Psych: Thrill Seekers & Hell Raisers.

There’s even less plot than usual this week, and none of it makes a whopping lot of sense, so let’s get through it fast: While engaging in one of their favorite recreational activities -- cuddling bunnies at the local pet store -- Gus confesses to Shawn that he has a secret girlfriend, Ruby. Upset that Gus has been hiding things from him, Shawn accuses him of getting him “hopped up on bunny love” first to blunt the impact of the news. Gus introduces Shawn to Ruby (The L Word’s Sarah Shahi), who wins immediate points with Shawn for lavishly complimenting his hair and being able to name her favorite Magnum, P.I. episode off the top of her head. Still, Shawn has his reservations about her. This is because: a) Shawn is uncannily observant when it comes to people, and b) Shawn is sort of a jealous butthead.

Shawn and Gus invite themselves along on Ruby’s river rafting excursion with her friends Derek (Reba’s Steve Howey), Jessica (former pro wrestler/actress Stacy Kiebler) and Stu. While going over the rapids, Stu mysteriously disappears. Juliet and Lassiter arrive to investigate his suspected drowning, but Shawn deduces that Stu deliberately jumped out of the boat, faking his own death because he and his shifty business partner, Brian Sampson, had just filed bankruptcy. Shawn suspects Ruby aided in Stu’s escape. Ruby takes Gus into her confidence: Stu was in trouble and asked for her help faking his death. Gus, naturally, spills the beans about this to Shawn.

Later, Brian Sampson’s body is found in the woods, shot to death. Juliet discovers Sampson and Stu were the beneficiaries of each other’s life insurance policies. Suspicion falls on Stu, but then Stu is found in a trailer near Lone Pine, killed by an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Shawn visits the coroner and bribes him with a gift of fuzzy slippers to get some inside dish on Sampson’s autopsy. Sampson was shot in the chest by a Winchester rifle, which is subsequently found in Jessica’s apartment. Jessica, who has noted anger-management issues, is arrested, but Shawn figures out that big-game hunter Derek, who used to date Jessica and thus had a key to her place, is the actual murderer of both Stu and Sampson: He killed Sampson because he thought Stu would be happy with the insurance money, but then Stu objected to the murder, so Derek murdered him to keep him quiet.

While paragliding with Derek, Ruby notices that he has the coordinates for Stu’s trailer in Lone Pine programmed into his GPS and thus was almost certainly the murderer. Derek tries to shove her over the cliff, but Shawn and Gus arrive in time to stop him. Despite Gus’s heroics in saving her (Gus jumps on Derek, clings to him, and paraglides around with him for a while), Ruby decides she and Gus should take a breather on their relationship.

Eh, I don’t know. They’ve got a crackerjack writing staff on this show, but this wasn’t their best effort. I’ve said often enough that the episode plots are kind of beside the whole point of Psych, but they maybe could’ve tried a little harder than this. Still, the script was chock full of the usual quips and bon mots, so points for that.

Pineapple spotting: Nope. I tried, I really did. They faked me out by having a big fruit bowl in the conference room at the police station, but there was no pineapple anywhere to be seen.

Lassiter-based awesomeness: It’s a tie:
--After Stu’s disappearance, Ruby and her friends plead with Lassiter to be honest with them about what he suspects happened. Lassiter replies, “My best guess: The life vest came off when he fell out of the boat. He hit his head against a rock and drowned. We’ll probably find his body in a gully or a spillway somewhere down the river. I just hope we get to him before the birds do.”

--Shawn, Gus and Juliet debate whether they’d resort to cannibalism in the event they became stranded in the mountains somewhere. Lassiter joins the conversation: “I would eat the three of you in the following order: O’Hara, Guster, then Spencer. I’ve also made a list of whose organs I would prefer in the event I need a transplant. I’ve also planned a contingency where I’m the last man on earth and need to choose one person in the department with whom to procreate. Don’t worry. None of you made the list.”

Awesome Eighties references:
--Shawn, on his friendship with Gus: “We’re like Andie and Duckie.”

--Gus, when Shawn mentions that one of Gus’s prior girlfriends was unable to guess the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx: “You only knew that because you saw it on an episode of Superfriends.”

