TV-Reviewed

PSYCH won me over right from the pilot two years ago with its odd eighties references and general hilariousness. There’s always been one thing missing from this show, and its Shawn’s mother. In the pilot, we learned that Shawn’s father, Henry, is back in town after the divorce. Shawn was said to have spent more time with his mother than his dad. What happened in the divorce was never really explained and until tonight, we were never introduced to Shawn’s mother.

I always wondered what Gus’ bosses thought of his moonlighting as Shawn’s sidekick. It’s hard to believe it took this long for them to take notice of the fact that Gus hasn’t been going on all of the appointments. Confronted with this, Gus had to quit Psych before he lost his job with the pharmaceutical company.

Henry, Shawn, and his mother had an interesting subplot. There was a pretty big revelation as to what really happened when Shawn was a kid and his parents split. Shawn had wrongly blamed his father for years for what happened. I still doubt he and Henry will be best friends after all this time, but I see them becoming a tiny bit closer.

And speaking of Shawn’s mom, her scenes with Lassiter were pretty funny. Lassiter isn’t my favorite character on the show, but he can sometimes find himself in some interesting situations. I loved Lassiter’s reaction when he learned of her relation to Shawn Spencer.

Corbin Bernsen as Henry Spencer, James Roday as Shawn Spencer, and Dule Hill as Burton “Gus” Guster

Now Shawn’s never really out of the loop on much of anything if it pertains to Gus, aside from the fact that Gus was once married, so he’s right there and manages to get a “Psych” job with the Vice President of the company. It almost seemed to good to be true.

It wasn’t that long ago that we dealt with a haunting, so I was surprised to see another supposed haunted house episode pop up so soon. That being said, this one was a little different. I didn’t initially suspect Shawn of setting everything up, but as the episode went along, I began to think Shawn had something to do with what was going on.

I admit it took me a while to put things together. The writing here was terrific. I didn’t figure things out until the end, just before the reveal (both of them). I loved how Gus ended up getting a raise out of the whole deal. Not only did we get the episode itself, but we got the “Ebony and Ivory” video, an “Adventures of Little Shawn and Gus” clip, and an advertisement to check the official site for a new webisode.

Rating: 7.9

Download PSYCH’s season premiere, “Ghosts”.