Season 4, Episode 11
Thrill Seekers and Hell Raisers
"Are those rocks REAL?!"
Directed by Mel Damski
Written by Saladin K. Patterson and Kell Cahoon
Gus has a girlfriend who he’s finally ready to introduce to Shawn. Her name is Ruby, she’s clever and sweet, she volunteers for animal rescue, and she’s able to keep up with Shawn’s questions to the point where Shawn finds himself being won over. However, when they tag along on a river-rafting trip with her and her friends Jessica, Stuart, and Derek, they discover she’s also an adrenaline junkie when they go white-water rafting over some rapids. When they reach the other side, one of their number – Stu – has vanished.The initial police belief that he drowned in an accident is quickly undermined by evidence that Stu planned everything out in advance: Stuart and his business partner Brian Sampson had just filed for bankruptcy, due to Sampson’s extravagant lifestyle wasting all their money. Stuart and Sampson had just taken out million-dollar life insurance policies on one another. Finally, Sampson’s body has just been found in the woods, dead in an apparent hunting accident, turning a missing-person case into a murder investigation…
Tropes:
- Asshole Victim: Subverted. Even if Brian had bankrupted his and Stu's business by depleting their finances, he certainly didn't deserve being shot, and Stu is naturally horrified by Derek's actions.
- Bait-and-Switch Accusation: Shawn is annoyed at Ruby for getting between Gus and him, and Gus for prioritizing Ruby. Gus tells Shawn "I know why you're doing this", but instead of accusing him of being jealous, Gus acknowledges that Shawn is merely concerned about his well being.
- Call-Back: Shawn brings up the events of "There's Something About Mira" several times throughout the episode, pointing out that Gus doesn't have the greatest track record with women.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: Gus sure can’t, and Shawn figures it out pretty quickly after Ruby confides in Gus that Stuart asked for her help with “disappearing”.
- Cassandra Truth: Stu's business assistant continuously claims that he had no idea about Stu's disappearance, but Lassiter continues to interrogate him, refusing to let him leave until he starts telling the "truth". Shawn can tell he's not lying because he doesn't have any of the signs.
- Cowardly Lion: At the climax, Gus tackles Derek while he paraglides off a cliff, unwilling to let him get away. As Shawn and the police follow them down the cliff, Gus can be heard screaming for help the entire time. When they land, Gus staggers to his feet, but Derek has been knocked unconscious, and he's quickly arrested. Gus admits to Shawn that he was so scared he accidentally squeezed Derek so tightly that he passed out.
- Crazy-Prepared: At the end of the episode, Lassiter tells Shawn, Gus, and Jules that in the event of an "Alive"-esque plane crash, he knows who exactly he will eat in what order, and has also decided whose organs he will take in the event that he needs a transplant.
- Cuteness Proximity: Deliberately invoked: Gus uses bunnies at the pet store to get Shawn in a good mood before introducing him to Ruby.
- Faking the Dead: Stuart is revealed as having done this very early in the episode. His motivation seems to be throwing debt collectors and the law off his back after he’s forced into bankruptcy. It’s actually because he’s terrified of Derek killing him, too.
- Gilligan Cut: During the show’s Cold Open, Shawn and Gus throw a couple dummies on parachutes off the roof of Henry’s house to try BASE jumping. Henry comes out, and tells them how dangerous it is, and sends Shawn inside. When Shawn grumbles he’ll be able to take bigger risks when he’s older, Henry replies that Shawn can be as wild and reckless as he wants when he’s 30 and moved out… cut to Shawn and Gus at 30, snuggling bunnies at a pet store.
- Girl of the Week: Ruby turns out to be one for Gus, she leaves him at the end of the episode because their initial meeting with her friends was so intense that she’s not really sure how she feels anymore.
- Irony: Much of the rafting trip at the beginning is spent explaining Ruby, Derek, Stuart, and Jessica’s relationships to one another, and putting emphasis on how tightly-knit the group is. By the end, the members are either split apart pretty much irrevocably, or dead.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Derek shot Brian in the woods because Brian’s excessive, expensive lifestyle screwed Stuart over financially. Derek then staged it to look like a hunting accident.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: As Derek is threatening to push Ruby off a cliff for discovering that he murdered Stuart, Ruby tries to seduce him by pretending she's impressed. Derek isn't fooled at all.
- Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List: Juliet hands a newspaper article to Shawn about Stuart’s financial troubles… but Shawn reads the wrong side, and is very confused as to why Juliet is telling him about a mattress clearance sale.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Ruby’s relationship with Gus; unlike the rest of her friends, Gus is fairly soft-spoken, and not a particular risk-taker. She practically jumps on him after he saves her life.
- The Sociopath: Derek turns out to be a very dangerous one: he shot Brian for ruining Stuart’s finances. When he told Stuart, the latter was horrified, and went into hiding – only he didn’t hide well enough, and Derek shot him, too. When Ruby accidentally found out, he almost pushed her off a cliff before Shawn, Gus, and the police arrived. He was cunning enough to put on an act of being fairly dim but innocent the entire time, stole Jessica’s rifle to throw suspicion on her, and he admitted to Ruby that he legitimately enjoyed the rush he got from hunting Stuart down and killing him.
- Thrill Seeker: Ruby’s group of friends is composed of them. Derek was once a big-game hunter, and the rest all de-stress by whitewater rafting, rock climbing, or paragliding.
- The Vamp: Jessica is a mild version. She’s constantly hitting on Shawn, to the point where he seems kind of intimidated. She later proves to have a darker side, with stalking charges on her police record, and some serious anger issues.
