TVSquad

(S02E02) Gus (to Shawn): If you slur one word I'm gonna give you an Indian burn so hot your socks will catch on fire!

Well, that was much better! After last week's funny but unusually disjointed season premiere of Psych the show got back to the normal zaniness that fans of the show fell in love with. Actually, the difference between this episode and the season premiere proved two things. One, don't rely on your guest stars to carry the show. Two, don't have John Landis direct anymore episodes. Seriously, the first season finale and last week's episode were both directed by Landis and they were both a bit off kilter. Maybe it's better to stay away from film directors and concentrate on those who continue to direct television.

This week's episode was directed by Tim Matheson, who's no stranger to television. There wasn't anything too flashy or new with what he did. It was just good camera work that focused on the characters and what they do. Writing this week's episode was Steve Franks; there was no co-writing by James Roday. So, the amount of 80's references were toned down considerably from last week. There were only two that stick out in my mind: Shawn mentions that he has pictures of Gus during his Terrence Trent D'arby phase, and Shawn tries to determine if what Jules said about Lassiter being on fire was like Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire in the Pepsi commercial.

Really, everything was toned down considerably from the previous episode. I mentioned that Lassiter looked and sounded like a bad film noir cop last week. This week he was much more human. In fact, he was on a bit of a streak with all of the crimes that he was solving. This was the Lassiter that we saw in the second-half of last season and it was good to have him back. We even saw him bonding a bit more with his partner Juliet O'Hara.

Lassiter's good luck actually threw Shawn for a loop, because his fortunes meant no business for the Psych detective agency. This meant that we got to see a different side of the young Mr. Spencer this time around. Since the show began Shawn has had everything fall into his lap. This time around though, he had to work his tail off to get onto the case. And, frankly, that's fine with me. It's hard to like a character sometimes when everything is going their way. They need to hit a little slump once in a while to make them look human in the viewer's eyes.

To solve the case Shawn had to use his powers of observation a lot. This is something that was missing from last week's episode. It actually felt that the solution to the crime came out of left field during the season premiere. This week he and Gus were really playing detectives. So much so that Shawn's dad Henry was quite concerned about both of them.

A quick item about Gus. I remember mentioning in several reviews from last season that Gus and his knowledge of all things wasn't being utilized enough. Sure, he would throw a reference to a type of pharmaceutical product here or there, but there was nothing displayed about his wealth of useless information. In the first two episodes of this season alone Gus has provided more information about evidence in their cases then he did throughout the entire first season. Credit can be given to the writers of Psych for making Gus a man who is a bit more sure of himself and a lot more willing to provide information when needed.

A few other things I wanted to mention that I couldn't get into last week. First, I noticed that the cold openings now begin with young Gus and Shawn rather than young Shawn and his dad. I actually miss those scenes because they gave an insight as to why Shawn and his father have the relationship that they do in the present day. The other thing I noticed was the inclusion of Kristen Nelson in the opening credits. I guess she's not the Interim Police Chief anymore, huh? I don't know what my opinion on her is right now. I'd need to see her in a meatier role before I gave her a thumbs-up.

Okay -- that should be it for this week. At the beginning of the post I talked about not having guest stars dominate Psych. Well, we will wait to see if the show is given over to Lou Diamond Phillips during next week's episode. Until then, take care.