Season 5, Episode 8
Shawn 2.0
"You're highly intelligent, but you're shameful of that fact, so you play it down with the use of inappropriate behavior.... and you live in fear of showing weakness, so you hide behind a constant barrage of jokes and sarcasm."
Directed by David Crabtree
Written by Bill Callahan
After spending a night listening to an audiotape of a Twilight knockoff titled “Internity”, Shawn meets up with Gus and goes to a crime scene. While there, Shawn is horrified to have his thunder stolen by a criminal profiler named Declan Rand, who quickly comes to several of the same conclusions as Shawn – someone is murdering older people using an aerosol spray can - then goes a step further by profiling the killer as a woman in her thirties. He then asks Juliet out on a date, and she accepts. Declan also profiles Shawn perfectly, driving him further up the wall. The department hires Rand to help out on the case, with Henry in particular thinking some competition would be good for Shawn. As a frustrated Shawn tries keeping up with Rand (to mixed results), it becomes increasingly obvious that someone is killing people on a list for a liver transplant… and the main suspect fits Declan’s description perfectly, except she’s been out of the country for two weeks. Or was she?...Tropes:
- Always Someone Better: Seems to be the case at first. Declan is tall, handsome, wealthy, something of a joker, but more mature than Shawn, and has crime-solving abilities and movie trivia knowledge at least on par – if not even better – than his. Over the course of the episode, though, Shawn steps up his game and starts rapidly narrowing the gap between them.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Declan describes hemlock as producing a 'peaceful death' and suggests that the killer believes they are relieving the victims' suffering. Hemlock paralyses the lungs and other organs and is a notoriously unpleasant death, although this may have been slightly mitigated by the hemlock being in aerosol form rather than digested.
- As Himself: Curt Smith, of Tears for Fears shows up in the episode, having been hired by Rand to play music in his house. Shawn quickly proves himself something of a Loony Fan.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Henry feels the need to give Shawn another push by hiring Declan. If Shawn doesn't have a challenge, he literally just mails it in.
- Call-Back: The show brings back joke character Gina, introduced in "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark", the girl who was all about herself while Shawn was, y'know, shot in the chest. Now she's been upgraded to a Psycho Ex-Girlfriend.
- Friendly Rivalry: Rivalry, yes, but the “friendly” bit is originally somewhat one-sided; Declan is polite and eagerly mentions he’s impressed by Shawn’s long list of solved cases. Shawn is initially snarky and cool towards Declan, but slowly starts to warm up to him.
- Fun with Acronyms: When Declan is revealed to have an MBA, Shawn jokes about him having a monkey basketball league (A reference to the National Basketball Association).
- Green-Eyed Monster: Shawn is initially annoyed by Declan stealing his thunder, but his dislike of the man shifts into high gear when he asks Juliet out.
- Kick the Dog: Declan's been pretty much entirely above board (except for lying about his qualifications as a profiler) until the end of the episode. As good a he is at reading people, he must have picked up on the way Juliet and Shawn feel about each other, yet he still interrupts Shawn's confession to throw in his own and win Juliet.
- Lady Drunk: The killer is one of these. Her liver failure brought on by alcoholism meant she desperately needed a transplant, but said alcoholism also disqualified her from receiving one. She used her sister’s name to get on a list for organ donation recipients, but started to get impatient while her sister was out of the country, and started killing people further up the list.
- Non-Idle Rich: Declan was a hedge fund manager who made a few very good investments, and suddenly found himself absurdly wealthy. He decided to use his newfound free time to become a criminal profiler, and found he had a knack for it.
- Not Helping Your Case: When the killer is arrested, she admits she killed the organ donors because she thought they have lived long enough, which Gus lampshades is not making her her sympathetic.
- Not What It Looks Like: When one of their suspects is found dead in a parking garage, with Declan kneeling over her body, he’s arrested and taken into custody. Turns out he just beat the police there.
- Periphery Demographic: In-universe. Shawn turns out to genuinely enjoy the Twilight knockoff “Internity”, despite Gus protesting that it’s aimed at teenage girls. It turns out Declan is also a fan.
- Romantic False Lead: Ducking Fecland.
- Running Gag: Shawn keeps trying to bring “Said the Liar” and “NOT!” back into vogue throughout the episode.
- Secret-Keeper: Declan, along with Gus, Henry, and eventually Juliet, is one of the few people who knows Shawn isn’t a psychic by the end of the series who isn’t in prison or dead.
- Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: Narrowly averted by Lassiter. One of their suspects reaches for her purse while they’re questioning her in her home, and Lassiter immediately draws his gun. He doesn’t shoot her, but holds her at gunpoint until Juliet reveals she was trying to show them her passport which was recently stamped. He immediately re-holsters it and apologizes.
- Title Drop: Gus calls Declan "Shawn 2.0" at one point, much to Shawn's consternation.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Coroner Woody’s daughter took a picture of him with makeup that made him look like a corpse for a school project. Woody’s quite proud of her.
- Unusual Euphemism: When Declan first runs into Shawn, they’re in a bakery. Shawn initially plans to win himself a free breakfast by answering a movie trivia question (How many times is the F-Bomb dropped during The Usual Suspects?). Declan points out one that Shawn missed, which is often mistaken for “Gug”. As Declan leaves, Shawn grumbles “Who the gug is that guy?”
- Variations on a Theme Song: The theme song is performed by Curt Smith of Tears for Fears.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Subverted when Shawn is baffled at the name “Declan”. It actually is a traditional Irish name, and isn’t overly rare. He also treats Gus's girlfriend's name, "Kim with one i".
