Psych - Season 3

Shawn's mother Madeleine is back in town to conduct psych evaluations for the police department, and the way she and Henry easily fell back into old habits has Shawn out of sorts. Unfortunately Gus can't offer moral support because he has his own trouble at work. His supervisor, Ogletree found out Gus has been moonlighting at the Psych agency, which not only is against the rules of the exclusivity contract he has with Central Coast, it also has been eating into company time. Ogletree gives him an ultimatum. He either quits the Psych agency or he's fired.

Gus is in charge of his and Shawn's high school reunion and he wants the night to go perfectly. He warns Shawn not to mess things up, then instructs him to go find more folding chairs. While Shawn heads to the cafeteria with Abigail, his high school crush, he sees, out the window behind her, someone fall to their death from the roof. But by the time they grab Gus and head outside, there is no sign of a body. Gus and Abigail don't believe anything happened, but Shawn claims the victim was wearing a letterman's jacket and, after they walk away, he spots part of a lapel pin in the grass.

When Shawn and Gus get tickets to a daredevil show as payment for a job, Shawn notices that Dutch "The Clutch" Jenkins' fuel line has been cut just as his motorcycle flies through a ring of fire. Luckily Dutch survives the stunt, and Shawn, convinced someone tried to kill him, thinks the culprit will try again. He and Gus head backstage, where they express their fears to Louis, Dutch's son, who tells them something similar happened on his father's last two stunts. He'd love to hire a psychic detective to get to the bottom of things but money is tight for the family right now. After Shawn offers their services in exchange for an autograph, Louis tells them that Dutch is a skeptic who keeps his inner circle locked down tight, but he has an idea how to get around that.

Shawn, Gus and Henry return from a night at the movies to find that Henry's younger brother Jack is back in town and has broken into the house. Shawn finds him crouched by the coffee table in the living room. The guys are elated to see him but Henry is less than thrilled. Where they have always been enamored by Jack's wanderlust and fantastic stories of his worldwide adventures, Henry has always known his younger brother to be unreliable and irresponsible. Jack always wants something, and when Henry questions his motives for being back, he confesses that he wants their help to find the French pirate Bouchard's hidden treasure. Henry claims the legend of Bouchard's cache of stolen Spanish gold is just a story and the treasure doesn't exist. But Jack proves him wrong as he pulls out an ancient treasure map he discovered while traveling in Argentina. See, Bouchard, after a battle with the Spanish fleet and the Chumash Indians, made off with the gold then disappeared at sea, only to turn up in Argentina years later. Now Jack, armed with a map and a psychic detective, is positive he can find the treasure, and offers Shawn and Gus a fifty-fifty split. They jump on board.

Chief Vick calls Shawn and Gus down to the station after a handful of old convictions get overturned. They have to reopen the all the investigations and need Shawn's help on one in particular - Eugene Franks, who was caught with explosives meant to bomb police headquarters. It was the biggest case of Henry's career but Vick stresses that he can in no way be involved in the investigation. Henry's no longer on the force and could compromise any new evidence they find. But by the time Shawn and Gus get back to the Psych office, Henry is there waiting for them and wants in. Shawn refuses. As Henry leaves, he stresses that he knows he got the right guy and stopping him saved a lot of lives.

After Safety Inspector Butch Hicks falls to his death off an offshore oil rig, Chief Vick enlists Shawn and Gus' help with the case. As she takes them out to the crime scene on the police boat, she tells them they received an anonymous tip that something highly unsafe was happening on the rig and the caller was risking his life to warn them. When Shawn and Gus ask why she didn't enlist help from her detectives or the Coast Guard, she tells them they are working more in an unofficial capacity. Just then, they are pulled over by the Coast Guard, whose commander, Barbara Dunbar, questions Vick's authority over the Hicks case. As they are arguing over jurisdictional lines, Shawn realizes they are sisters.

Vick calls Shawn and Gus in after a group of fast moving and highly organized thieves pull a smash and grab robbery at a department store. It is the third such hit in a month and the cops have no leads. Gus is a little distracted. He's studying for his pharmaceutical rep recertification exam and is annoyed when some green goo from the store ends up on his study guide. As soon as Shawn takes a look at the security tapes, he knows immediately that the perpetrators were women. On the way out of the store, he sees skid marks across the floor and puts it together - the thieves are roller derby athletes.

After Gus finds himself held hostage in a bank, Shawn must not only find a way to get inside, but also become the gunman's chief negotiator.

Eight-year-old Brittany comes into the Psych office in desperate need of help. She wants to hire Shawn and Gus to get Santa out of jail. She saw him being arrested at the mall and they need to get him out by Christmas Eve so he can deliver all the presents. She is so distraught that they agree to look into it as soon as they stop by the Gusters' to see Gus' big sister Joy, who has come home for the holidays. Gus is excited to see her but Shawn's feelings are mixed. He and Joy had a secret one-time fling and he doesn't want history to repeat itself behind his best friend's back. But Joy would love to pick things up where they left off and so jumps at Gus' offer for her to tag along on their Santa investigation.

Shawn is annoyed when he learns Gus tricked him into attending a funeral for a sea lion. But Gus protests that Shabby isn't any sea lion. His story of being rescued and rehabilitated is famous, so much so that Randy Labayda of Animal Planet fame, who just released Shabby back into the wild, is giving the eulogy. When Shawn goes up to pay his respects to Shabby's open casket, he notices a strange hole in his flipper and tells Gus he thinks Shabby was murdered. April McCarthur, an official looking woman wearing an aquarium pin, overhears Shawn and promptly asks them both to follow her out of the funeral. Gus is annoyed with Shawn for getting them kicked out, but April tells them she has had similar suspicions regarding the circumstances of Shabby's death. Labayda's cameraman slows as he hears them talking, so April asks if she can meet them somewhere later.

