Psych / YMMV - TV Tropes

Accidental Aesop: By repeatedly showing how easy it is for Shawn to convince people he's psychic when his knowledge about them always comes from other channels and his own observation, the show can easily be read as a warning to "Never trust people who claim to be psychic."
Adorkable:
- While Shawn is normally a pretty cool and charismatic guy, his childish and dorky moments make him even more endearing and oddly relatable.
- Very much so for Gus. While he tries to seem cool, he is a colossal dork who loves comics, tap dancing, spelling bees and is Not So Above It All when it comes to acting childish.
- Lassie had some moments that could be called this before, but any moment he's on screen with Marlowe makes it unquestionable;
- Jules qualifies, especially when she has a nice moment with Shawn. She is also generally a very upbeat and enthusiastic person.
Alternate Character Interpretation: Fans dispute whether Lindsay Leikin from "Psy vs. Psy" is a real psychic or just a hyper-aware profiler like Shawn (minus some of the ethics).
Aluminum Christmas Trees: Japadog is a real chain of Japanese inspired hot dogs. Amusingly enough, they aren't available in Santa Barbara but they are available in Vancouver where the show was filmed.
Awesome Music:
- Any remix of the theme song, which they do at least Once a Season, like the Bollywood-style one.
- According to the reviews, Psych: The Musical has a great soundtrack (especially "Santa Barbara Skies", "I've Heard it Both Ways", and "The Breakdown").
- The ending scenes of the season 4 finale "Mr. Yin Presents" is the most heartrending sequence in the entire series, thanks to Band Of Horses beautiful track I Go To The Barn Because I Like The....
Angst? What Angst?: Father Westley doesn't seem too upset about being framed for the "Crime of the Week" in his debut episode. He even has a good idea on who the culprit is, but doesn't want to reveal it to Gus as said culprit revealed themselves under confession.
Base-Breaking Character: Shawn himself due to his immaturity and childishness. He is either an entertaining Large Ham or an obnoxious jerk who treats the people around him poorly.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In the episode "Let's Get Hairy," Shawn activates a revolving bookcase by grabbing a book. Gus is taken to the other side of the bookcase. It spins back around when Shawn puts the book back. Shawn never notices, Gus never says anything, and the incident is never heard of again.
Broken Base: The remake of "Cloudy... With a Chance of Murder", "Remake AKA Cloudy... With a Chance of Improvement", is pretty divisive among the fanbase. Some fans consider it a step-up from the original with much more hilarity and stakes, but other fans feel that they try too hard to make it funnier and is intentionally written bad to prove the point Shawn lampshaded in the beginning of it, that some remakes are bad.
Complete Monster:
- "Mr. Yin Presents..." & "Yang 3 in 2D": Mr. Yin, also known as Karl Rotmensen, is a suave, depraved sociopath and one of Shawn Spencer's most personal enemies. After grooming his partner and daughter Yang into becoming a killer like him, the pair would force the police to play twisted games with an innocent person's life on the line. When Yin first appears, he makes his presence known by murdering a waitress and posing her corpse like a yin-yang symbol. He then goes on to stab police consultant Mary Lightly to death before kidnapping Shawn's friend Juliet and his girlfriend Abigail, and forcing him to choose between preventing the former from falling to her death or saving the latter from drowning. When he reappears, Yin lures Shawn and his best friend Gus to his home, where he forces Shawn to watch as he tries to poison Gus while promising him a "special" death afterwards. A heartless madman who kills for the thrill of it, Yin's appearances severely darken the tone of what's an otherwise lighthearted buddy comedy show.
- Psych: The Movie: Allison Cowley is the apprentice of Mr. Yin. In her first appearance in the season 5 finale, she passed herself off as a helpless victim of Yin to Shawn, only to lure them into one of Yin's traps. Beaten by Juliet, Cowley returns for revenge in the movie, and proves that even without her mentor's influence she can still be just as monstrous. Ordering her men to gun down Juliet's partner, upon his survival, Cowley has one of her subordinates murder him in the hospital, killing all employees attending to him in the process. Cowley later kidnaps Chief Vick's teenage daughter to lure the heroes to Alcatraz. When she reveals herself to the Psych crew, she coldly shoots her right-hand man dead, due to having no further use for him. Telling the gang that she has strapped a bomb to Vick's daughter that will go off in twenty minutes and kill them all unless they find it, Cowley orders her remaining minions to kill the heroes as slowly as possible before finally getting her rematch with Juliet. Unapologetically psychotic and willing to hurt others just to spite her rival, Cowley managed to darken the tone of the show with each appearance she made.