--Ruby’s favorite Magnum, P.I. episode is “Did You See the Sunrise?” Her second favorite: “Did You See the Sunrise? Part 2.”

--Over hamburgers and bourbon at his dad’s house, Shawn proposes they have a Smiths lyric-off. On her way out the door, Ruby says, “We’re starting with ‘The Queen is Dead.’”

--Riffing on the name “Sampson,” Shawn claims it sounds like the name of a dwarf warrior from Willow.

--Shawn tells Gus, “Don’t be the new Meshach Taylor.”

Possible Eighties anachronism:
In the childhood flashback at the start of the episode, young Shawn makes a reference to “extreme sports.” While the origins of the term are murky and possibly date back half a century or more, it probably wasn’t in the everyday vernacular in 1989. Then again, Shawn was an awfully precocious kid, so I’ll let it slide.
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White Collar: Vital Signs

Neal and his landlady June (Diahann Caroll) sit in the park and watch June’s young granddaughter Samantha play soccer with her friends. Neal comments that Samantha doesn’t look sick; June assures him she’s having one of her good days. Samantha, who has an unspecified kidney disease, was just removed from the donor list last week. As sad tinkly music plays on the soundtrack, Neal asks June if there’s anything he can do.

While Elizabeth and Peter sit at their dining room table, savoring their morning coffee, Neal waltzes in through the front door without knocking, plops himself down in a chair, and starts rummaging through their cereal box for the toy inside. “I let myself in, if you don’t mind,” Neal chirps. “I mind,” Peter mutters. I side with Peter here: Neal is beautiful and charming and irrepressible, but that doesn’t mean I want his hands in my cereal box. The toy is a sheriff’s badge, which Neal delightedly pins to the lapel of his impeccable suit before asking Peter for a favor. He explains about June’s granddaughter’s kidney, and says that a woman from a charity approached June offering to find a donor in return for a donation of $100,000. Which is sort of totally illegal. Peter agrees to look into the case. You know, my understanding of the inner workings of the FBI may very well be faulty, but I didn’t realize FBI agents got to pick their own cases from their own pet interests. That’s pretty much how Peter gets all his assignments.

Neal sets up a meeting with Melissa Callaway (Jennifer Ferrin), the charity representative who contacted June about Samantha. As Neal tells Mozzie, the charity is named Hearts Wide Open, which, as Mozzie points out, is a ghastly, horrific name for any charity involving major surgical procedures. Mozzie, posing as June’s financial advisor, distracts Melissa while Neal charms a couple of overly-trusting police offers into letting him into Melissa’s car so he can rifle through her briefcase. He finds an invitation to a charity tennis tournament hosted by the founder of Hearts Wide Open, Dr. Wayne Powell (Kyle Secor).

Neal and Peter, posing as a couple of adorably unconvincing doctors, are turned away at the door of the tournament, but Melissa takes an instant interest in Peter and lets them in. While Peter flirts with Melissa, Neal flirts with Dr. Powell. He claims to be deeply involved with a medical association that gives him access to a vast pool of potential organ donors in India. This piques Dr. Powell’s interest. It seems possible that Neal’s stellar cheekbones also pique Dr. Powell’s interest, but it’s equally possible I’m projecting.

Over an impromptu massage, a deeply uncomfortable Peter gets Melissa to agree to give him access to the Howser Clinic, a prestigious medical clinic closely associated with Hearts Wide Open. The Howser Clinic? If that’s a Doogie Howser joke, I will be duly impressed. If they’d only sealed the deal with a Neil Patrick Harris cameo, it would’ve been perfect. Peter discovers that Dr. Powell himself has advanced kidney disease and has been searching in vain for a perfect donor.

Mozzie and Neal discuss the 1956 Byrne vs. Fischer chess match. Mozzie scouted the Howser Clinic and reports that the security was too comprehensive for him to get a close look, though he also claims he (somehow) saw workers at the clinic frantically throwing away files. Neal calls Peter and discovers the FBI made an official request for the clinic’s records, thus sending the clinic into a tizzy. Neal fondles a chess pawn in a weirdly provocative way and decides he needs to infiltrate the clinic before the records are destroyed. For reasons pertaining to moving the plot right along, he can’t be bothered to fill Peter in on his plan.

