Recap / Psych S 04 E 16 Mr Yin Presents

Season 4, Episode 16

Mr. Yin Presents...

"You can't save them both, Shawn..."

Directed by James Roday Rodriguez

Written by Andy Berman and James Roday Rodriguez

A year after the arrest of Mr. Yang, a new killer starts playing games with Shawn and his friends - her partner, Mr. Yin. Meanwhile, Shawn struggles to deal with his conflicting feelings over Abigail (who is returning to Santa Barbara from Uganda this week) and Juliet, before Mr. Yin spices things up with a murderous Homage to the canon of Alfred Hitchcock.

This is the second episode in the "Yin/Yang Trilogy" focused around the Yin/Yang killers - The previous installment was the Season 3 finale "An Evening With Mr. Yang", and the following/final installment was the Season 5 finale "Yang 3 in 2D".

---

Tropes:

• Arc Symbol: As with "A Meeting with Mr. Yang," the Yin/Yang symbol.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Subverted, albeit downplayed. Yin loses in that both Abigail and Juliet are saved, but he succeeds in traumatizing everyone and killing Mary.
• Back for the Dead: Poor, poor Mary Lightly. Thankfully averted with Abigail.
• Big Bad: Mr. Yin.
• Bittersweet Ending: Both Juliet & Abigail are (barely) saved from death and Henry is now back with the SBPD, but it's such a dark episode that it all still comes across as really bleak and depressing. Shawn officially breaks up with Abigail, Juliet suffers major psychological trauma from her ordeal, no one managed to catch Yin, Mary died, and Yang's still completely insane.
• Black Comedy Burst: The episode is atypically dark, terrifying, suspenseful, and grim (as befitting a Homage to Hitchcock's work), but does have two funny moments - Namely, Shawn's surreal Hitchcockian dream sequence and Mary making a little hat for Ben with Gus' $20 bill.
• Book Ends: Abigail is kidnapped and secured underneath the pier where she and Shawn were supposed to go on a date during high school (as previously alluded to in "Murder? …Anyone? …Anyone? …Bueller?"). And after Shawn saves her, this would be where they would definitively break up.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Mary comments that Yin had a "very stylish fedora". Subverted because he ends up not being Yin.
• Butt-Monkey: McNab is sent to safely escort Abigail from the airport, and only gets (non-fatally) tranquilized for his efforts.
• Call-Back: Naturally, there's some to "An Evening With Mr. Yang".
  • Shawn suggested Mary take up racquetball after Yang was captured. Here, Mary complains about wearing "hot pants" and hopes that there's racquetball in Heaven.
  • Henry checks in with Madeline to make sure she's not even close to Santa Barbara and is fine (she is, thankfully).
  • Henry also accepts the job offer Vick made a few episodes earlier.
• Celebrity Paradox: An retroactive example - During Shawn and Gus' first visit with Yang in the psychiatric hospital, she ask Shawn's opinion on her tell-all autobiography, and Shawn admits to preferring Bruce Campbell's. Campbell would later guest star in Season 8's "A Nightmare on State Street."
• Cerebus Callback: A mix of this and Brick Joke - Mary was advised to take up racquetball by Shawn at the end of "An Evening With Mr. Yang". At the end of this episode at Mary's funeral, Shawn and Gus are both wearing racquetball gear and solemnly place a birdie and racket on his coffin as it's being lowered into the earth.
  Mary: Do you think they have racquetball in heaven?
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Both Mr. Yang and Mary Lightly are a darker interpretation of this trope (albeit in different ways) than what's typically seen on this show.
• Continuity Nod: Mary took ownership of "Ben," the little mouse from "An Evening With Mr. Yang."
  • Shawn has occasionally been shown to carry a swiss army knife (as when he pries up the linoleum hiding Dutch the Clutch's insurance policy). Turns out Henry taught him to always carry one.
• Creepy Good: Deconstructed with Mary Lightly, as his quirkiness makes him come across as a potential suspect in the hunt for a Serial Killer and ultimately leads to his death.
• Criminal Mind Games: Mr. Yin uses these to screw with Shawn and the SBPD over the course of the episode.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The planned deaths for Juliet and Abigail - Juliet would fall to her death from the city's clock tower while Abigail would drown under the boardwalk due to the tides.
• Damsel in Distress: Juliet and Abigail both become this after they're kidnapped by Mr. Yin.
• Darker and Edgier: Than even the previous Yin/Yang episode.
• Depraved Bisexual: Yang herself, who hits on both the female asylum attendant and Shawn during the latter's visit.
• Dream Sequence: Shawn has a Hitchcockian one after trying to first investigate Mr. Yin.
• Dreaming the Truth: Shawn is able to remember a vital clue that he walked right past the killer in the movie theater the night before and saw he was wearing ankle weights. Subverted by the fact that the ankle weights clue was a Red Herring and Mary is actually Yin's next victim.
