"Shawn and the Real Girl" is the twelfth episode of Season Six. When a reality TV show contestant vying for the love of a bachelorette suffers a suspicious car crash, Shawn and Gus go undercover as two new contestants to find out who is behind the attempted murder.
Plot Summary[]
Melinda (Lindsay Sloane), the "bachelorette" on a reality TV show called "Paths of Love", is handing out "heart necklaces" to her remaining eligible bachelors to keep them on the show. She wants to hand one to Todd Kramer (Greyston Holt), but he is nowhere to be found.
At the SBPD, Lassiter explains that Todd was involved in a car crash and is now comatose. Shawn looks at photos of the accident and thinks there is some foul play at hand. Steve Rollins (Lochlyn Munro), the show's director, approaches Shawn and tells him he thinks the same. He asks Shawn and Gus to drop by the set to investigate. Shawn tells Steve that he and Gus are willing to help out, but only on one condition: they go undercover on the show as bachelor contestants themselves.
That night, Hilton Fox (Wayne Brady), the host of the show, announces two "twists" to the show... just then, Shawn and Gus walk out wearing suits and heart necklaces, signaling to Melinda that these are her new bachelors. Jay Gianukos (Greg Grunberg), the show's investor, and Melinda herself are less than jazzed about these new contestants. Steve claims that Shawn and Gus will be stars and make for great TV, but Jay isn't so sure. Just then, Juliet and Lassiter show up to further investigate Todd's accident. Shawn tries to hide from Juliet that he is now part of the show, but she figures it out pretty quickly and keeps a jealous eye on him.
Shawn and Gus believe the culprit is on the inside. During a mix-and-mingle session with Melinda and her bachelors by the pool, they get a sense that the culprit may be one of the bachelors named Mario (Mike "The Miz" Mizanin), a threatening hot-head, acting outwardly angry toward the contestants who are getting closer to Melinda than he is. Shawn and Gus quickly discover Mario is clean, but they find a pair of greasy gloves in the bag of shy contestant Daniel Smith (Derek Richardson) – gloves that could have been used while cutting the brake lines on Todd's car.
Shawn and Gus visit the control room to look at footage of Danny in the last 24 hours. Shawn also alerts Juliet and they bring him in for questioning, but they end up finding nothing concrete enough to arrest him on. However, Shawn believes he can get Danny to confess on his own and gets Melinda to keep Danny on the show over Mario by revealing he found a picture of Mario's girlfriend in his things. Melinda is devastated that Mario has a girlfriend and therefore has no choice but to choose Danny.
Shawn and Gus watch Danny grilling by the pool. Shawn notices a loose gas cap and immediately rushes to Danny's rescue before he is engulfed in flames. It's now clear that Danny is innocent, and Brody (Corey Sevier) leaves the show upon learning that his life is in danger. Shawn starts believing Jay might be the culprit after observing his affectionate behavior towards Melinda and his insistence that Juliet and Lassiter cannot be on the set.
Melinda chooses Shawn and Gus to go on a "group date". Throughout the date, Shawn tries to get Melinda to admit to having an affair with Jay. She denies it, but Shawn has Lassiter and Juliet interrogate Jay after it is made known that Jay has the show "insured through the roof," giving him possible motive to sabotage and collect. Juliet and Lassiter ask to see the insurance policy, but Jay tells them he already sold the show to NBC. This turns out to be a lie, so Juliet and Lassiter arrest him. Meanwhile, Melinda has to choose between Gus and Shawn on the group date. She decides to choose Shawn over Gus. We then cut to a devastated Gus sitting in the limo, taking the ride of shame home, fighting back tears for getting booted off the show.
Later, Shawn is still on the date with Melinda and the subject of her unrealistic expectations for love comes up. She says this attitude stems from her college years and refers to some romantic notes she used to receive from a secret admirer. She reads a direct quote from them to Shawn and he immediately flashbacks to Danny saying that exact quote. He realizes that Melinda and Danny truly belong together and that their missed connection could be missed forever if Melinda never finds out that it was Danny all along who she should be with.
The next morning Shawn gathers Gus, Lassiter and Juliet in Steve's editing bay to show them how the rest of the date with Melinda played out the night before. On the monitor we see Shawn telling Melinda he has a girlfriend. He then reveals to her that it was Danny who wrote her the letters, and from there Danny and Melinda are united at last. Just as we are seeing this play out on screen, we notice a jump-cut in the edit, meaning that someone had gone through the raw footage and suspiciously taken pieces out. Shawn gets Steve to show them the raw footage and sure enough, cameraman Hank (Tyronne L'Hirondelle) is seen tampering with the grill right before Danny started to use it. It was Hank all along who was trying to sabotage the show by killing off its contestants. Shawn then realizes that Hank is currently shooting the proposal scene with Danny and Melinda on a plane taking them to skydive, so they are in serious danger.
They arrive while the plane is about to take off. Once they get the plane to stop, Shawn tells everyone what really happened, saying that Hank was the one who had come up with the idea for the show first. And when he handed it over to Jay, Jay cut Hank out of the profits, thus creating a reason for Hank to sabotage the show. Hank is then arrested and Melinda and Danny are saved.
We end on the Paths of Love reunion show with Hilton Fox showing clips of Shawn's best moments from the show. At the very end of the reunion special, Hilton announces that Todd is out of the coma and is alive and well. When Melinda sees Todd, she hugs him hard for a moment, making Danny pull her arms off of him. Shawn confesses to Juliet that it's reassuring for him to know that she'll be by his side. However, she's distracted by Todd giving her a flirty look, Shawn admonishing "Jules!"
Quotes[]
[Melinda is introduced to new contestants Shawn and Gus]
Melinda: Can I still choose Todd?
Fox: Todd is in a coma.
Melinda: I know. Can I still choose him?
Melinda: Shawn, you are a very... odd person. One minute, you're witty and sarcastic and smart, and the next you're like a six-year-old looking for a popsicle.
Shawn: We don't have any popsicles. I checked... I see what you mean.
Fox: Now those of you that caught the last episode, you know that Shawn had a hand in playing Cupid.
Shawn: Oh, what can I say? I love making love. Especially on television.
Trivia[]
- The title of this episode is a reference to the 2007 film Lars and the Real Girl.
- The whole episode is based on the The Bachelor reality show franchise, with the heart necklaces a parody of the roses given out by the bachelor(ette) to contestants that they want to keep on the show. Shawn’s alias, Dr. Womack, also shares a last name with a real-life two-time Bachelor, Brad Womack.
- The scene of Melinda and Danny dancing is a nod to She's All That, the 1999 teen romcom Dulé Hill appeared in along with several Psych guest actors. The song playing over the scene is "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer, which also prominently features on the film's soundtrack.
- Gus tells Shawn that "Melinda likes her men to shine." He said the same thing about Berlinda Desidovicz in S2E15 "Black and Tan: A Crime of Fashion".
- Mike "The Miz" Mizanin is a wrestler, and one of several to make an appearance in the Psychverse. Additionally, fitting the Reality TV theme of the episode, Mizanin was also a previous Reality TV participant, most notably as a housemate on The Real World: Back to New York in 2001 and as a contestant on five seasons of Real World/Road Rules Challenge, from 2002 to 2005.
Digital Releases[]
