"Shawn 2.0" is the eighth episode of Season Five. While pursuing a murder case involving victims on a liver transplant donor list, Shawn is faced with a man whose criminal profiling skills, and hair, rival his own.
Plot Summary[]
In 1990, Shawn beats Gus in basketball and shamelessly gloats, telling anyone who will listen that he can't be defeated. When he dares anyone to challenge him, Henry accepts and quickly puts Shawn in his place. Henry teaches Shawn the lesson that he should always try to compete with the best in order to avoid complacency.
In the present day, after a night in of drinking and listening to the chick-lit book series Internity on audiotape, Shawn stops at a coffee shop with Gus before they go to a crime scene. Shawn, the worse for wear, tells barista Minka (Katie Findlay) that he will be getting his free since he will guess the movie trivia question again, as always. However, he is beaten to the punch by a handsome and charming man (Néstor Carbonell). Shawn wonders who he is as he leaves, but soon finds him across the street at the crime scene of Lucy Friedman. Declan Rand, it turns out, is a criminal profiler, brought onto the case by Chief Vick.
Shawn looks around the scene and sees an aerosol can. He then recalls that morning's obituaries of Veronica Miller and Peter Hodges, and concludes similar cans were involved in their deaths. But before he can tell anyone about the link in the cases, Declan beats him to the punch, and then asks Juliet out for a date. Something about Declan is rubbing Shawn the wrong way. When he asks Gus why, Gus tells him that Declan is an intelligent, movie-loving, crime-solving machine — he's Shawn 2.0.
Back at the station, Declan delivers a profile of the killer to the police. He tells them the murders seem to be humane and are probably the work of a woman in her mid-thirties. After the briefing, Shawn pulls Henry aside to protest Declan's hiring, but Henry lays out Declan's qualifications and says competition will be good for Shawn. After Declan compliments Shawn and Gus on their impressive record closing out cases, Shawn fails to reciprocate, telling Declan he doesn't believe he can get a psychological take on someone they don't know. Declan unsurprisingly nails Shawn's personality spot on.
Woody tells them all the victims suffered from different liver diseases. Shawn, remembering something from the doctors on Internity, concludes the victims were murdered for their placement on a liver donor list. They get the list from the hospital, proving Shawn's theory right. But the next person on the list who stands the most to gain is a woman in her mid-thirties, just as Declan said. Declan is also right and gets all the praise.
They track down suspect Catherine Bicks (Meredith Monroe) and find out she's been out of country for the last two weeks; she has the stamped passport to prove it. The next two down on the list of suspects are also a bust, as one died recently and the other is in no physical shape to kill anyone. A witness to the first crime scene completes a sketch of the person who swapped Lucy Friedman's insect repellent with the aerosol can — it's Catherine Bicks. Shawn isn't convinced, and after he hears Declan quote Internity and finds out that his impressive credentials are fake, he realizes he's a fraud and now suspects him of the murders. Shawn and Gus confront Declan as his mansion, where Curt Smith is playing by the pool, discovering Declan is a multi-millionaire who decided to become a criminal profiler for fun, but he didn't kill anyone. They believe him, Shawn saying Declan should tell Juliet the truth, but Declan counters by revealing he's figured out Shawn is not psychic.
The police say Catherine is now on the lam, but they discover her dead in a parking garage with Declan over her body. They arrest him, but Shawn knows he's innocent. Declan points out that while the first three victims were poisoned, Catherine was killed by a blow to the head. Shawn notes that Catherine actually looked healthier than the first time they saw her. On a hunch, Shawn visits Woody again, who curiously says that Catherine shows no signs of liver failure. Shawn figures out the truth when he learns that Catherine was right-handed, noting an earlier photo in Catherine's house of a female throwing a softball left-handed.
He brings Gus, Lassiter, and Juliet to the apartment above the garage where Catherine was killed. As they barge into the apartment, they find Catherine's twin sister Maddie (Meredith Monroe), who needs a new liver. However, she wasn't eligible for a transplant because she's an alcoholic, so the sisters' plan was for Maddie to use Catherine's ID and be put on the list as Catherine. Unfortunately, Maddie started growing impatient and decided to kill the three people above her during Catherine's trip to Switzerland. When Catherine found out about this and threatened to go to the police, Maddie went into a rage and accidentally killed her sister by pushing her into a wall. Gus notes that a side effect of severe liver failure is psychosis, meaning Maddie may have had no idea what she was doing.
Declan thanks Shawn for his help on the case and for clearing his name. He then takes Shawn's earlier advice to heart and tells Juliet that he is a phony before Shawn was apparently preparing to do the same thing. Shawn expects that Juliet will push Declan away, disgusted, but instead she admires his honesty and continues to date him.
Trivia[]
- The title implies that Declan is the ‘new and improved’ version of Shawn.
- This episode marks the first of three appearances by singer Curt Smith playing a fictionalized version of himself.
- This episode features a Curt Smith sung version of the theme song during both the opening and closing credits.
- This is the second episode to highlight Shawn's fandom of Tears for Fears, following S2E1 “American Duos” where he dresses up like Roland Orzabal.
- The transplant list contains several names of Psych crew members: Brad McMurray, Jennifer McNeil, Darsi Morgan and Max Torroba. In addition, the paper with the obituaries contains the name of Chris Banting, a camera operator.
- When Shawn is listing Henry's "questionable" decision making on cases, he brings up the fact that he previously hired "two geezers". That crime-solving duo, Peters and Boone, appeared in S5E6 "Viagra Falls".
- Shawn reconnects with Gina Rapach against his best judgement. He first did so accidentally after having been shot in S4E9 "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark".
Quotes[]
Juliet: I love the philharmonic.
Shawn: Oh, me too. I'm just kidding. Not.
Gus: Stop trying to single-handedly bring "not" back into vogue.
Shawn: Okay. Not. I'm also gonna bring back "said the liar".
Gus: That one is even dumber.
Shawn: Said the liar.
Shawn: Criminal profiler, huh? Sounds like one of those job titles that only exists in cheesy TV shows.
Declan: No argument here. What is it that you do?
Shawn: I'm a psychic detective.
Henry: Specifically we'll be bringing in Psych because of their experience working with serial killers.
Shawn: We help them write and produce one-act plays on the weekends.
Gus: They're usually very dark.
Lassiter: I do not enjoy pointing my gun at innocent women.
Juliet: You don't?
Lassiter: No. I'm not 29 anymore.
Digital Releases[]
