn Spencer to me. (Same with Dule Hill as Gus, regardless of what he does next.)
It was cute how Roday Rodriguez managed to work in his new series into this a couple of times. First was the cameo of castmate Allison Miller as the owner of a cat-feteria housed in the former Psych office.
Then came an argument with his father Henry, the current lease of the Psych space, in which Roday Rodriguez poo-poos This is Us in favor of that “newer show on ABC.”
As usual, Shawn and Gus were sneaking around behind their partners’ backs. Juliet gets a pass for doing the same because she’s a law-enforcement professional.
They were working on parallel cases without realizing it, with Shawn and Gus trying to make sense of the severed hand that Morrissey found and O’Hara investigating Lassiter’s ambush, even going so far as trying to convince the suspect in that case to recant.
Tagging along with Juliet was Gus’s jealous girlfriend Selene. Gus brought that on himself by enjoying the attention of Dolores and by not having a functional cell phone. Didn’t he use to be the smarter one? I know, that’s relative.
Then they all ended up together at an ice bar in the woods. Even Captain Vick, who blew off becoming commissioner to help O’Hara with her investigation.
You have to love a villain who kept slipping into Norwegian during his rant, who then got taken out by a pregnancy test. Where else would that be a weapon?
And naturally, sweet Dolores was the mastermind inside the recovery center, who was feeding psychotropics to patients in ice chips.
Lassie still ended up the hero by, as usual, hiding guns about his hospital room, accurately shooting the IV bag despite being heavily drugged.
A fun subplot was that positive pregnancy test, even though it was obvious that it was Selene, not Juliet, who was pregnant. The impromptu double proposal was a pleasant addition as well.
That works so much better, as Juliet already has a child with which to deal — Shawn. Some things never change.
I feel bad for Henry, however. He was ready to become a grandfather.
The 90-minute movie was sprinkled with Easter eggs for fans (including a pineapple) although it isn’t necessary to have seen eight seasons, a musical, and a previous movie to follow along.
Funny is funny, and Shawn and Gus are an enduring comedy pairing.
Will this be the last episode of Psych? That probably depends on the ratings for this movie and the willingness of its cast to reunite once again.
To catch vintage episodes, watch Psych 2 online.
How did you enjoy seeing Shawn and Gus again?
How did you like the mystery?
Would you watch another movie?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.