What I’m Watching: Psych

Psych: Season 4, Episode 14 “Think Tank” (B+)

The 1989 opening to this episode was one of the more memorable and awesome introductions to the episode, where a fascinated and trouble-seeking Shawn gets outsmarted by a challenge from his far cleverer and less showy dad. Shawn being corrected by his dad right as he was about to announce the wrong culprit was amusing, and I enjoyed Shawn’s own twisted thank you for his help: “everything else you do falls under fatherly duties.” Bruce Davis was a fun guest star, and I immediately enjoyed how he knew so much about Gus and the fact that he was willing to honor all of Shawn’s ridiculous demands that no one else ever takes seriously. His knowledge of all of the fake names Shawn always gave for Gus was impressive, especially the one that was said on a top-secret base with no one else around. I loved Shawn’s episode-long conviction that President Mitchell from the movie “Dave” was real and that the made-up guy was just someone named Dave who looked like him. Before we get to a list of this episode’s best lines, since it had so many, I’d like to express my approval for the running theme of Shawn and Gus ratting each other out and then turning to each other and crying out “why would you say that?” Shawn’s technique of getting the bad guy not to shoot him by creating a loud noise was cool, and the fact that he asked the inventor only seconds later if he hated waking up with bed head in the mornings to hype his “pillow that combs your hair in your sleep” idea was hilarious.

A few other great lines from this episode:
Shawn: “I can just make out the clock from here. Is it 3? 2? Is that a clock?”
Gus: “The hand to the head thing is not working.” Shawn: “I know, that’s why I’m adding sound effects.”
Shawn: “Where is the hoverboard technology that we all saw in ‘Back to the Future II’ twenty years ago?”