Elizabeth finds Melissa’s business card in Peter’s suit pocket. Peter awkwardly explains he had to seduce Melissa as part of his cover, and Elizabeth bursts into a giggle fit. I love Elizabeth.

Neal and Mozzie sneak into the clinic, where Mozzie disguises himself as a janitor and walks off with the discarded files. If only the Howser Clinic had invested in a decent shredder, they could’ve saved themselves some future pain. Neal breaks into Dr. Powell’s office and faxes a list of prospective organ donors to Peter, but he gets caught by security, who drug him and strap him down to a gurney to hold him until Powell arrives. Yeah, this is actually in many ways a weak installment of this excellent series, but I’d argue that any episode featuring Neal in bondage is automatically a good one.

Peter, suspecting Neal is up to something stupid, tracks him down via the electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle and figures out he’s at the clinic. Elizabeth convinces him to call Melissa and talk her into letting him inside the clinic. At Elizabeth’s prompting, Peter flirts with Melissa and is granted a pass to the clinic, though Elizabeth becomes a little frosty when details slip out about the massage he gave Melissa.

At the clinic, Peter snoops around and finds a druggy and blissed-out Neal, who, even stoned off his gourd, has managed to pick the locks on his restraints. Peter informs Neal he’ll have to go back to prison for breaking into the clinic; Neal agrees to this and soberly tells Peter he’s the only person he trusts in his life. Peter, who is a marshmallow at heart, steals the clinic’s surveillance footage to remove any proof Neal was ever there, then smuggles him out of the building.

Back at the Burke house, Peter examines the records swiped from the clinic, which include a list of wealthy clients willing to pay top-dollar for black-market organs. Only four names are legible on the list of potential donors Neal faxed over, but all four received charity medical assistance from Hearts Wide Open and were then paid a small sum to donate their organs, which were then sold for exorbitant sums to wealthy recipients. The donors aren’t interested in testifying against Dr. Powell, so Neil suggests forcing Powell to produce the funds he embezzled from the clinic by making him think his own kidneys are failing.

An elaborate scheme is launched to give Powell some key symptoms of renal failure: The FBI picks up Powell’s clothes at the dry cleaner and swaps them for a larger size to make Powell think he’s lost weight. They douse his clothes with an irritant to make him think he’s developed a skin infection. They inject his cranberry juice with dye to make him think he’s pissing blood. Yeah, you know, Powell is a scumbag, but I’m unsure of the hilarity involved in the FBI making someone think his kidneys are failing. In any case, Powell grows increasingly panicky, so Neal, still posing as a doctor, assures him he found an exact donor match in India. Powell books a flight, but the FBI intercepts and drugs him.

Powell wakes up in a run-down hospital in what Neal cheerfully informs him is Malanpur, India, after ostensibly losing consciousness from renal failure during his flight. Neal asks for thirty million in exchange for the perfect-match kidney, so Powell gives him access to the account where he stashed the money swindled from the charity. Neal exposes the scam -- Powell has, of course, been in New York all along -- and Peter swoops in and arrests him.

June tells Peter that Samantha is back on the national donor registry (it’s never really explained why she was bumped from the list to begin with), while Peter shares a romantic glass of wine with Elizabeth.

Sort of a dumb episode, really, but it had plenty of cute interaction between Neal and Peter. Still digging it. We'll see where it goes from here.
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Fringe: The Bishop Revival

Oh, lordy. There were Nazis on last week's episode of Fringe. Only one Nazi, actually, but he caused plenty of destruction all on his own.

My recap, as ever, is up at TVgasm. Added bonus: Lord of the Rings jokes!
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White Collar: Bad Judgment

Hey, you know what’s a really fun show? The excellent new USA Network series White Collar, which features Carnivale’s Tim DeKay as FBI Special Agent Peter Burke, Chuck’s Matthew Bomer as convicted con artist/art thief/fashion plate Neal Caffrey, and Matthew Bomer’s cheekbones as one of the natural wonders of the world. As part of his sentence, Neal works under Peter’s supervision as a special consultant to the FBI on white-collar crimes. Meanwhile, he also follows a string of clues in search of his duplicitous girlfriend Kate, whom he believes is in the clutches of rogue FBI agent Garrett Fowler (Noah Emmerich). The charm of the show is in the dynamic between the two leads: Neal is charismatic and sneaky yet fundamentally sweet, whereas Peter is straightlaced and gruff, but genuinely seems to get a kick out of Neal.

