Psych: This Episode Sucks

So Lassiter is in a bar, swilling Jack Daniels and trying to unwind after a rough day, when a gorgeous blonde named Marlowe (Kristy Swanson, the original Buffy herself) sidles up to him and starts flirting outrageously. They bond over their mutual love of Clint Eastwood. While Lassiter orders another round, she slinks off to the ladies’ room… and slips out the window and disappears, leaving him devastated.

Shortly thereafter, a young man named Hamilton Dean is murdered by a hooded figure in a dark parking lot. In the morning, Juliet, with Shawn and Gus in tow, examines the crime scene. Hamilton’s body has been drained of blood through puncture wounds in his neck and both wrists, which leads a delighted Shawn and Gus to conclude he was attacked by a vampire. When a hungover and morose Lassiter arrives at the scene, he notices that Hamilton is clutching a necklace identical to the one Marlowe wore the previous night.

Psych: Last Night Gus

So the entire Psych gang, including eccentric coroner Woody (Kurt Fuller), hangs out a bar to celebrate the retirement of an old duffer named Jim from the Santa Barbara Police Department. Shawn orders a round of shots for everyone, and the next thing you know, he’s waking up in the morning at his desk in the Psych offices, wearing a shower cap, a strange pair of sandals, and a bling-y gold chain. Gus is passed out on the floor, and Lassiter and Woody are zonked on the couch, improbably spooning. Lassiter also has a black eye; his gun, which is missing three bullets, is submerged in the fish tank.

And no one has any memory of the night before. Cue the Hangover tribute episode!

The gang tries to piece together the events of the evening. Shawn’s phone has a video of everyone at the bar, hanging out with an unknown man in a Hawaiian shirt. Lassiter’s car is missing; Gus’s car is (poorly) parked outside with a ginormous dent in the hood.

Duranalysis: Sing Blue Silver, Part Two

Onward and upward! Let’s pick up where we left off in Part One, which, upon reflection, was a little short on gratuitous references to John Taylor’s jaw-dropping beauty. The above screengrab was chosen to rectify this oversight.

In Atlanta, the boys attend a banquet in their honor at the headquarters of one of the tour’s big sponsors, Coca-Cola. The event chairman spontaneously calls upon John to make some off-the-cuff comments. Always ready to add a fun chaotic element to any situation, a somewhat blurry John takes the stage and cheerily declares his preference for Pepsi.

Duranalysis: Sing Blue Silver, Part One

Duranalysis is back! Let’s take a look at Sing Blue Silver, the 1984 documentary about the 79-day North American leg of Duran Duran’s 1983-1984 world tour. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the rarified lives of the band on the road, which seemed to consist mostly of performances and photo ops and interviews, to say nothing of endless hours spent moving from gig to gig in limousines and private planes. And being screamed at by teen girls. Oh, lordy, plenty of screaming teen girls. It’s a hoot.

There’s far too much material here to go over everything, but I’ll try to spotlight some of the highlights. Here we go:

Psych: Shawn Rescues Darth Vader

Hey, Psych is back for a sixth season! Good news. There’s a comforting sameness to Psych -- it’s only occasionally great, but for the most part, it’s pretty darn entertaining. While this isn’t one of the great episodes, it’s a pleasant way to kill an hour.

The episode opens with a tuxedo-clad Shawn slinking about the rented mansion of the British Ambassador, who’s been staying in Santa Barbara while trying to clear an English exchange student, Colin Hennessy, of charges of strangling his girlfriend to death. The charges were recently dropped, so the Ambassador is throwing a celebratory bash, which Shawn is in the middle of crashing. Shawn and Gus, it seems, were hired by a bratty neighborhood kid to break into the mansion to retrieve a mint-condition 1978 Darth Vader action figure (complete with double-telescoping lightsaber), which the Ambassador’s twerpy son had stolen. To avoid getting caught by security guards, Shawn ducks under the Ambassador’s bed… and finds the strangled corpse of a young woman.