Season 2, Episode 6
Meat is Murder, but Murder is also Murder
"...I can't DO this, Shawn!"
Directed by Eric Laneuville
Written by Daniel Hsia
Gus' Uncle Burton has come to Santa Barbara for a visit. Though Gus was named after him, Uncle Burton has never really accepted Gus, and has never been pleased with Gus' decision to go by, well, "Gus". Burton and Gus' dinner reservations are interrupted when Shawn turns up with a case. Gus admits to Shawn that things are even worse than they seem: a miscommunication with Gus' great-aunt (who Gus describes as "Hard of hearing, and pretty out of it in general") led to most of the people on Gus' mother’s side of the family thinking that Gus was the actual psychic detective – and there's no real way of telling anyone otherwise without it looking like he was lying the whole time. Now, Shawn and Gus have to not only crack a case involving a poisoned food critic named Vince Wagner, but Gus may have to play psychic detective himself to keep things under wraps…Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: A homeless man dies from eating the deathcap mushrooms Nick throws away into a dumpster.
- Alliterative Name: Phil Pritikin.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Well, uncle. Uncle Burton is also totally unintimidated by the police, he thinks the whole case is really interesting, and he knows his legal rights, so shaking him off is very difficult.
- Asshole Victim: Vince Wagner was a jerk who seemed to rank any chef with a low rating.
- Awful Wedded Life: Vince reviewed everything his wife did, including sex.Mrs. Wagner: I never broke two stars.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Shawn and Gus investigate Antonio's kitchen pretending they are county health inspectors. Shawn deduces that this is how Nick got into Antonio's kitchen to give Wagner the poisoned risotto.
- Call-Back: Shawn reuses Magic Head from Shawn vs the Red Phantom.
- Caustic Critic: Vince Wagner was one of these. He made a lot of enemies as a result.Cajun Chef: Ya know what he called my award-winnin' jambalaya? "Jamba-LOUSY."
Sushi Chef: You know what he wrote in his review of my famous miso yellow tail roll? "Miso disappointed."
Pastry Chef: He once referred to my white chocolate tiramisu as "ass cake". - Da Editor: Phil Pritikin, Wagner's boss, is this in a nutshell.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Shawn and Gus are taking Uncle Burton to the airport, Burton mentions forgetting to pack a shirt that has a hippo on the sleeve. This helps Shawn decode Al Mooney's description of the killer.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Gus and Shawn manage to narrowly avert this. While their lies start piling up and getting harder to keep straight, they manage to avoid a complete disaster when their lies all unravel by explaining this particular situation has the psychic visions as too complex for a single person to work with.
- Food as Bribe: In the show's Cold Open, little Shawn tries making Henry banana nut muffins to try and get un-grounded before RoboCop (1987) comes out on Friday. It doesn't work – partly because Henry realizes that Gus actually made them, and Shawn lies about it.
- Frame-Up: The killer killed Vince Wagner by making a risotto much like one from Chef Antonio's kitchen laced with poisoned mushrooms, thus pointing the obvious finger at Antonio.
- Gluttony Montage: Shawn, Gus, and Uncle Burton spend several hours eating at different restaurants that Wagner panned, and sent him hate mail in return. It basically cements the point that Wagner had a LOT of enemies who might want to poison him, but the most obvious suspects all have solid alibis. They then keep going, and even visit a seafood place that Wagner never even visited.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: How the killer of the week is confirmed—He names the witness and calls him crazy, except that no one told him the name.
- Innocent Bystander: The homeless man in Accidental Murder above, dying because he was likely so desperate to eat something, which happened to be the death cap mushrooms used in the murder.
- Klingon Promotion: An attempt at this was what killed Wagner. Phil's assistant, Nick, killed him in an attempt to get the restaurant critic's job, widely seen as the cushiest job at the newspaper.
- Lethal Chef: The critic's wife. She even admits it herself. She was trying to get him to eat healthier, but she never got "over two stars" in his opinion. The police initially suspect her of deliberately poisoning him, but she's quickly found innocent.
- Miming the Cues: Shawn does this to Gus at a couple points behind Uncle Burton's back, in order to convey what Shawn noticed to Gus and make Gus look like the detective.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Shawn temporarily gets a job at the newspaper where Wagner worked, writing (very bad) horoscopes.