• Dying Alone: Subverted, with Shawn comforting Mary as the latter passes away.
• Enemy Mine: Downplayed, but Yang is convinced to provide some vague advice to help Shawn and Gus against Mr. Yin.
• Eviler than Thou: Yang lampshades this concerning Mr. Yin, with her outright calling Yin a monster compared to herself.
• Fanservice: Juliet's brief appearance in Shawn's Hitchcockian dream as Marion Crane in the shower.
• Fauxshadowing: There's loads of Red Herrings offered up to imply that Mary Lightly is really Mr. Yin. He isn't, and actually becomes Yin's victim. We also get a brief implication that something is off about Buzz. He refuses to answer Abigail's questions, then, after he puts her in the backseat of his cruiser, he stands there with his head at an odd angle, staring at her... then he collapses onto the car and we see Yin standing behind him holding a syringe.
• Foreshadowing: The sketch on Shawn's copy of Yang's book, which seems at first glance to be Yang running through a field. As Shawn later realizes, it's actually meant to represent Abigail trapped under the boardwalk.
• Friendless Background: When Shawn and Gus attend Mary's funeral, his mother is the only other person to show up.
• Fridge Logic: invoked In-Universe, as Mary became convinced that Yang had an accomplice during the events of "An Evening With Mr. Yang" since there was no way she could have acted alone in kidnapping Shawn's mother Madeline.
• Gambit Roulette: Mr. Yin's plan seems to be full of this. Fitting, as his method is the chaos to Yang's order.
• Good All Along: Mary Lightly, though the confirmation sadly comes too soon.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Yang isn't good now by any stretch of the imagination, but is willing to provide some minor assistance to Shawn and Gus in their investigation.
• Heroic BSoD: Juliet repeatedly insists she's fine before she breaks down sobbing into Lassiter's arms after he and Gus save her from Yin's deathtrap. Shawn also has one in the police station after both Juliet and Abigail have been taken by Yin. He can barely bring himself to answer riddles.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Juliet struggles to tell Shawn over the phone that he still has time to rescue Abigail, showing that she's willing to sacrifice her chance at being saved so that Abigail can survive.
• Homage: To the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
  • Shawn and Gus' waitress is found in a field strangled with a necktie. (Frenzy)
  • During Yin's recreation at the film set, Juliet is Kim Novak (with her even entering Julie's Bar). Then, after getting captured, she is then suspended from a clock tower overlooking the street below, and she will fall to her death unless she's rescued. (Vertigo)
  • During Yin's recreation at the film set, Gus is Canada Lee. Later, Abigail is tied below the Santa Barbara pier and nearly drowns. (Lifeboat)
  • Lassiter is seemingly chased down by a crop duster at Northwest Park only for it to be revealed to be a toy plane. The bus Mr. Yin is spotted taking is called the "North Line." (North By Northwest)
  • During Yin's recreation at the film set, Shawn is assigned the position of James Stewart and goes into an attic room that has a wheelchair by a windowsill. (Rear Window)
  • Mary's house looks very similar to that of the Bates family's. Mary's first name is also "Marion" (as in Marion Crane). Mary ascending the stairs and getting killed by Mr. Yin is also an allusion to Arboghast's fate at the hands of Norman Bates. (Psycho)
  • invoked There is graffiti of several birds on a wire at the abandoned warehouse Mary is told to meet Mr. Yin at. Later on, during the Hitchcock recreation, Lassiter (as Rod Taylor) and Henry (as Sean Connery, who Taylor was accused of being the Poor Man's Substitute for in the below-mentioned film) are both locked in a car & are unable to interact with anyone outside. (The Birds)
  • The stairway at Northwest Park to get to the wishing fountain has 39 steps. (The Thirty-Nine Steps)
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Inverted. After Abigail is kidnapped and nearly drowned by Yin, Shawn is ready to compromise and make a stronger commitment to their relationship, but she breaks up with Shawn because she can't make a difference in the world if she's dead.
• Knight of Cerebus: Mr. Yin, who unlike Yang (as she at least gets some minor moments of Black Comedy) is never Played for Laughs.
• Loners Are Freaks: Subverted in the sense that Mary's not evil, just weird.
• Love Cannot Overcome: Shawn's ex-girlfriend, Abigail, says she can't take the stress of his job anymore after being kidnapped by Mr. Yin.
• Manipulative Bastard: Mr. Yin, who manages to effortlessly play everyone in the episode like pawns in chess for his own amusement.
• Mood Whiplash: Shawn's dream sequence is mostly dark and surreal, but also has Lassiter and Juliet as Norman/Mrs. Bates and Marion Crane respectively.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Shawn gets one when he realizes that the dead waitress has been posed to create a taijitu.
