"Murder? ... Anyone? ... Anyone? ... Bueller?" is the second episode of Season Three. When Shawn is the sole witness to a murder at his and Gus' high school reunion, he must try to solve a case no one else thinks exists before the reunion ends and the attendees return to their grown-up lives.
Plot Summary[]
Gus is in charge of his and Shawn's 13-year class reunion at Leland Bosseigh High School and he wants the night to go perfectly. He warns Shawn not to mess things up, and then instructs him to go find more folding chairs. While Shawn heads to the cafeteria with Abigail Lytar, 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 a lapel pin in the grass.
Shawn follows Gus inside, insisting that a crime has occurred. He calls Lassiter who, as it happens, is already on site as the date of one of their fellow alumni, Mindy Howland (Janet Varney). He tells Shawn he can't do anything without a body, a murder weapon, a suspect or any evidence. Shawn describes the pin he saw to Gus who tells him it's part of the State Champs pin the football team got their senior year. Shawn then remembers seeing that pin on their starting quarterback, Howie Tolkin (Benjamin Ayres), and claims he is the murder victim. But just then, he walks in alive and well with his wife Eileen Mazwell (Serinda Swan).
Since Shawn just blew any credibility he had with Gus and Lassiter, he calls in Juliet for reinforcement. While waiting for her in the corridor, he notices someone has tampered with the trophy case dedicated to Howie's many football accomplishments. He and Juliet find Howie and Eileen to let them know about the vandalism, but Howie says he isn't bothered, claiming all of that is just history. He's moved on and is now running for the state assembly. Shawn and Juliet don't quite believe he's let go of the past so completely, but Shawn still can't prove anything. He needs to get onto the roof but Gus tells him the rest of the school is locked down tight. So Shawn calls Henry to ask him to find a box of high school mementos that's stored in the attic. Henry isn't familiar with the box, so he enlists Madeleine's help to find it. They both bring it to the reunion, embarrassing Shawn, who takes it from them and finds what he's looking for - a key ring containing all the keys to the school. He managed to join the custodial union when he was a student, he explains to Gus. He and Abigail then go to the roof to investigate, where he finds footprints that match Howie's shoes, finally giving him the identity of the killers.
He tells Gus what he found, who wonders why, if they killed someone, would still be dancing with their classmates. Shawn and Gus head to the library to do more investigating, where they scour the yearbook to discover that Howie and Eileen had a third wheel in high school, always hanging around trying to be their friend. His name is not listed, but Gus finds a picture of him in auto shop class. Shawn goes to the shop classroom to find any clues to the guy's identity, where he comes across Henry sitting alone in a car, reliving his high school days. The door to that classroom was already unlocked, Henry says. Shawn finds an empty beer can in the car and a picture of his mystery man with his name on it, Peter Colter (Chris Baker).
Shawn, Gus and Juliet go to the station to find out more about Peter and discover he, Howie and Eileen were involved in a car accident three days before graduation. Peter was charged with involuntary manslaughter as the driver and received six years probation. He was drunk at the time and the victim was thrown 20 feet after a head-on collision, surviving in a coma for seven months before succumbing to internal injuries. However, Shawn realizes it was in fact Howie who was driving at the time from a nasty bruise on his forehead in one of the accident pictures and the configuration of the driver's seat in another. They now have a strong reason to believe Howie and Eileen killed Peter, especially after Juliet mentions Eileen had taken out a restraining order against him for harassment only a month ago. Just then, Chief Vick shows up, warning them they shouldn't be using police resources when they haven't been assigned a case. Lassiter covers to for them, saying they were helping him bust Mindy, the worst date of his life, who has been filling prescriptions under a false name for years.
Shawn and Gus go back to the reunion and realize Howie and Eileen must have dragged Peter's body into the girls' locker room through a basement window. Once down there, they only barely manage to hide from the murderous couple and find Peter's body in a mascot costume. They move the body and lure Howie and Eileen onto the stage of the gymnasium by pretending they were voted the reunion prom king and queen. Shawn confronts them in front of all the other attendees and explains that Peter volunteered to take the rap for the car accident because he "worshipped" Howie and Eileen and was prepared to do anything for them. Howie agreed as he didn't want to lose his UCLA scholarship, but Peter's selfless act would change the trajectory of his life forever. Still stuck in that one moment, he never showed up to have his grad pic taken and fell into a life of petty crimes after moving away. When Howie announced he was running for the State Assembly, Peter couldn't take it anymore and needed the truth to come out. He contacted the two, leading to the restraining order which Howie and Eileen also hoped would deter him from coming to the reunion. However, he did show up and vandalized Howie's shrine before confronting him and Eileen on the roof drunk and upset. They pushed him off and hid the body, but didn't notice that the State Champs pin had fallen from Peter's letterman jacket. Following Shawn's revelations, Howie and Eileen are arrested and led away by Lassiter and Juliet.
With the case over, Shawn is able to finally, after thirteen years, share a kiss with Abigail. After that Gus narrates the ending as Brian Johnson did in The Breakfast Club. Gus and Shawn walk across the field as Shawn raises his arm as John Bender did at the end of The Breakfast Club.