- Offscreen Crash: Shawn writes a horoscope suggesting that Arieses go through doors backwards for good luck. Lassiter tries it out walking into a restaurant. Cue this trope.
- Protest by Obstruction: The animal rights protester has an obvious alibi because she had chained herself in front of a restaurant in protest of their menu.
- Pull the Thread: Henry figures out young Shawn didn't make the muffins in the Cold Open by asking him the ingredients. Shawn falls for it.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Lassiter has his arm in a sling for a few episodes, starting with this one. He won't tell anyone why. This was due to Timothy Omundson's real-life injury.
- Rule of Three: The chefs that Shawn, Gus, and his uncle interrogate describe the reviews Wagner gave them. The first two bring up Puns he made about their dishes, while the third is an immature joke.
- Spot the Thread: Shawn realizes Chef Antonio isn't Vince Wagner's killer when he sees that Antonio cuts the mushrooms into strips for his mushroom risotto, not into cubes like the one with the deathcap mushrooms.
- Snowball Lie: An accidental one: Gus' ancient great-aunt misunderstood how he worked for Psych, and spread the story that Gus was the psychic detective all over his mother's side of the family before Gus could do any damage control.
- The Stoner: Al Mooney, the only mushroom farmer in the tri-county area. He has sitar music constantly playing in the background when Shawn and Gus visit him, and he describes the last person who asked him about deathcaps as being nine feet tall, having sunshine coming out of his mouth, and having a hippopotamus for a hand. This describes Nick, editor Phil's assistant, who is constantly eating Cheetos and has a hippo on his shirt sleeve.
- Strangely Specific Horoscope: Shawn writes a few of these while working for the newspaper; they're mostly pranks.
- Straw Vegetarian: Dwyer, a vegan who was outraged when she discovered that Antonio was putting beef broth in his vegetarian burgers. Shawn and Gus find her at a protest, where she's been chained to a fast-food restaurant for the last three days. She calls herself the "Vegan Vigilante" online.
- Surprise Inspection Ruse: Shawn pulls this off Bavarian Fire Drill on a restaurant owner. When he points out that there was already a surprise inspection a few days ago, Shawn responds with "you weren't surprised enough". However, it turns out that the prior "surprise inspection" was carried out by the killer, who used the opportunity to swap his victim's mushroom risotto with one containing poisonous death cap mushrooms.
- Swapped Roles: Shawn and Gus wind up swapping back and forth between their usual roles and each other's, to keep Uncle Burton and the police from getting suspicious of either of them.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Vince Wagner was poisoned when the mushrooms in his mushroom risotto served at Antonio's Restaurant turned out to be death caps. However, there's a two-step process to this poisoning: Nick, editor Phil's assistant, prepared his own risotto and replaced Antonio's with it before it went out to Wagner.
- Taught by Television: When Shawn, Gus, and Uncle Burton show up at a crime scene, McNab tries to eject the latter. Uncle Burton points out that since there's no crime scene tape at the door, the forensics guys aren't around, and there's no apparent suspicion of foul play, he has every right to be there. He apparently learned all this from watching Hill Street Blues.
- Tempting Fate: When Lassie and Jules arrest Antonio, Gus expresses relief over catching the killer, meaning that he won't have to lie to his uncle about being psychic. But just after he says that, Shawn notices that Antonio cuts the mushrooms for his mushroom risotto into strips while the mushroom risotto Wagner ate had the mushrooms cut into cubes, meaning Antonio was framed.
- Title Drop: This happens when Gus accuses Dwyer of killing Wagner and pinning it on Antonio.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Or "Well Done Nephew", but Gus' relationship with Uncle Burton has clear shades of this. Gus is dumbfounded when Burton shakes his hand in congratulations. Burton has an attitude of this towards pretty much all of Gus' relatives. Gus largely gets away with it because Burton is a junkie for detective shows.
- Who Murdered the Asshole: There are a LOT of unhappy chefs and restaurant owners who aren't particularly upset that Vince Wagner is dead. Wagner has an absolutely massive folder of hate mail directed towards him.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Shawn mimes what Gus has to have a vision about behind Burton, but Gus misinterprets them. At Gus' last mistake, Shawn mouths, "Killed his nose?!" in disbelief.
