"Tuesday the 17th" is the fifteenth episode of Season Three. Shawn and Gus are hired to find a camp counselor who disappeared near their old sleepaway campgrounds. Spooky activity abounds and they must uncover if the dark past of the abandoned camp has come back to life.
Plot Summary[]
In 1988, Henry arrives at Camp Tikihama to pick up Shawn and Gus after their week-long stay. Shawn is miffed because Gus teamed up with Jason Cunningham in the piñata-making contest and won, while Shawn was stuck with the kid who wears his jacket all year round. The betrayed Shawn then tied a rock to his "clown" piñata and sunk it in the lake.
In the present, it's been 20 years since the Tikihama incident. Shawn and Gus arrive to the Psych office, and are horrified to find that the once-sunk piñata is now hanging outside. Jason, who is sitting nearby, reveals himself to the duo. Gus greets him with their secret handshake, while Shawn is still holding a grudge over the piñata contest. Jason explains that he has come them for help — he bought Camp Tikihama and is planning to reopen it, but one of his counselors, Annie, has gone missing. Shawn suggests he contact the authorities, but Jason is hesitant about going to the police: he's not positive anything has actually happened to her, as Annie is mostly a loner who often goes off on her own without telling anyone, and involving the authorities would invite unnecessary negative press that might kill the camp before it's even open.
On the way up to the camp, Shawn and Gus nearly run into a disturbing old man on a bike who warns them they are doomed. Shawn wants to turn back, but Gus convinces him to go on. Once there, they meet the other counselors, Clive, Billy, and Sissy. Jason, who is now acting evasive and weird, asks Sissy to show them around. They go into the camp house, the last known location for Annie, and Shawn notices some broken glass by a window. As they tour the grounds, Gus reminisces about their camp days to Sissy, but Shawn mostly remembers how the camp was shut down when a repairman was electrocuted and died in the swimming pool. They hear a weird noise coming from the laundry shack, and when they go to investigate, Gus, trying to impress Sissy, opens the dryer to find Annie's bloody clothes and shoes.
Clive, Billy, and Jason arrive and, as Gus cleans his bloody hands off on his pants, Shawn tells them he suspects the old man on the bike, but Jason insists that "Crazy Old Erwin", the camp's janitor, wouldn't hurt a fly. Billy, noticing that the dryer cycle had just started, assumes the killer must be close and suggests that they should split up and search the grounds. Shawn, the only one taking the situation seriously, insists it makes more sense to stay put and call the cops, but Billy, Clive, Sissy, and Gus leave anyway. Billy ends up falling into a trap in the woods where an unseen man with a machete has been waiting for his prey. Juliet, whom Shawn called after becoming convinced that the group 'somehow stumbled into some sort of slasher movie scenario', arrives and finds Shawn hiding in a closet in the laundry room. Everyone left alive reconvenes in the camp house and Jason soon arrives, furious that Shawn broke his word by calling the cops and storms out in a huff. Shawn goes after him and finds Annie dead in the laundry shack. Just then, a hooded man with a machete bursts in. Shawn takes off running, but as he does so, he mentally reviews all the clues he's found over the past day and realization hits. He confronts the hooded man, whom he now knows is Jason, and claims everything that has happened has been staged. Impressed that Shawn figured it out, Jason removes his hood as Annie and Billy arrive completely fine. Jason explains that he is reopening the camp as a 'Murder Camp' where adults come to participate in a Friday the 13th style murder mystery, and he needed Shawn to do a dry run. The 'counselors' knew the truth about the camp but were caught off guard when Jason started the game without telling them. Jason asks Shawn how he figured it out, and he says the biggest clue was when Gus, who hates the sight of blood, wiped 'Annie's' on his pants, knowing it was fake. Gus was in on it with Jason, having been filled in on it a week before Jason roped Shawn in and became involved as a way to get back at Shawn for a lifetime of pranks. As it starts to rain, Jason gets everyone inside for celebratory champagne, but the party is short lived after they spot Erwin floating dead in the lake.