Crazy Is Cool:
- Woody the Coroner is both keenly perceptive and an enormous Cloudcuckoolander
- Ed Dixon, former Army Ranger turned Crazy Survivalist who wears a Bigfoot suit for camouflage and stocks his cabin with medieval weaponry. Not only does he survive an axe to the back, he manages to kill a murderous Serbian mobster while said axe is still embedded in his back. Did we mention he's played by The Big Show?
Crosses the Line Twice: In "The Santabarbarian Candidate", Shawn asks Gus to sabotage his campaign. Gus complies with an advertisement that includes air strike bombs, crying children, pelicans in an oil spill, and heavy traffic, describing it as "Shawn's plans for Santa Barbara".
Cult Classic: The Show ended in 2014 after 8 seasons and while well received during its run, didn't receive the same level of critical appreciation as sister shows such as Monk and Burn Notice. However, the fan-base remained strong enough for it to receive a TV movie in 2017, followed by two sequels in 2020 and 2021 (with three more to come). Both NBCUniversal and Peacock consider it an important mini franchise on par with The Office.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Has its own page.
Even Better Sequel: Mr Yin Presents is this to An Evening with Mr. Yang due to its higher stakes, Darker and Edgier tone, the Hitchcock references, and its final sequence showing all the characters recovering from the events of the episode.
Evil Is Cool: Mr. Yin and Mr. Yang. Especially notable as perhaps the only villains in the series who are played completely straight.
Fair for Its Day: The episode "Who You Gonna Call?" is surprisingly progressive for its subject matter, given it aired in 2006. At the time, trans people, especially trans women, had a tendency to be written as shallow stereotypes or punchlines, and the Hollywood Psych treatment of people with DID was reductive at best. While Gus is shown to be a little uncomfortable with the situation involving Robert and Regina— which is understandable, given the Incompatible Orientation between Gus and Regina, and the fact that the latter is showing affection for him— Shawn refrains from cracking any jokes at the expense of their condition and doesn't misgender Regina when she's in the driver's seat. While it does unfortunately fall into the trap of making an individual with DID a murderer— when people with the condition are far, far more likely to be victimized than aggressors— both of them are rooting for the system of Robert, Regina and Martin to get treatment for their violent tendencies by the end of the episode.
Fanon: Viewers think that Karen knows that Shawn isn't really a psychic, but remains silent because he gets the job done and wants to maintain plausible deniability.
Friendly Fandoms:
- There's a lot of overlap between fans of Psych and fans of Monk, thanks to both shows' comedic nature and quirky, hyper-observant protagonists. It also helps that both shows aired on the same network.
- The above is also applicable to other shows from USA Network's "Characters Welcome" era, such as The Dead Zone, White Collar and Burn Notice.
- With Suits, especially after Dule Hill became a main cast member during the last two seasons.
- With Brooklyn Nine-Nine, as both are comedy focused cop shows with quirky protagonists. Jake is even compared to Shawn by mutual fans.
- With the 2021 reboot of The Wonder Years, because Dulé Hill is in it. Same applies to A Million Little Things (with James Roday Rodriguez) and Galavant (with Timothy Omundson).
- With iZombie, due to it being another detective show where the main character pretends to be psychic.
- With Community, due to both shows reveling in Affectionate Parodies of various genres and movies.
- With Eureka and Warehouse 13, which aired on USA Network's sister channel Syfy at about the same time.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- In Shawn Gets The Yips there is a humorous scene where Shawn believes that his elliptical bike has a bomb rigged to it. A few seasons later in Santabarbaratown Part 2, both Shawn and Gus find themselves at the risk of getting blown up for real, after they accidentally activate a landmine under their couch. Doesn't stop them from prioritizing cheesy nachos over their own safety.
- There was an episode arc where Shawn and Juliet broke up. Their actors James Roday Rodriguez and Maggie Lawson broke up after dating during the show's run.
- Shawn spends a lot of the Season 2 episode "Bounty Hunters" reacting every time someone says they're retiring, because people get shot when they retire. Come Season 6, when Henry retires, he gets shot in the chest by an old partner.
- In "Christmas Joy", Gus is mad at Shawn for sleeping with his sister Joy ten years ago while Gus was in college. Henry gives Shawn a lecture about the importance of trust between partners, something he learned on the police force. In season 6, Henry would suffer a far more vicious betrayal when he learns that all of the members of his team from his days as a cop were corrupt and one of them actually shoots him.