Previously on White Collar: Neal told Peter he’d been set up by Fowler, Peter told Neal about his clandestine meeting with Kate in which Kate asked for a priceless jewelry box Neal once stole in exchange for getting out of Neal’s life for good, and Neal pointedly did not tell Peter that he didn’t really steal the jewelry box in question, but just let everyone think he took it so all the other world-class thieves would think he was cool. This is the way Neal’s brain works.

At the FBI headquarters, Peter and Neal meet with a man named David Sullivan, who wants them to investigate his now-deceased father’s fishy second mortgage. Peter examines the file and sees that all of the documents appear to have been properly signed and notarized. The only odd thing about the case is that the NYPD detective who initially investigated the fraud charges, Officer Herrera, retired this year at the tender age of 33, lucky fellow.

Peter and Neal meet with Herrera at a coffee shop. Hey, it’s Erik Palladino! Palladino is probably best known for his stint on ER, but he’s near and dear to my heart as slutty gymnastics coach Marty on the moderately good/moderately awful Family Channel series Make It Or Break It. Palladino also hasn’t seen 33 for about a decade, but that’s neither here nor there. Herrera insists there’s nothing funny about his retirement -- he was just sick of the grind. He prepares to leave, then makes a big show of leaving the tip for their coffee: $4.76.

(This show really is pretty clever. It’s a tip. See? Double meaning. Okay, it might not be brilliant, but someone is putting in the effort to make the scripts fresh and interesting, and I appreciate that.)

Peter and Neal pore over the Sullivan case files and discover that 476 is the ID number for Federal District Judge Michelle Clark, who presided over the Sullivan case as well as a number of other suspicious foreclosure cases. Neal’s omnipresent friend/cohort/broker/sometime lawyer Mozzie (Willie Garson) clues Neal in on another interesting fact about Judge Clark: She signed the search warrant and arrest papers when Fowler had Neal arrested on false charges of stealing a diamond a couple episodes back. From that, Neal deduces that Fowler probably has Judge Clark in his pocket.

Peter’s smart, sensible wife Elizabeth (a weirdly good Tiffani Thiessen), who works as an event planner, summons Peter back to the house for lunch to test out the caterer’s menu for a new shindig. She asks him to bring Neal and his superior palate along as well. En route to the house, Neal grills Peter about how he managed to get in contact with Kate last episode. Peter won’t tell him, but Neal asks him to pass along a message: Did the empty wine bottle she left for him after he escaped from prison really mean goodbye?

(Kate is transparently no good for Neal, and he’s kind of an idiot about her, and in fact his obsession with her has a good chance of eventually destroying his life. Peter knows this, Mozzie knows this, and all evidence suggests that at some level Neal knows this as well, but he’s so hopelessly in love that he doesn’t care. The Kate plotline adds kind of a cool Cowboy Bebop-esque dimension to what could otherwise be a pretty straightforward crime procedural.)

At the Burke home, while Peter and Neal grimace their way through some godawful foie gras, Elizabeth mentions that a cable repairman unexpectedly dropped by earlier in the day. Elizabeth, who is no fool, had called the cable company and confirmed that the cable was down in the neighborhood, but when a suspicious Peter redials the number, he finds it’s been disconnected. Sure enough, there’s a listening device inside the cable box.

Armed with top-of-the-line Russian military surplus equipment, Mozzie arrives at the Burke home to sweep for more bugs, which he does with a great deal of zest and enthusiasm. (Elizabeth: “I don’t think he bugged the dog.” Mozzie: “Amateur.”)

Diabolical Agent Fowler breezes into the FBI headquarters and announces that he’ll be working out of their office on a project for a while, which causes Neal and Peter to seethe and fume and pull faces at each other. Neal examines Sullivan’s father’s signature on the mortgage file and concludes that it’s a fake. While demonstrating optimal forging technique (always forge upside down, as though you’re copying a drawing instead of a signature), he flawlessly duplicates Peter’s signature. Peter is equal parts impressed and wary.