Trivia[]
- Amid a plethora of John Hughes references, Shawn introduces himself to Howie and Eileen as "Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago". This is an alias used by Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the 1986 comedy that also inspired the title of the episode, a variation on the teacher's line spoken early in the film as he attempts to take attendance. The added layer of meta comes in the fact that Simone, who responds with an exhaustive list of links defining her source for the cause of Ferris' absence, was played by Kristy Swanson, who would later portray Marlowe Lassiter on Psych.
- When Howie and Eileen enter the school, Shawn calls them "Andrew McCarthy" and "Molly Ringwald" in a reference to the 1986 teen movie Pretty in Pink (although he changes the reference to one about 1988's Fresh Horses once he notices Howie's shoes). This explains why he calls Peter "Duckie", as the film revolves around a love triangle between McCarthy's Blane, Ringwald's Andie and Jon Cryer's Duckie. Ringwald would go on to appear as Lavender McElroy in S6E6 "Shawn, Interrupted".
- Gus's closing voice-over and Shawn's fist pump in the final scene are taken straight from the last scene of The Breakfast Club.
- Gus has everyone wear their grad pic instead of name tags, which is a reference to the 1997 comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (that film also features a high school reunion, and further references include two best friends moving a dead body and a mention of John Cusack). Mindy is wearing a picture of present-day Maggie Lawson, and Shawn wears a picture of Judd Nelson in another reference to The Breakfast Club.
- Shawn asks Henry whether he can borrow his underwear in a reference to Sixteen Candles.
- Dulé Hill (Gus) and Rachael Leigh Cook (Abigail) were both in She's All That, a classic teen high school movie. Other actors from that movie have had guest spots on Psych in various episodes, such as Freddie Prinze Jr. ("Not Even Close... Encounters"), Tamara Mello ("From the Earth to Starbucks"), Elden Hanson ("Tuesday the 17th"), and Carlos Jacott ("9 Lives", "The Tao of Gus", "Remake A.K.A. Cloudy... With a Chance of Improvement" and "A Nightmare on State Street", also a writer for the show).
- The cases Gus mentions to Lori while telling her about Psych are those from S2E3 "Psy vs. Psy" ("tracked down a counterfeiter"), S2E8 "Rob-a-Bye Baby" ("unveiled a nanny ring"), and S2E1 "American Duos" ("saved the show American Duos").
- The victim of the car accident was named "Michael McMurray" after Psych crew member Michael McMurray, who directed the episode. The investigating officer mentioned on the report was named "P. Chalmers" after Psych set decorator Penny A. Chalmers. The street where the accident occurred was named "Norlin Boulevard" after Psych production designer Eric Norlin.
- This is the first episode of Psych not to feature a flashback.
Quotes[]
Lassiter: We met at the Santa Barbara Bowl at the Ravi Shankar concert last week and she asked me out on a date.
Gus: Who goes to someone else's reunion when they barely even know them?
Shawn: Who goes to a Ravi Shankar concert?
Shawn: Assuming that Parker Stevenson had never been born... have you ever seen a very attractive man solve a crime before?
Abigail: I did see John Cusack prevent a jaywalking once.
Gus: So wait, now you are saying that Howie and Eileen are the killers?
Shawn: Yup.
Gus: Wasn't Howie the victim at one point?
Shawn: Gus, that is so 40 minutes ago. I bet you're still telling your friends to "chillax".
Shawn: Dad, do you think you can miss out on a moment?
Henry: What do you mean?
Shawn: Like an opportunity. You think that you can miss an opportunity in a moment, you know, and then it's too late, and the course of your life is changed forever?
Henry: Yeah, absolutely. Wait a minute, is this about a girl?
Shawn: Maybe.
Henry: Life is not made up of a single moment, it's made up of a gazillion moments. What defines us is the choice we make in the next moment, and the one after that. These moments, Shawn, they're happening, they're all around us all the time.
Gus: Wait, so we know who the killers are and we know who they killed, but we don't have a body? Where is it?
Shawn: Well, if I was just some average guy without any superpowers, I'd say, [mumbling and looking doofy] "I dunno, why ya askin' me?" But as head psychic of the Santa Barbara Police Department, I'd say, [sounding very serious and poised] "I don't know. Why are you asking me?"
Shawn: [solemnly addressing his fellow alumni] Burton Guster has been my best friend since we were five. And maybe, just maybe, if any of you can look yourselves in the mirror and know that you've been half as good a friend to someone else as Gus has been to me, well, you too can be considered great. Give it up for my best friend, Burton Guster.
Gus: [in a voiceover a la The Breakfast Club] Dear Leland Bosseigh High administrative board, we accept that you're withholding our deposit for $1500 for damages. We also accept that you just see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions: a snarky psychic, an uptight pharmaceutical salesman, a pretty female blonde detective, and a not-so-pretty unusually lanky detective. But each of us is all of those things. Plus, our normal fee for solving a murder in one meaningful evening is twice that, so enclosed is a bill for $3000. Please remit payment in the form of a check made out simply to "Psych".
Gallery[]
The gallery for Murder? ... Anyone? ... Anyone? ... Bueller? can be found here.
Digital Releases[]