Juliet tries to call for help, but the storm has knocked out all communications. She tells everyone not to go near the body until forensics can get there (though she justifies the group moving the body onto the porch so that the rain wouldn't wash off any lingering evidence), even though there are no signs of foul play on the body. Billy suggests a game of strip cribbage while they wait, but Clive, sensitive about his body, opts for video games and Annie leaves to take a shower and wash all the fake death make-up off. After Shawn expresses some suspicions to Juliet, she lets him take a quick look at the body where he sees a mark on the side of Erwin's neck. Annie, meanwhile, gets out of the shower to discover a hooded man with an axe waiting for her. At first she thinks it's Jason, but is surprised to find she's dead wrong. Back at the camp house, the lights go out. Billy leaves to check the breaker, but the hooded man surprises him, electrocuting him in the fuse box. As the lights come back on, Shawn realizes that Clive, the last person to see him alive, had not reacted to the power outage, but when he goes to confront him, he sees that Clive hasn't been playing video games for some time, confirming that Clive is a real killer. When he returns to finish the rest of them off, he explains that his father was the repairman that was killed there 20 years ago, and he was filled with murderous rage when he found out that Jason was planning on making a game out of the tragedy. Juliet shoots Clive in the hand, sending his machete flying before he is able to kill anyone else. As the storm breaks and the sun rises, help finally arrives. Sissy, whom Gus had developed a crush on the moment he arrived, opts to follow an injured Jason (whom she reveals was her fiancé the entire time) and Shawn accepts his late apology for bailing on them during the piñata contest as they and Juliet look out over the lake knowing Tikihama will never be the same again.
Meanwhile, Lassiter is invited to dinner by Victoria Parker, whose marriage with him has been rocky for some time. Thinking it's a date, he buys her a necklace, but is surprised when she produces divorce papers. Though initially shocked over the development, Lassiter signs the papers while Victoria was in the bathroom, having come to realize that there might be no way to save their marriage and that divorce might be the only way for the two of them to really be happy.
Trivia[]
- The title and plot are nods to the slasher film Friday the 13th and its sequels. The title is also a direct reference to the episode "Superstitious Stimpy" of The Ren & Stimpy Show, during which Stimpy declares that Tuesday the 17th is "the unluckiest day of the year."
- This episode first aired on Friday the 13th of February 2009.
- A pineapple appears in the form of a piñata in the flashback. There is an image of a woman holding a pineapple on the tipi behind the "kid in the jacket" during the flashback. There is also one in Annie's fridge.
- Camp Tikihama's name is a reference to the sounds heard during the iconic theme of the Friday the 13th franchise, either "ti ti ti ha ha ha" or "ki ki ki ma ma ma".
- Jason Cunningham's name is a nod to both Jason Voorhees, the main antagonist of the Friday the 13th series, and Sean Cunningham, the executive producer on the films.
- Jason mentions reading about Shawn and Gus uncovering a dinosaur (S2E2 "65 Million Years Off") and rescuing a mummy (S2E16 "Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead") in the same calendar year.
- The song that plays when you see Shawn's piñata is the same song Dwayne Tancana sang in S2E9 "Bounty Hunters!".
- The doll that Jason carries looks very similar to "Robert the Doll", a famous haunted doll.
- Annie's fridge is the same as the fridge in "Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead".
- When Shawn walks towards Annie's body, he asks "Annie, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?" in a clear reference to Michael Jackson's hit song "Smooth Criminal".
- This was the fourth of seven episodes to air during USA Network's "Psych Slumber Party" event on February 15, 2013.
- Both the song at the end of the opening flashback and the underwater scene are a reference to the fourth movie of Harry Potter (Fourth adaptation of seven books), Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.
Gallery[]
The gallery for "Tuesday the 17th" can be found here.
Digital Releases[]