Peter meets with Judge Clarke, who is attractive and friendly. She claims not to recall the Sullivan case, or any of the other suspicious forgery cases over which she presided. When Peter applies pressure, she makes a not-terribly-veiled offer of a bribe of a quarter million dollars. She secretly videotapes the meeting while Peter appears to consider her offer.

Judge Clark calls Fowler to fill him in. Fowler asks for the incriminating tape so he can use it against Peter, but she promises to release it only if he agrees to seal the files on the suspicious mortgages. Peter’s boss Hughes drops by the Burke home in the middle of the night to secretly warn him that the FBI is launching an internal investigation based on Judge Clark’s bribe offer. Which... I'm not sure why the FBI, Hughes excepted, would be so ready to believe that Peter was going to accept the bribe. He's investigating a case, and by extension he's investigating Clark for fraud. Was his only correct course of action to arrest Clark and thus possibly blow his whole case as soon as she made the bribe? Really?

Mozzie passes along an anonymous letter to Neal, which contains only a chess move. Mozzie wonders if it’s from Kate, but Neal insists that Kate hates chess. This is another reason to regard Kate as a highly suspicious character. Chess is awesome. Neal heads over to his chess board, makes the move, and discovers it’s an iconoclastic (and wholly illegal) opening with a black piece. I suppose it was more dramatically interesting to have Neal walk to his chess set and physically move a piece, but I call bullshit on this scene. Neal’s a sharp cookie, and he plays a lot of chess -- he would’ve seen from a glance at the chess notation that he was moving a piece from the seventh or eighth rank, which would have to be a black piece.

He’s interrupted by a surprise visit from Elizabeth, who asks him to help out Peter by breaking into the judge’s chambers and stealing the incriminating videotape. Elizabeth is pretty and charming and strong-willed, and thus can get away with blithely asking an ex-convict on probation to commit a felony without seeming like an asshole. Neal agrees to do it, so Mozzie devises an Byzantine tape-stealing strategy, which he demonstrates to Neal through the use of an old game board, a handful of toy soldiers, a pumpkin magnet, and a covered wagon toy.

Fowler fulfills his promise to Judge Clark and freezes the Sullivan files. Without access to the files, Peter’s investigation is severely hampered. He meets again with Officer Herrera, who is still unwilling to help, but who mentions that he was never able to get a search warrant for Judge Clark’s chambers -- that’s probably where she’s keeping the money from the illegal foreclosures.

Neal and Mozzie set their (elaborate and ludicrous) operation to swipe the tape in motion: While Mozzie waylays the real courier, Neal dons a courier uniform, slips into the courthouse, and picks up the tape, which is set to be delivered to Fowler. He uses a super-strong magnet to erase the tape, whips off the courier uniform, changes into one of his usual impeccably-tailored suits, intercepts the real courier, and hands off the now-worthless tape to him.

In the middle of this, Peter calls to fill him in on what he learned from Herrera. As soon as he learns that Judge Clark might have the money in her chambers, Neal happily picks her lock with a paperclip and does a quick search of the place. He can’t find the money, so he ransacks the place to make it readily apparent that he’s been in there. It’s kinda hard to follow his train of thought here, but Neal often moves in mysterious ways.

Judge Clark returns to her chambers and discovers the break-in. Mozzie and Neal listen in while she tells her assistant she’ll need to move the money to a deposit box at Certified National the next day.

During Peter’s disciplinary hearing, Fowler goes to play the incriminating tape. Thanks to Neal, it’s now blank. Fowler flounces out of the office and sees Neal, the scalawag, grinning at him. Neal has just enough personal dignity to keep from thumbing his nose as well, but you can tell he's considering it.

Peter fills Neal in on Judge Clark’s plan to transfer the money in the morning. Peter knows Fowler is tapping his cell phone, so Neal and Peter stage a big fake phone call in which Peter claims Judge Clark will give him the real tape in exchange for money.

Fowler accosts Judge Clark outside Certified National and demands the tape. He grabs her briefcase and finds that it’s filled with the foreclosure money. Peter and Hughes and the rest of the FBI swoop in and surround them. Peter tells Fowler he’s going to arrest Clark for mortgage fraud. He’s got Fowler’s signature on her arrest warrant -- flawlessly forged by Neal, naturally -- and informs Fowler that, if he confirms that it’s his own genuine signature, he’ll look like a hero for bringing down Clark. If he denies it, it’ll raise questions as to why Fowler was meeting with Clark, if he had no plans to arrest her.