  • Shawn has a massive one when he realizes Mary ascending the staircase at the abandoned film set makes him Arboghast in Psycho and that Mary's both actually innocent and the next victim.
  • Shawn and Gus both have one when they see Juliet fall through a trap door and get kidnapped by Mr. Yin.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Yang, naturally.
• Put on a Bus: This is the last episode to feature Abigail Lytar.
• Red Herring: Everything involving Mary Lightly in this episode, as Shawn only realizes too late that Yin was playing him for a fool and Mary's not the Serial Killer. Probably the most noteworthy example is Mr. Yin also wearing ankle weights to help convince Shawn that Mary's the killer.
  • A less obvious example is McNab. He solves one of Yin's riddles with surprising speed, displays a few odd mannerisms, and ends up being the one who drives Abigail to safety. He then gives a very creepy Quizzical Tilt looking in the window of his squad car at her... before slumping forward to reveal the real Yin knocked him out.
• Room Full of Crazy: Mary has one in his house dedicated to the Yin/Yang killers.
• Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: Mr. Yin uses Alfred Hitchcock films to devise several themed ways of luring, capturing, or killing people. Mary Lightly was killed similarly to a scene from Psycho. The main cast had to go into a building as different characters from Hitchcock films, where Henry Spencer and Carlton Lassiter became trapped in a car (but survived); however, Juliet triggered a trap door that caused her to be captured. Later, she was tied in a chair that was attached to a clock tower, in such a way that at 4:30 AM, a cable would be severed and she would fall to her death. At the same time, Abigail was bound beneath a pier while the tide was coming in. Both are thankfully saved in the nick of time.
• Sadistic Choice: Mr. Yin tries to create this for Shawn by making it so that he could only save either Abigail or Juliet. However, Shawn, Gus, Lassiter, Henry, and Chief Vick are able to figure out where they are, and are able to split up to save each person (Lassiter and Gus rescue Juliet while Shawn and Henry save Abigail).
• Sequel Episode: To the Season 3 finale "An Evening With Mr. Yang".
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Abigail and Juliet are both kidnapped by Mr. Yin and placed in death traps. After they are rescued, Abigail breaks up with Shawn because she doesn't want to be endangered again by his enemies and Juliet is traumatized after nearly dying, with the following episode showing her getting a desk job for a few months in order to recover.
• Ship Sinking: Shawn/Abigail is thoroughly sunk in this episode due to her getting spooked off as she almost gets killed the first day she returns to Santa Barbara after several months in Africa just because she and Shawn were previously dating.
• Ship Tease: Loads between Shawn and Juliet, with him (reluctantly) agreeing to save her first before Abigail since they actually knew where she was at the moment.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mary describes McNab as "a bailiff from Night Court."
  • As Shawn himself points out, them trying to work with Yang is "totally Silence of the Lambs."
  • The Psych Agency window is painted over by Mr. Yin to spell "Psycho."
  • When told by Shawn that they must "do nothing" to peg Mary as Mr. Yin, Lassiter snarks with "How Seinfeldian."
  • Yin forcing Shawn to undergo a Sadistic Choice complete with a gravelly voice to mask his identity is more than a little evocative of Jigsaw.
• Stalker Shrine: Has one to the Yang case in his Room Full of Crazy.
• Take a Third Option: Instead of being forced into a Sadistic Choice, Shawn's able to find a way to make it so that both Abigail and Juliet can be saved.
• Theme Serial Killer: Mr. Yin, naturally.
• True Companions: This episode really helps showcase how the Psych agency and SBPD have become this over the course of the series.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Arguably subverted, as the episodes making up the "Yin/Yang Trilogy" are intentionally meant to be the darkest episodes of the series.
• Wham Episode: Mary Lightly is killed by Mr. Yin (who isn't caught by the police and easily escapes his comeuppance), Shawn and Abigail's relationship is permanently sunk for the foreseeable future, Juliet is traumatized by her ordeals at the hands of Yin, Henry is reinstated on the SBPD, and Shawn & Yang have a mysterious connection dating back to the former's childhood.
• Wham Shot:
  • Shawn and Gus uncovering Mary's Room Full of Crazy in his house.
  • Mr. Yin practically tackling Mary and stabbing him as he pulls the latter down the stairs at the abandoned film set.
  • The ending, which shows a young Shawn and Yang smiling together in a photograph.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Lassiter uses his gun to save Juliet. Subverted in that he uses it to jam the gears of the clocktower rather than shooting anything.

---