- During a car chase in the season 4 episode "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark", Shawn makes a joke that he'd "rather not be Paul Walker right now". Paul Walker died in a car accident in 2013.
- Juliet spends much of the episode "You Can't Handle This Episode" angry at Shawn for believing her brother is involved in the cover-up of a murder, claiming it's because he can't handle someone else having a healthy relationship. A few seasons later and it's revealed that, to Juliet, that was one of the few positive relationships in her family that she had, given her father is a con-man and her stepfather is a degenerate gambler. Her attitude makes a lot more sense.
- The killer in "Juliet Takes A Luvvah" was a man who murdered women whom he saw as shallow for not being sexually or romantically interested in him. The man's Motive Rant is disturbingly similar to the one in Elliot Rodger's manifesto.
- In "American Duos", Henry makes a crack about Nigel St. Nigel having Botox done by asking "Can you even remember what it felt like to move the muscles in your face?" Nigel's actor, Tim Curry, suffered a stroke in July of 2012 that left him wheelchair-bound and paralyzed part of his face.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "Lights, Camera, Homicidio", Juliet mistakenly believes she and Chief Vick are friends, which the latter bluntly tells her she's just a professional subordinate and not a friend. As the series progresses, the two become far more than friends, forming a Found Family with Shawn, Gus, Lassiter and Henry, and Karen wanted Juliet to join her San Francisco when she is appointed Chief there.
He Really Can Act: Anthony Rapp before guest-starring as Z was best-known for playing Mark in RENT as an angsty dorky videographer. Here, he plays a Mad Artist composer accused of murdering a critic and burning down a theater the night that his Jack the Ripper play was premiering. Z is intimidating, but also polite to Shawn, and ultimately revealed to be finding out who framed him and killed the woman he loved when he trusted her with the proof that he was innocent: his original script. In the climax, he comes close to murdering the actual killer, shaking with rage, but surrenders when Shawn encourages him that he's not the murderer everyone thought he was. Notable is his songs are the shortest ones in the two-parter, meaning that Anthony's acting skills were shown more than his singing.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In "Shawn Rescues Darth Vader", Gus is aghast when a kid claims that the Star Wars prequels were better than the original movies. Since late 2010s, the idea of the Star Wars prequels being good is a lot more common in fandom discourse in wake of the Disney Star Wars sequel trilogy.
- In "Shawn vs. The Red Phantom," a 2006 episode, Shawn spends much of the episode mocking nerd culture while Gus defends its popularity. During The New '10s, comic book movies and TV adaptations would have an overwhelmingly dominant force on American pop culture.
- In "Not Even Close Encounters", Shawn offhandedly mentions a case involving Bigfoot, which Gus is unaware of. Then "Lassie Jerky" happened, where Shawn and Gus "help" two college students "find" Bigfoot.
Ho Yay: Has its own page.
Informed Wrongness: In "One, Maybe Two, Ways Out," Shawn and Gus are chastised for helping Nadia run from the "good guys"... the good guys who opened fire on them on a pier in broad daylight, while Nadia saved their lives.
Jerkass Woobie:
- Yeah Lassiter can be a dick but the man suffers so much, and is treated as The Friend Nobody Likes.
- Many of the Killers of the Week are... well, killers. However, it's hard to not sympathize with some:
  - Alice Bundy in the "Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast", who seeks revenge against the girls involved in the hazing ritual that killed her sister.
  - Zapato Dulce in "American Duos". The titular show was meant to be a Career Resurrection, but he instead got overshadowed by Nigel St. Nigel, who treated him as The Speechless and was a jerk in general.
  - Ashley Bamford in "There Might Be Blood" is desperate to impress her sexist father, and prove that she is capable of inheriting his oil firm. Shawn sympathizes with her, but his attempts to talk to her backfire when Lassie tackles here down and arrests her.
  - Army Johnson was responsible for a series of murders in 1998, but his victims were arsonists who had claimed the lives of 2 of his colleagues. He is so ashamed of what he has done that he sets himself on fire (He's saved by Gus).
  - Clive in "Tuesday The 17th", given that his fathers death is being exploited by Jason as part of a "Murder Camp", which he deems to be in poor taste.
  - The killer in "Shawn gets the Yips" obviously crossed a line by targeting Lassiter and McNab, but his life fell apart after his son overdosed, and while the dealer who gave him the lethal dose was arrested, it was for a different crime that resulted in a smaller sentence.
