S1 E2 – Spellingg Bee

In a DVD commentary, Steve Franks mentioned that it was during the filming of the initial scene where Shawn and Juliet meet that he decided that ultimately Shawn and Juliet would be a couple.  He also knew that eventually James and Maggie would also become a couple after watching the chemistry between the two of them here.

That first meeting between the two of them has to be one the best first meetings ever.  First Shawn seeing a beautiful woman and having a true excuse to talk to her when she took his seat, plus her possible put down as him being that guy who has to have things just his way.  You could see how well they clicked right from the beginning.  Then with Shawn not going for the immediate use of his abilities; but saving them for when she is willing to give him a chance was the perfect move for him.  I love his Juliet voice, both 8^th grade Juliet and the college educated Juliet.  Her surprise at all that he knew about her and then the realization that she was a cop.  All of the elements played so well together.  I can easily see why Steve Franks came to the conclusions that he did.

At the crime scene, Juliet still being a new detective does have a hard time looking at the dead body, although she is nowhere near the level of difficulty around corpses that Gus has.  Something that Juliet will eventually learn to get over completely; however Gus will just get worse.  Juliet can see the ramifications that a dead body falling over a ledge may have on those in attendance of the bee, however in these early episodes it’s easy to see why it is so easy for Shawn to belittle Lassie’s police work, as he really doesn’t investigate that much.  Lassie wants the easy answer and he now has a partner that will question him on it. No wonder she scored higher on the detective’s test.  Plus right off we can see that she is very personable and takes peoples feeling into account showing that bad cop isn’t always the answer.  I add this so we can see where Juliet is at personally when she meets Shawn.

Although the second meeting between Shawn and Juliet is short, but seeing Shawn in action declaring that the death was not an accident but murder, she is very impressed by his skills.  Then later in the chief’s office when Shawn is going into more detail about his Chinese food vision, after getting results from his dad, Lassie is annoyed and says how ridiculous it is, but Juliet is taken in and is a believer, and questions lassie’s skepticism.  So right from the start we can see that Juliet will be one of Shawn’s biggest supporters in the police station.  We know that Lassie doesn’t believe and that the Chief has her suspicions, but as long as there are results she isn’t going to question it. 

When watching the conclusion of the case and Shawn’s antics to get there, Juliet learns that Shawn doing crazy things to lead to who the killer really is, is normal for him, she takes this news fairly well, although she was surprised.  But then we see what a supporter of Shawn Juliet really is, when Shawn can’t confirm with a vision that there was poison, Juliet steps up and tells everyone that since Shawn was so sure about his vision of the Chinese food being poisoned she ran it through the lab.  When you think about it, with how new she must be to the department, and how little she knows about Shawn, you can see that a real relationship is forming there.  She risked getting in trouble during her first week, because she trusted Shawn’s hunch or vision.  Then when Shawn realizes what she did for him, he is floored.  He can’t believe that this beautiful woman believes in him.  I love the way that they acknowledge what the other did.  With the silent thank you, and the nod implying you’re welcome. 

There wasn't much interaction, but the little that was there, shows that Shawn and Juliet will become good friends working together.  Juliet believes in his abilities, maybe even more than she should, but she trusts that he will be able to solve the case when no one else can. 

Pineapple spotting: Shawn is eating a slice of pineapple while building the doghouse.

Gus Nickname: No nickname; but the Super-Smeller was introduced.

Pop Culture References: One of the spelling words that Shawn gives is Onion, Gus immediately questions this.  Gus played by Dule Hill played Sam the Onion man in the movie Holes.

S1 E1 – The Pilot

By the way, I know I mentioned it before, but keep in mind that as I write this I have seen every episode through the end of Season seven multiple times and may reference those episodes, so just as a reminder, this is not a spoiler free blog.  If you haven’t seen season seven since it isn’t on Netflix yet, and the DVD’s won’t come out until October 8^th, oddly exactly two years after Fan Appreciation Day, and you don’t want to know what happens, I suggest you wait a little longer and you can catch up on all the post at a later date.  But if you like spoilers, read on my fellow Psych-O.

Seeing as how Juliet isn’t even in the episode it’s a little hard to talk about the relationship between Shawn and Juliet.  But before we can understand the relationship, we do need a clear understanding of Shawn and how he eventually came into the position that led him to meeting Juliet.

We know that from the beginning of the episode where we see Shawn and Henry at the restaurant after Henry questions him about all the things that he observed, that Shawn never wants to grow up.  Also that he has been conditioned by his father to notice everything that he sees. It is also interesting to note that he was arrested while he was in High School for stealing a car.  The arresting officer was his father and the main lesson that Shawn learned from the experience was that he hates his father.