There is a thunderstorm in Santa Barbara that has been causing the electricity to flicker on and off, but that doesn't stop Lassiter from making the bust of his career. Five years ago, he arrested Ernesto Chavez, second in command of the Cinco Reyes street gang, but the D.A. couldn't make the charges stick and Chavez disappeared. This time around, they've got enough hard evidence to get a conviction, something that Detective Drimmer and his gang unit has been unable to do. Everyone turns to watch Lassiter bring in Chavez, who glares at McNab as he walks by. Lassiter, then, hands off Chavez to be processed and put in a cell as he is called into Vick's office where the FBI is waiting for him. Lassiter is furious to learn that Chavez cut a deal with the Feds and will be entering a witness relocation program, thus avoiding prosecution. Vick orders an angry Lassiter to retrieve Chavez from his cell and turn him over. He leaves and the lights flicker out once again, only this time a shot is heard in the darkness. The lights come back on and everyone runs down to the holding cells to find Lassiter standing over a dead Chavez with a smoking gun in his hands.

Arson Inspector Morgan Conrad has come to the police for help. A building burned down under what she believes is suspicious circumstances but, since the fire superficially appears to be accidental, she is getting no support from her department. Shawn and Gus, who used to want to be firemen when they grew up, volunteer their assistance. Shawn, Gus, Lassiter and Juliet go with Morgan to the scene where they run into her boss, Army Johnson, who tells them that the building had no fire insurance, so there is no motive for arson. Plus, arson is so rare, he hasn't seen a case since way back to his firefighting days. But Morgan counters that one of the fireman on the scene reported smelling something sweet, a sign of an accelerant. As Shawn looks around the scene, he notices that one of the walls lacks insulation. He grabs a pipe and smashes it into the wall, revealing a blackened skeleton hidden inside. Now it's not just arson, it's murder.

Chief Vick calls Shawn and Gus down to the station. Shawn asks if he's finally getting an official cop badge but instead he is told that a severed foot was found by hikers on a trail near Lake Cachuma. The foot was in plain sight, so the cops believe it was meant to be found. They may have a murder on their hands and they need Shawn to psychically figure out to whom the foot belongs. From scars and other identifiers, Shawn and Gus deduce that the foot belongs to Vlad Alexavic, the pro-kicker for the Thunderbirds. He always kicks without a shoe and hasn't been at training camp, supposedly because he is holding out. Shawn and Gus show up at training camp and meet Lassiter and Juliet there. They talk to the coach, Sammy Winslow, a retired quarterback and childhood hero of Shawn's. Sammy is shocked to hear about Vlad and grants them access to the team. Lassiter and Juliet interview the players. One of them, Matt Tompkins, tells them he heard Vlad owed bookies and recently lost even more money after failing to open a nightclub with one of his Russian cousins. Meanwhile, Shawn and Gus find Vlad's cell phone in his locker and see that he received a threatening text message. Lassiter thinks it all points to the Russian mob but Shawn worries the evidence was too easy to find. As the cops get a proper search warrant for Vlad's belongings, Shawn and Gus talk Sammy into letting them investigate undercover with the team.

Shawn and Gus are at the police station when the cops bring in Ryan Bainsworth for murder. Ryan's hands are covered in blood but he insists he's innocent. Juliet tells them they've arrested Lyin' Ryan, a notorious compulsive liar who has called in countless tips only to lead the cops on wild goose chases. It looks like this time Ryan actually committed a crime himself. Shawn and Gus follow Juliet to the observation room, where they listen to Lassiter questioning Ryan on the murder of his super in his apartment. Ryan claims that he asked his super to fix his disposal after clogging it with cinnamon sticks and lemon wedges from a marinade and to check the pipes because the polarity is off and the water drains counterclockwise. When he got home he found his super bloody on the floor and tried to revive him. He insists the real culprits are actually two hired assassins. He tells Lassiter that the night before, he was in a restaurant eating special twice-fried fries, when a car crashed through a window across the street. As he turned to look, he overheard a guy with curly q's on his face talking to his companion about killing someone with his belt buckle. Obviously, the assassins realized he overheard them, came to kill him and got his super instead. When Lassiter, who isn't buying any of this, asks how they would know how to find him, Ryan admits he put up flyers around the neighborhood in an attempt to find them and stop them. The cops are incredulous but Ryan is desperate, saying that if they don't believe him someone else is going to die. Fortunately, Shawn sees that this time Lyin' Ryan is telling the truth.

One of Shawn and Gus' old camp buddies, Jason Cunningham, comes to them for help. He bought Camp Tikihama and is planning to reopen it, but one of his counselors has gone missing. Shawn, who was less friendly with Jason than Gus was, suggests he contact the authorities. But Jason explains that he's not positive anything has actually happened to her. Annie is mostly a loner who often goes off on her own. And involving the authorities would invite possibly unnecessary negative press that might kill the camp before it's even open.

Shawn and Gus are at a restaurant having lunch, or more like breakfast in Shawn's case, who is eating cereal in an attempt to break the "Breakfast Served Until" barriers. As Shawn launches into his usual flirting routine with the waitress, Gus calls him on never taking relationships seriously. So Shawn, in an effort to prove him wrong, calls Abigail Lytar, his high school crush he reconnected with at his reunion, and asks her on a proper date. The guys are then summoned down to the police station. The Yin Yang Killer, a serial killer who was active when Henry was a cop then went silent, is back and wants to toy with the department again, this time singling out Shawn as his primary playmate.