Psych: Gus’ Dad May Have Killed An Old Guy
By fred | December 8, 2007
(S02E10) Well well… we hadn’t had a new episode of this show in a while, and we know have to wait until January 11 to get another one. Why did we get one this Friday ? Because it was a little gift, it was a Christmas special. But the Christmas theme, that was obviously integrated into this episode as well as its opening credits, was far from being the only reason this episode was “special”.
This episode also had a a bunch of other elements to make it stand out, starting obviously with that the title of this episode hint at : we got to meet Gus’ parents ! We already had met members of his family, we already had hints as to how complicated their relationships might be, but I don’t think we ever had the chance to meet them, and now we have.
The reason we still hadn’t meet them might be that they didn’t really like Shawn, as they believed he was a bad influence for their son. And, to be fair, that might be completely understandable, judging from the way he treated Gus when they were younger, as the little flashback scene illustrated.
But things have changed, everyone grew and evolved, and so did their relationships. So in the end Gus’ parents realized Shawn maybe wasn’t such a bad influence after all, but – despite Gus having a great moment a little earlier when he told his parents he was going to take care of them, and his father shaking his hands, despite his father asking him for financial advices and thus showing some confidence in his son’s capacity in the matter, despite all of that they can’t help themselves but to care and overlook for Gus, giving money to Shawn for him to take care of Gus.
While I found that bit funny, it was also a little odd that they would go there after asking Gus for financial advice. Unless they only did so to build up his confidence and don’t really value his abilities, but that would be terribly insulting and demeaning to Gus, who might not have the lead role in the whole “psych” agency, but remains nonetheless an important asset to it all.
So this episode was special because we met Gus’ parents. It was also special because they cooled down the “noticing moments” and Shawn didn’t do much of a show in the end, and only explained what he had figured out. Not that such things never happened before, but as much as I like it it’s still not a constant rule (yet?). It was also special in that the cops were not really investigating the case.
I mean, sure they were, given how they arrested Gus’ parents and then the real killer was told who she was. But except for that, they had for own scenes which had nothing to do with the case, or any police work for that matter. Instead, it was about Lassiter being maybe a little alone, and Juliet inviting him over only to discover there might be a reason he’s alone he’s completely unable to deal with kids. And maybe because it then involved only Juliet and Lassi, that’s why we didn’t get to see Chief Vick this time.
I didn’t find those scenes that funny, personally, for some reason. I’m all for beating up kids, should it be through a video game or not, and trashing their Christmas spirit by incorporating the idea of slavery somewhere in there, but still I didn’t really laugh. Not that it was bad, I’m just saying.
There was still lots of comedy and jokes throughout the episode, mostly from Gus and/or Shawn, and I did laugh way more than once. Among the many situations that were funny was Gus and Shawn having to honor their contract from when they were kids, or Gus thinking the first guy they talk to was the murdered and trying to get Shawn to “see it”, or Shawn and his dad fighting, and this episode was also special in the way those two behaved. I know they’ve always had their issues, and Henry really doesn’t like the whole psych-act, just look at his face when Gus’ dad went “My Lord! He really is psychic!”
And the argument with both of them throwing at each other why he would never be a detective, and why he ended up a divorce detective, well thank God for the Christmas spirit cause it could have gotten pretty ugly. But overall, oddly enough, I still felt like they were more… close, more friendly than usual. Maybe because the only complain Henry had was an actual real concern, about letting his personal feelings influence his way of working on the case.
Of course this wasn’t the case, not for Shawn. But in the end it gave me the impression that they were much closer than they’ve been in the past. I mean, sure it’s Christmas, but had they ever hugged before ?
About the case in itself, I thought it was a pretty good one, and I especially enjoyed how they didn’t explained everything as Shawn and Gus were investigating, and then once more as they were revealing it all. We saw them collecting clues, we had hints as to who and why and how, but things were only said out loud once, as Shawn explained it all. Let that be the way it’s done all the time please, it’s feels good.
One last thing I couldn’t not mention : “Too soon for what ?” – Gus and Juliet, at the same time, after Shawn wondered if he could meet her parents or if it was too soon. I’ve said it what it happened, I wasn’t a fan of the whole “very close talking” thing between the two of them, and so I for one was pretty happy to see her acting as if it meant nothing, or just – as she had then said – it was a mistake, an alredy forgotten mistake. (Although I’m sure it’ll come back on the table later.)
Alright one very last thing : is it me, or was this episode (much) lighter on the pop references ? It’s usually filled with a lot of them, but this time either I missed most of them, or there was relatively less than usual.
All in all this was a pretty good episode, and it’s good to know all the remaining episode of this season are done already, because it looks more and more like the strike is unfortunately going to last for a while… Gus, Shawn, see you in January!