I do love how Shawn and Lassiter immediately hate each other and that Shawn has the perfect comeback for all of the questions that he is being asked about this robbery that Lassiter or Lassie can’t seem to believe that he solved just by watching the channel 8 news.  Lassie is not convinced and actually reads Shawn his Miranda rights. Shawn can’t believe that he is serious.  Shawn looks around and sees the inside of the cells and wants nothing to do with that, Lucinda Lassie’s partner tells him that he can avoid being booked if he can provide them with a plausible explanation for how he knew about all these crimes.  Shawn is being handcuffed and he looks at the officer booking him, sees her earrings and remembers all of her charms and her phone conversation from earlier and suddenly has a thought.  He tells them that he got the information because he is Psychic.

This revelation only makes Lassie madder and wants Shawn out of the room, but Shawn starts proving his skills.  He shows them an example with the booking officer, Lucinda want him to clarify that he claiming that he is a psychic.  Shawn then turns around and looks at both Lucinda and Lassie and then asks if he wasn’t Psychic how does he know that the two of them are sleeping together and then before they can comment he starts counting to four in step and then asks McNab when the wedding is, and McNab tells him May 3^rd, and then wonders how he knows.   Lassie wants to know who is actually buying this charade, and everyone raises their hand, even the person in the cell they are near.  Shawn then tells them to go to one of the detention rooms and they will find all the evidence they need will be in his left shoe.  But he couldn’t just say that, he had to act out the vision coming to him through his left foot. 

The next thing we see is that Shawn is free and is getting a check, but Lassie looks on with disgust and still can’t believe him. On his way out of the building the Interim Police Chief, Karen Vick, stops him.  She tells him that what he just did was possible but improbable. She also tells him that she knew his father, and that he was a good cop, but he is nothing like him.  He takes this as a compliment.   She tells him about a case they have been having trouble with and she would like him to take a look at it on a trial basis.  But she then tells him that if the Psychic thing is a scam, they will prosecute.  Also that he needs to know that hindering a police investigation is a crime. 

So with the news of being semi hired by the police department to do what he does best, but not as a cop actually excites Shawn.  So he immediately turns to his best friend in the world, Burton Gustor, but just plain old Gus to use although he also has around a hundred other names as well.  Gus is a little skeptical about this promising new job opportunity that he has for him since Shawn has had 57 jobs since graduating high school.  Including driving the wiener mobile, which for those of you that were at the musical preview how cool was it to see the cast show up in wiener mobiles?   Shawn wants Gus to just come with him and see what he’s talking about.  But Gus isn't going anywhere blindly with Shawn again, or so he says, because he learned that lesson with Shawn at the Mexican border twice.  Finally Shawn tells Gus that the cops think that he is a psychic and that he’s been hired to look into a kidnapping and Gus is floored to find out that he is serious.

Now just as a reminder, this blog isn't set up to look at every aspect of the episode, but the information that will one day be relevant to the relationship that will form between Shawn and Juliet, so I really won’t talk too much about the case of the week, I will for fun try and remember to post Gus’s nicknames though, just for kicks and giggles.

At the crime scene Gus is already sure that everyone there knows that they are frauds.  Shawn tells him to relax, because the only way that they can actually prove that he is not a psychic is if he tells them he is not, which is the one thing that he will never ever do.  But looking forward at season seven, he proves that he will do anything to win Juliet back.

 Okay I have to say something here that is completely unrelated to the relationship, but Psych in general.  I don’t go to comic-con, because although I think that the Psych cast will probably be there, I am not willing to shell out that kind of cash for a maybe, and I figure that the day after I can watch the panel online.  But every year, someone makes their way to the microphone and inevitably asks the question; “How did the Pineapple thing start?”  I groan from home, and I hear people in the crowd laugh or groan, thinking why is this person here, this is supposed to be for true and loyal Psych fans.  The cast usually nicely answers the question, although this year they asked the audience to answer for them. So in case any of you are wondering, the pineapple was started in the Pilot episode as an improve by James.  Shawn has broken into Gus's apartment and has woken him up with news of the case.  Shawn finally convinces him that he has some good leads and Gus goes to get changed, and tells Gus to grab his keys, then tells him never mind he has them.  Then he pulls a pineapple from off of the top of the fridge and asks if he should slice it up for the road.

The main points of this episode in relation to the relationship are that Shawn has a lot of growing up to do, he hates his father and his father isn't a huge fan of his right now as well, but plays along with the charade. But the skills he thought him as a child are proving to be very useful.  Lassie and Lucinda are dating and other members of the department know about it and Shawn is the one who that relationship out of the bag. Shawn is an excellent marksman. And he opened up a Psychic detective agency, called Psych.