  - The killer in "This Episode Sucks" has a rare blood condition that requires constant transfusions to survive. But because of this he got cut off from his insurance, not helping that he has an extremely rare blood type (O negative). Desperate to keep living, he forcefully drains the blood from other people with the first "murders" being complete accidents because of loss of blood. The guy is as much a victim of a cold, bureaucratic healthcare system as he is a serial killer.
  - The Killer in "S.E.I.Z.E The Day" got arrested by Harris Trout for trying to stand up for himself, and his wife kicks him out of the house for missing their anniversary, driving him into killing those responsible for making his life miserable.
Like You Would Really Do It:
- Yeah, like they were going to kill Henry in the Season 6 finale. Ditto with Gus in the Season 5 finale and Juliet in the Season 4 Finale.
Magnificent Bastard: See here.
Memetic Mutation:
- One word - Pineapples. Shawn's love of the fruit has practically made it a calling sign for fans of this show.
- You know that's right
- I've heard it both ways
- Comparing Psych characters to Brooklyn 99 characters.
Memetic Psychopath: Jules is teased as one in "Think Tank", due a scene where she and Lassie enter a room with guns in their hand... and Jules' gun inadvertently swings towards Lassie's head while her finger is on the trigger. Fans joke that Jules was "gunning for Lassie's position". It doesn't help that this scene is used in season 6's Opening Title Montage, making it even more noticeable to those who missed it the first time.
Moral Event Horizon: In his prior two appearances, Harris Trout has shown himself to be obnoxious, but he crosses the horizon in "Someone's Got a Woody", where he shows no regard for Woody's life when he is being held hostage. The mayor seems to think so too, since his actions during the hostage crisis get him fired.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: The show averts this as often as it plays it straight. You might even get two famous guest stars in a single episode.
- When Saul Tigh shows up as a crusty fisherman about 15 minutes in, you know that he'll be the murderer by the end of the episode. Except that we also get shark-obsessed Jeri Ryan.
- Also in Season 1's "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me, Oops He's Dead", guest-starring Teryl Rothery.
Nightmare Fuel:
- Yin and Yang. Yang has been obsessed with Shawn since he was twelve. And her obsession is the only thing that saves his mother in her first appearance.
- Add to this the fact that Shawn never knew! She's known about him since he was a kid, knows what happened on the pier between him and Abigail in high school,which implies she's followed him in other episodes since this was only mentioned before in episodes Yin/Yang did not appear in, and Shawn, whose powers of observation are so great that people believe he has psychic powers, never suspected a thing.
  - Despite being a parody, "Heeeeeere's Lassie" was pretty scary, especially the part where Lassie goes crazy and tries to kill Gus!
- "Dead Air" had "Bob", a Crazy Jealous Guy who was targeting radio hosts who his Ex Girlfriend got too close with. The psych team comes to the conclusion that "Bob" is really just a split personality of his girlfriend (who's bipolar). It turns out there really is a Bob and he shows up at Gus's house with a gun!
- The culprit in "Juliet Wears The Pantsuit", an abusive husband whose father was a cop, meaning his wife couldn't get a restraining order, forcing her to go on the run, changing her identity until she decided her only option was to steal the identity of a cop, to keep away from him.
- Gus's nightmares in "A Nightmare On State Street" can be this, especially the first two if you don't handle horror movies very well.
One-Scene Wonder:
- The Cranberry in Santabarbaratown Part II. Gus uses the car as a temporary ride after The Blueberry is ripped in half, and it gets blown up less than a minute after being introduced. It's destruction serves as the last scene in the Season 7 Title Montage.
- A variation occurs in the first film. Lassiter only gets one scene, owing to Timothy Omundson suffering a stroke but it's been remarked upon as the most emotional scene of the entire film.
One True Threesome: Shawn/Gus/Juliet is pretty much confirmed in the series finale when Shawn's proposal to Juliet includes "Will you marry us?" since Gus will always be an important part of their lives. Especially in the movie, where Gus plans to go on their honeymoon with them.
Retroactive Recognition: As this is filmed in Vancouver, you see quite a few cameo cases of this, especially from USA and Syfy series.
- Dale Arden had her ring stolen before her wedding.
- Henry was a janitor in a planetarium before becoming a werewolf.
- Vincent went to Shawn and Gus' high school before being a genius cook.
- Anson Fullerton was a retired anarchist before burning Michael.
- Rachel, before sharpening her senses, was Mohinder's forbidden lover who didn't see a truck coming.
The Scrappy: Harris Trout. Not only does he shake up the status quo of the series negatively, but his scenes are typically not as funny, he constantly belittles everyone around him, and is willing to take the risk of killing Woody so long as he gets the bad guy. Basically nobody likes him in-universe, either, and he bogged the first half of the final season as a result.
