"Game, Set... Muuurder?" is the thirteenth episode of Season One. Before the Psych agency can begin to investigate the disappearance of an up-and-coming tennis star, Shawn must first retrieve Gus from a corporate retreat, and they soon realize things aren't always as they appear.
Plot Summary[]
In 1985, Shawn and Gus are playing a game of Battleship. Shawn is easily winning, having hit one of Gus' ships on every turn. Henry walks by and hears the two boys fighting with Gus accusing Shawn of cheating. Henry says that best friends should always trust each other, the way a cop does his partner. However, he soon discovers Shawn never put any ships up on his side of the board and is subsequently punished for cheating.
In the present day, Shawn comes to the police station, bored, looking for a case. Gus is out of town at a retreat with his company. While at the station, Shawn sees a man, Leonard Sirtis, talking to Chief Vick. His daughter, Deanna, a highly ranked local tennis player, is missing. The prime suspect is a former stalker of hers, Felix Alvarez. After Shawn enters her office psychically determining a tennis player his missing, Vick relents and allows Shawn to locate Deanna psychically while the cops follow conventional leads.
Shawn gets Gus out of his retreat by telling his bosses that Gus' grandmother is ill. Together, they go to the Sirtis house, where they learn that besides tennis, photography was a hobby of Deanna's. They also learn Leonard had a security camera put into Deanna's room after Felix broke into the house, and discover a cheap gold ring among her expensive jewellery. It's an eternity ring, given by someone with whom she was probably intimate. Clearly, she doesn't wear the ring all the time. Must be from a secret lover her controlling father doesn't approve of.
Shawn and Gus go to the tennis club to talk to Deanna's practice partner. She tells them that Deanna was boy crazy. She recently started dating another player on the tour and her father wasn't happy about it. Deanna might just be laying low to get her father off her back. And, after discovering an alternate address for her in the club computer, they have a good idea where.
When they get to the apartment, the police, EMTs and crime scene photographer are already there. Deanna is being loaded, unconscious, into an ambulance. This is no longer a missing persons case, it's attempted murder. In the apartment, Shawn sees more cheap jewelry. The secret boyfriend must have been here. There are many pictures of Deanna, mostly taken in the apartment. Shawn notices a trophy is present in all the pictures but is now missing from the shelf. This must have been the weapon used in the attempt on Deanna's life. Lassiter hauls Felix in and is convinced he has the right man after finding the bloody trophy in the suspect's car, but Shawn still has doubts.
Juliet agrees, and tells him that Felix's psychiatrists say he was completely rehabilitated. Plus he has a medical condition that has him on dialysis, which leaves a person too exhausted to stalk and attack someone. Felix is being framed. Juliet gives Shawn the police files on Felix's original break-in, and the one on Deanna's attempted murder, to see what he can "divine" from them.
Shawn takes the files to Henry, who tells his son that police reports aren't gospel, they are just one person's view of what happened. Shawn looks at the crime scene photos from the attack and notices a discrepancy between the shadows in the pictures and how the shadows fell on the apartment wall when they were there - when the crime scene photographer was taking the pictures. Shawn and Gus go to back to the apartment at the same time of day they were there before. Shawn was right - the shadows don't match the pictures, not to mention all the clocks are wrong and a picture is missing. Additionally, in the crime scene photos, the lights are on in front of the restaurant across the street; however, they do not turn on automatically until 5:00 in the evening. How is this possible? Shawn's figured it out.
He and Gus go to the police station, not only to tell them that they've figured out who the attacker is, but also that he is there in their midst. It's the crime scene photographer. He met Deanna when he photographed her house after Felix broke in. They had been seeing each other ever since, until Deanna started dating the other tennis player and wanted to break it off. The photographer went to her house, confronted her, and hit her with the trophy. He cleaned up all the evidence that he was there but when he looked at all the photos he'd taken of the crime scene, he noticed something in one of them that could incriminate him - his camera bag with his initials in a picture on the shelf. He had to go back and retake the crime scene photos, setting everything up the same way, even setting the clocks back to the right time - everything exactly the same minus the incriminating picture now missing from the shelf. Unfortunately for him, he forgot to set the clocks back to the correct time before he left.
With the case solved, Gus is able to make it back to his company retreat before it's over, impressing his boss so much with his attention to his ailing grandmother, he gives him a lucrative new distribution route.
Trivia[]
- The title is a twist on the tennis umpire's closing declaration of "Game, set and match to..."
- Shawn introduces himself as Jerry Hathaway, which is the name of a character from Real Genius, a film Shawn likes.
- The name Deanna Sirtis is a reference to Marina Sirtis' role as Deanna Troi in the Star Trek franchise.
Quotes[]
[Shawn sits behind Juliet on a double-sided bench]
Shawn: The raven crows only at midnight. Dusk is for the rooster's cackle.
Juliet: What?
Shawn: Jules, that's your cue to cackle.
Juliet: Shawn, I don't have a cackle in my repertoire.
Shawn: Well, you called for this secret meeting, we should use code speak in case people are listening!
Gallery[]
The gallery for "Game, Set... Muuurder?" can be found here.
Digital Releases[]