Peter passes along a message from Kate to Neal: See Robert. As Robert is Kate’s dead father, they head out to the cemetery, where they meet up with Mozzie. Neal finds an origami iris tucked into a bouquet of fresh flowers on Robert’s grave, which he pockets before Peter can see it. Mozzie secretly asks him if the iris means what he thinks it means. Neal replies, “I think it does.”

A cool little show. I’m digging it. Let’s see where it goes.
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Psych: You Can’t Handle This Episode

An official adieu to the nigh-unwatchable Heroes and a big welcome to Psych, which I will now be viewing in its stead.

Quick background, for the uninitiated: Psych, which airs Wednesday nights on the USA Network, concerns the exploits of Shawn Spencer (James Roday), an exasperatingly clever and hyper-observant slacker who, with the sometimes-begrudging aid of his pharmaceutical-salesman best friend Gus (Dule Hill), solves cases for the Santa Barbara Police Department by pretending to have mysterious psychic abilities. Hijinks invariably ensue.

Recapping Psych, as I’ve discovered before, is a tricky business, as the plots are typically gossamer-thin and fairly nonsensical. No one watches Psych for the plots. People watch it for the snappy dialogue and the relentless gags, for the bouncy, buoyant, breezy pacing, for the easy chemistry between the leads, for the awesome guest stars, for the quips and the nonstop pop culture references. Thus, I’m going to just provide a sense of the episode’s high points in lieu of a detailed summary.

The episode kicks off with the discovery of a half-naked man found hanging in a hotel room. Gus and Shawn arrive at the crime scene to help Detectives Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) and Juliet O’Hara (Maggie Lawson) with the investigation. Shawn immediately deduces it was murder, not suicide. He finds a set of Army dog tags jammed down the victim’s throat.

As the case now involves the military, Juliet enlists the help of her distinguished Army officer brother Ewan (pro wrestler John Cena), first glimpsed running through a dockyard while two random armed guys chase after him. A pretty great chase scene ensues. I get quickly bored by car chases, but foot pursuits can be a whale of a good time, especially when, as in this instance, people vault over boats and scale fences and execute all kinds of impressive physical maneuvers; I don’t know much about Cena, but he’s mighty spry for a such a big, strapping fellow. Adding an extra degree of difficulty/whimsy to the chase: Ewan carries on a phone conversation with Juliet about the facts of the case the entire time. Ewan scurries down to the shoreline (the production team tries their damnedest to make Vancouver, where Psych is filmed, look like coastal California, but honestly, guys, you’re fighting a losing battle) and makes a show-offy escape on a convenient jet ski.

Well played, everyone. That was an appropriately snazzy character introduction.

After he’s done talking to Juliet, Ewan fields a call from a mystery man who refers to him as “Alpha Four” and alludes to top-secret missions. Ewan’s mystery employer, by the way, appears sporadically throughout the episode, but we only get fleeting, shadowy, obscured glimpses of him. Like John Forsythe in Charlie’s Angels! Presumably his identity will be revealed in a dramatic fashion in a later episode. Or it’ll remain a delightfully unexplored plot thread. Either is fine.

Ewan shows up at the police station to help his little sister out on her case and manages to charm the pants off of everyone, apart from a sulky/jealous/skeptical Shawn. The dead man was a Private Starks, the police have discovered, and he was killed by a neck fracture unrelated to the hanging. Thus, the murder investigation begins in earnest. Ewan manages to smuggle the whole gang -- Shawn, Gus, Lassiter, Juliet -- onto the local Army base, where they meet with tough-as-nails Major General Felts, who is played, awesomely, by Robert Patrick. The Psych publicity machine has been steadily hyping the appearance of this John Cena fellow for the past few weeks, and while Cena is cute and charismatic and does a thoroughly respectable job here, I’m much more impressed by the presence of the T-1000.

