Season 1, Episode 3
Speak Now, or Forever Hold Your Piece
"...What?"
Directed by Michael Zinberg
Written by Steve Franks
Attorney General Maxwell’s son, Dylan, is getting married to a woman named Bethany Cadman in Santa Barbara. Only one problem: the wedding ring, a family heirloom worth $5 million, has been stolen from the safe at the hotel where everyone was staying. Lassiter and Juliet have been assigned to the case, but Shawn is so interested that he decides – after solving his own case in seconds - to solve it first. Using his charm and a bit of espionage, Shawn quickly eliminates most of the suspects. However, the best man has gone missing, though Dylan thinks he’s just being lazy and backing out of doing anything important. Also, a hotel employee named Dietrich Mannheim has gone missing, after a rather hostile police interrogation. Between a missing best man and a stolen ring, the marriage seems to be in for a rocky start…Tropes:
- Air-Vent Passageway: Shawn uses one of these to spy on Lassiter’s briefing.
- Attention Whore: Dylan accuses his father of being this, claiming he insisted on using the ring for the wedding, going so far as to interrupt his wedding announcement to do so.
- The Big Board: Someone in the police department drew one up regarding the facts of the case, Shawn needs to only glance at it to absorb the most important information.
- Blackmail Backfire: Dietrich Mannheim did not steal the ring, but he saw Bethany’s maid of honor, Lacey, do it. He confronted her, tried to blackmail her, and she killed him.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Dietrich was killed when Lacey whacked him on the head with a fire extinguisher.
- Bouquet Toss: Parodied; Lacey's the maid of honor, but her bouquet goes flying when she trips during her escape attempt. Gus catches it, prompting Shawn to tell him, "Dude, you're next!"
- Cold Open: This one has a young Shawn playing hide and seek with Gus, until Henry tells Shawn how to use a little more stealth to track him.
- Dumbwaiter Ride: Shawn tries to do this with the kitchen dumbwaiter, but finds Dietrich’s body stuffed inside.
- Foreshadowing: Lacey, the groom’s sister, asks Shawn if he can pick a lock and get into a refrigerator where the bouquets are being held so she can rearrange hers. Turns out he can’t. She actually wants the bouquet back because she hid the ring in hers.
- Heirloom Engagement Ring: It’s worth five million dollars, it’s been stolen, and it’s the main focus of the case.
- Impossible Theft: Seems to be the case: the ring was placed in the safe, the safe was locked, nobody tampered with it or was caught on camera, and in the morning, it was gone. This is because the ring never went into the safe. The groom’s sister palmed it while pretending to put it inside.
- Irony: On the morning of the wedding, Lacey is hovering over everybody, making sure everything is going well, and fusses that nobody has their bouquets yet. Baffled by Lacey's Control Freak nature, the bride herself remarks on how it's usually brides who act as the bridezilla. Becomes a bit darker once it's revealed that Lacey was trying to make sure she had the bouquet with the ring stashed inside.
- It's All About Me: Lacey was willing to ruin her brother's wedding by stealing the ring and then murdering the employee who caught her in the act, all because she felt entitled to the family heirloom being used as the wedding ring.
- Lohengrin and Mendelssohn: Plays during the wedding itself.
- Lost Wedding Ring: Or rather, stolen.
- MacGuffin: The stolen, extremely valuable wedding ring. The wedding will be going forward regardless if it’s found or not, but everyone involved would rather it be found anyway, for obvious reasons.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Shawn and Gus find Dietrich Mannheim’s body in a dumbwaiter in this fashion.
- Red Herring: Shawn discovers Maxwell has a big insurance policy on the ring, and wonders if he’s having money problems. It doesn’t matter – he didn’t do it.
- Refuge in Audacity: Shawn pretends to be an Interpol agent to get past a receptionist who doesn’t believe in psychics.
- Senior Sleep-Cycle: Lacey's attempt to make a run for it is foiled when she trips over the foot of an elderly wedding guest who's taking a nap out in the hallway.
- Shockingly Expensive Bill: Lassiter gets a room at the hotel where the wedding is being held, but almost never uses it. Shawn orders enough stuff from room service – enough to hold a party in the room - to rack up a terrifying bill for him.
- Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: While this is part of the title, it’s also the moment at the wedding where Shawn stages a psychic episode revealing that the maid of honor stole the ring and killed Dietrich.
- Take Our Word for It: Shawn holds a party in Lassiter’s hotel room as pretext for getting everyone liquored up enough to question them. He doesn’t get any leads, but wanders out of the party with the maid of honor as the party starts ramping up. Gus soon catches up to them, and while we never see what happened, Gus’s shirt is torn, his head is wreathed in whipped cream, and he claims to have gotten a lap dance from Patrick Swayze.
- Terrified of Germs: Shawn talks his way past a germophobic hotel guard who discovers him spying on Lassiter and Juliet by pretending to be inspecting the hotel for “spores”.
- Throw the Book at Them: Near the beginning, Lassiter threatens to “throw every book I can find” at Shawn if he interferes with the case. Shawn jokingly misunderstands the meaning of the term as this trope, and asks if Lassiter plans to hit him with a bible, too.
- Wedding Episode: The episode takes place in the 24 hours before Dylan and Bethany’s wedding, with a missing best man and a stolen ring.