How My Psych Obsession Began

I am a true and loyal Psych fan, I promise! But I have to admit that I was a casual watcher in the beginning. I remember laying in my bed, on bed rest pregnant with my third child, and it being my third time around on bed rest. It was November of 2007 and we lived in a 500 square foot apartment, so my other children who were 4 and 2 constantly wanted my attention, and work kept calling with questions. My replacement for my maternity leave had a nervous breakdown trying to do my job. So I was incredibly cranky to say the least. I was flipping through channels because the food network was no longer holding my interest as I couldn’t even attempt to stand up to try and cook. I was channel surfing and getting frustrated at my choices; and then I see this white guy and black dude acting incredibly childish, and it caught my attention. Now to be completely honest with you, I was on a lot of drugs that were keeping me from having a stroke as well as IV therapy to keep me hydrated and with medicine to keep me from losing anything I was able to eat, so after this viewing the only thing I remembered was that the show was called Psych, and it cheered me up when I really needed it. Unfortunately, I was too drugged up to remember the network to look it up online, and I didn’t have much luck in finding Psych until a little over a year later.

We had moved, I now had a healthy baby girl after we had spending 5 weeks in the newborn ICU and she had just turned one and life was becoming normal again and we finally got our cable back, after going a few months without it. Then it happened again, this time I was bored though not forced into bed, and I see these two guys again and I immediately stop. It was the spring of 2009 and a Psych marathon was playing all day. I sat with my husband and we watched for a good 9 hours straight. We were hooked, this time I had at least learned that Psych was on the USA network and that it was awesome. So we whenever we saw it on the guide we would watch, but without a DVR or Netflix, and our library actually charges to get a card since we don’t live in a town with a library, so we watched when we could, but it was limited. We did finally get a DVR and Psych was up there on the list of shows to record and we watched it every time we saw a new (or old) episode had been caught. But since I wasn’t the obsessive type, or at least I didn’t think that I was, Psych was just that show that made me laugh and one that I could turn to when I was in a bad mood and it would cheer me up. Although, I will admit by this time having not watched the show in sequence I did have a few questions, and there were some definite things that I wanted to see happen. Mainly, I wasn’t a huge fan of Shawn being with Abigail and I thought that he and Juliet really should be together. Honestly I really am a true romantic at heart. I guess I have to be seeing as though I married my husband a month after our first date, we got engaged on our fourth date. We really did fall in love at first sight, so basically I am a huge romantic and love to see a good relationship flesh itself out.

Season four had just ended and the absolutely incredible episode of Mr. Yang Presents had me very excited to get to the summer so season five would start. (Remember when we only had to wait a couple months for a new season and not a year) I still hadn’t become overly obsessed yet, but I was happy to see the Shawn and Abigail story line go away, and looked forward to Shawn maybe finally being able to tell Juliet how he feels. But bad luck struck again, exactly one month after Season Four ended, I was laid off from my job, and since my husband went to school full time, justifying paying for cable wasn’t an option, but since USA was pretty good at putting the episodes online, I agreed that cable needed to be taken off of the list of bills. But as summer came and Season five started, the more obsessed I got. My husband hadn’t seen anything like it, I was constantly talking about what was going on with Psych, and then the one episode that made me a true 100% Psych-O came. One, Maybe Two Ways, Out and the romantic in me completely freaked out. Between what Shawn told Gus while Juliet was listening in the van, and that final moment when Shawn tells Juliet to take lots of pictures and she just takes him and kisses him. I was going completely crazy, and that was putting it mildly. I swear I watched that episode over and over again. Now I was starting to worry my husband. I’m not sure how or when I found out when Psych would return, but I told my husband that it was a requirement that we have our cable and DVR back by then. I was not going to come even a little bit close to missing the next episode. Luckily I had found a temp job just in time and we got the cable back up and running just in time. During that summer I do remember watching a lot of you tube videos and finding out all I could about the actors who played them. Now trust me when I say that I became kind of overly happy and giddy, almost a little scary when I found out that James and Maggie were actually dating. Talk about a romantics dream come true, your ideal TV couple is actually a real life couple. Keep in mind that I am a mom and I really didn’t watch that much TV. In the years since learning this I now see that it isn’t that uncommon, but it still makes me happy when it happens. 