Seasonal Rot:
- It is generally agreed that Season 8 is the worst season of the series, due to Harris Trout replacing Karen Vick, Karen and Jules being absent for half the season, and the plots themselves not being as compelling or entertaining. A Nightmare on State Street in particular is often singled out as one of the worst episodes of the show if not the worst for being a confusing Mind Screw. It didn't help when USA Network cancelled the show while the season was still airing. Luckily, they stuck the landing with the series finale The Break Up, which is considered one of the best episodes, and the subsequent movies were also well received by fans.
- Even before that, Season 5 is thought by many to be peak Flanderization of Shawn's Obfuscating Stupidity Genius Ditz behavior into just being The Ditz.
Special Effect Failure:
- The tower scene in the Season 3 episode "Daredevils!" has a really obvious green screen background.
- In the season three episode about the arsonist, the heavy-set arsonist sets himself on fire and turns into what's clearly a stuntman who's a lot skinnier than the actor is.
- The hot air balloon in the Season 6 episode "Neil Simon's Lover Retreat" looks like cheap '90s CGI, and no attempt is made to disguise it.
Stoic Woobie:
- Henry knew how much Shawn loved his mother, so he hid the secret that she walked out on them and let Shawn hate him for it for decades, all while desperately loving the woman who had left him and struggling to raise Shawn on his own. And never said a word or showed it.
- Lassiter starts the series having been left by his wife and with few or no friends. He has great difficulty opening up and admitting he wants those connections and sometimes needs help.
Strawman Has a Point: Harris Trout might be a hardass but his observations about the lack of professionalism from the SBPD, and Shawn and Gus's naked disregard for rules are not wrong.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A common complaint about Abigail is that in spite of her history with Shawn and their Relationship Upgrade in the season 3 finale, she appears in only four episodes of the next season where she's little more than a device for relationship drama before she gets permanently written out.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- The episode where Juliet's brother was the culprit and escaped ended with a sequel hook that was never resolved. The movie seems to imply that this may, in fact, be resolved should another movie be greenlit.
- Despite the Yin Yang episodes being especially darker compared to other episodes, no major character dies. This could have been a great transition for the show to get somewhat Darker and Edgier and cemented Shawn's character arc as a detective. Shawn having to go head to head with someone arguably as brilliant and cunning as he is could have made for a great recurring conflict but this never gets spotlighted.
- Neither Karen nor Carlton have had an opening flashback centered around them. While the latter showed up in one as a joke, Karen is a no show, which is a wasted opportunity since it is very likely that she and Henry worked on the force together.
Tough Act to Follow: An Evening with Mr. Yang and Mr Yin Presents are considered two of the best episodes of the show (especially the latter), causing Yang 3 in 2D (the third episode of the Yang trilogy) to suffer from this. While it is far from hated, it is generally considered the weakest entry of the trilogy due to not having the same sense of tension as the prior two episodes.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: In "Lights, Camera, Homicidio" Juliet attempts to befriend a new female cop, which culminates in the cop filing a complaint against Juliet for harassment. This is supposed to be a lesson to the friendly, bubbly Juliet that she needs to be more professional in the workplace, a useful Aesop. However, the cop is unnecessarily rude to Juliet from the beginning and goes straight to the harassment charge instead of directly talking to the former. The complaint seems to indicate that the cop is overly paranoid and shows that she can't healthily interact with her own coworkers.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- The killer in "Shawn Gets the Yips." Wants to avenge his dead son against the drug-lord who sold him a lethal dose? Fine and dandy there. Problem is, the killer also targets the non-corrupt police, seeing them as equally guilty for trying and failing to convict said drug-lord through legal means.
- In "High Top Fade Out" Juliet and Lassiter don't tell Shawn and Gus that they are working on an undercover case until near the end of the episode, and this decision is portrayed as correct in-episode. However, as Gus points out, they had no real reason to not tell them based on their stellar track record assisting the police department. In addition, Lassiter and Juliet lock Shawn and Gus in the police interrogation room all night with bags over their heads (claiming it was "for their protection") and act like jerks the entire time (at one point, Lassiter jokes that they should take the bus right after they almost got blown up by a car bomb).
Unpopular Popular Character: Carlton Lassiter is unpopular among the other police officers for being a cranky, rigid Control Freak with No Sense of Humor. The fans, on the other hand, love him for these exact same reasons, especially as his reactions to Shawn's antics make them all the more hilarious.

YMMV / Psych

Edit Locked