Anyway, the usual half-baked plot unfolds. After Ewan, under orders from his mystery superior, secretly shreds part of Private Starks’s confidential file, Shawn becomes suspicious that he’s involved in the murder. Shawn and Gus sneak onto the military base about eighty different times over the course of the episode, where they manage to squeeze in some, like, investigating in between playing with anti-tank weaponry and annoying General Felts. Shawn eventually unmasks the murderer: a Lieutenant Wallach, who killed Starks for stumbling into an illegal weapons-selling scheme. During a shootout with Wallach and his accomplices, Ewan saves both Shawn and Gus, but Wallach escapes. Shawn puts it together that his original hunch was right: Ewan is, in fact, somehow involved with this. He and Gus sneak back onto the base (…again), and, with Juliet’s help, arrest Ewan who, acting on the orders of his mystery employer, is just about to kill Wallach.

When Juliet and Lassiter check on Ewan’s transfer from the police station to jail, they find that he’s disappeared and that all record of his arrest has been erased.

In a side development, Shawn’s girlfriend Abigail reveals to Shawn that she’s leaving immediately to help build a school in Uganda, thus effectively ending their relationship. This is probably for the best: I liked Rachael Leigh Cook just fine as Abigail, but Shawn and Abigail’s over-serious, slightly tedious romance was sort of harshing the buzz of this fun, flighty, freewheeling series. They part at the airport, after making a strange point of noting that Abigail will be back to visit on February 24th. February 24th falls on a Wednesday this year. Psych airs on Wednesdays. Probably not a coincidence.

A thoroughly okay sort of episode, if not a standout. The lack of the always-great Corbin Bernsen (who plays Shawn’s grumpy ex-cop father, Henry), apart from the de rigueur childhood flashback kicking off the episode, is a bit disappointing. Still, after the long winter hiatus, it’s nice to have the boys back.

Pineapple spotting: Nope. For Psych novices, there’s a pineapple hidden somewhere in each episode. Find it and enter to win a fabulous weekly prize at the Psych USA website. I didn’t spot it this time. In fact, unless someone walks through the front of the scene brandishing a pineapple out in the open or makes an overt pineapple-based reference, I can pretty much guarantee I’m not going to spot the damn thing. Part of it is my tiny twelve-inch television screen. Part of it is my lack of keen Shawnlike observational skills,

Gus’s fake name: “Ghee Buttersnaps”

Awesome jab at The Mentalist: The CBS series The Mentalist, of course, has pretty much ripped off the premise of Psych wholesale, and Psych takes every opportunity to make sure no one forgets this. In this episode, Shawn tries to sell General Felts on the idea of him joining the Army as their official psychic. Says Shawn, “I’m giving you the first shot at the material before I pitch it to CBS as a television show idea.”

Lassiter-based awesomeness: Juliet is glum about her brother’s arrest. Lassiter provides some half-assed sympathy: “Personally, I have family members who I’d love to see go to prison.”

Awesome Eighties references:
--After Major General Felts storms out of the room, furious with Shawn and Gus for sneaking onto the base, Gus worries that he’s going to come after them with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel, a la Full Metal Jacket. Shawn reassures him, “There’s no way we’re getting D’Onofrioed.”

--Shawn: “Felts turned out to be the good guy in all this. If I hadn’t seen The Great Santini so many times, I probably would have seen that sooner.” (Okay, technically The Great Santini came out in 1979. Close enough.)

--After a belligerent drill sergeant forces Gus to do pushups, Gus shouts, “I got nowhere else to go!” a la Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. Later, Gus explains to Shawn and Ewan that he always felt Lou Gossett Jr.’s character in that movie was like his pretend father. Ewan replies, “I felt the same way after Enemy Mine.
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Fringe: What Lies Below

My new Fringe recap is up at TVgasm. Must be Wednesday.

Site business: Psych is finally ending its winter break tonight, so recaps will commence shortly. It's still awfully quiet around here, what with V and FlashForward still on their ridiculously long breaks, and I've got the big hole from no longer watching Heroes... what do people think of White Collar? It's an adorable show, it features a lead character with floppy bangs and nice cheekbones, and if there's interest in discussing it here, I'll add it to the lineup. Read more!

Fringe: Johari Window

My recap of last week's (somewhat lackluster) episode of Fringe is now up at TVgasm. Read more!