Once I saw the fall premier I was beyond ecstatic. There was no coming back from Psych-O land now. So really I am a true Psych-O, it just took a romance and not just the bromance to do it for me. One day while I was at work, but actually not working I saw an update come through on Facebook if I remember correctly that James was directing a play and that Maggie was in it along with a few other people who had guest starred in the show. It became a priority to me that I see this play; after all I was a theater major in college before dropping out due to the first time being on bed rest. But after dragging my husband along with me to a few plays after we were married, he flat out refused to go see any more plays. So I convinced my parents to come along as well as my brother who lived in LA. I really enjoyed the play, probably not one that I would see again, not all that romantic. It was a tiny theater and when we got in there we had limited seat choices because of all the reserved seats, but once I saw the names on the reserved seats I was okay with it. We ended up sitting on the front row, and my feet could easily rest on the stage. As I was waiting for the show to begin I heard a conversation behind me and I listened in. I don’t remember everything that was said, but it went something like this; so you must be Maggie’s mother, I just love her. I’m James’s mother by the way. I found it oddly interesting that I witnessed their mothers meeting and not them. I also watched the other audience members start to trickle in, as well as James going in and out of the lighting booth. But Dule was there, and many other Psych guest stars I think that in that theater there were actually more celebrities, than non-celebrities Definitely a night to remember, granted I don’t think that I could forget Kurt Fuller standing less than a foot away from me wearing just his boxers with socks and sock suspenders. A couple months later my old job called and asked if I wanted to come back, but in a sales position instead of an administrative position. Since my temp job had ended and the thought of being able to fly for free again did sound tempting I agreed and I am still with them selling airline tickets between watching TV at home.

That summer was also around the time that we got Netflix and I finally sat down and watched the entire series, I couldn’t believe how funny the pilot was, even if Maggie wasn’t in it. I also had all the DVD’s sent out so I could watch the entire special features, I love listening to the DVD commentaries. Those are the best! It was around this time that I decided that as soon as my husband finished school I wanted to go to school to become a producer. Thank you Kelly Kulchak for helping me make that decision. Now I was back at the airline when they announced Psych Fan Appreciation Day I had to go. I didn’t get the official email, but I figured not everyone who gets the email will actually be able to go, so I grabbed my husband, found a babysitter and we flew to New York for the Psych event. Since they didn’t allow us to line up before 2pm, we wondered over to the NBC store to pick up a few souvenirs. I had already begun my Psych collection and needed to add to it. As we were walking in, I came to a complete stop, I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it was pretty hard to miss. Steve Franks was there. I had a mini freak out moment to my husband and then I calmed down and went over and talked to him. He was there with Kelly Kulchak and Chris Henze, and we ended up talking for a few minutes, they were a little surprised to find out that they were really my favorite people in the production, but figured out when I told them what I wanted to do, and they even gave me some advice. That was a great moment! Steve Franks did ask if I had tickets, and we told him we were lining up for Stand-by so he told us that he would see what he could do. Back at the theater a while later, he waved to us and told us he was still working on it. If you watch the 1st part of Psych Fan appreciation day, you will see him come up to me while Andy Berman was talking to me and give us the confirmed tickets. Overall one of the best nights of my life, if you exclude my wedding and the days my children were born.

 I now own almost everything that the Psych store has to offer, have seen every episode multiple times and actually cried when Shawn and Juliet broke up. When the Musical preview was announced we knew that with Comic-Con there would be no chance of being able to fly standby, and we couldn’t get a sitter. So I drove from a small town near Salt Lake City UT, to LA, spent a day being a tourist there and seeing some sights from Alias, Netflix recently recommended it and they romance there really took me by storm, so I am a little consumed with that show as well. But after my day in LA, I drove down to San Diego, I was the 20th person in line and I got there at 12:30, the no line forming rule that they had in New York, wasn’t enforced as closely this time around. But I had a ball hanging out with a bunch of other Psych-O’s all day. The ten hours in line really didn’t even seem too bad being able to make new friends and with all the swag they provided. 

So that is the story of how I became a Psych-O. Now I guess I should tell you why I am starting this blog, as I stated above I plan on going to film school, and I spend many, many hours watching TV in-between taking calls for my job in the middle of the night. So it started with Alias, and I stared watching or realistically re-watching for the 5th or 6th time every episode, and analyzing how Sydney and Vaughn from Alias became the perfect TV couple. I figured that once I go to film school I will have some assignments where I will have to watch a movie and analyze it and try to figure out what their motives were and why they made the choices that they did, so why not practice with a show that I loved and concentrate on two of the characters. By the way in case you are wondering, Alias drew me in, when I was upset with Psych for breaking Shawn and Juliet up. Then when I finally got over the embarrassment of doing that, my husband suggested that I do the same for Psych, using Shawn and Juliet. So here I am, hopefully I can contain myself and not overwrite and bore you. But I’m not promising anything. Also I am not promising a Spoiler free blog. Since I know the future, at least some of it, I will refer to it sometimes. Also you should know that I am not a writer by any means, I can kinda write, but only about something that is already mostly there and created. I’m not going to be writing fan fiction, I may infer that when we don’t see them something may have happened to make the next scene possible, but that it far as I go, well I also talk about what the characters might be thinking as something’s happen. So hopefully you will enjoy! Please leave comments and let me know what you think. Also if you want to see an idea of what the blog may look like as it builds, you can always take a look at the Alias blog, I will be doing them in a similar style. http://romancingalias.blogspot.com/