Psych: Season 6 Premiere

Have you ever heard of The Mentalist, a show on CBS that features a smarter-than-everyone-else pompous ass who uses his keen senses of observation to outwit criminals and layfolk alike? Of course, he solves crimes with all his pompousness, so he is ultimately forgiven and justice prevails. But all of that doesn’t help the fact that the main character of that show is intensely unlikeable, and everyone else (aside from the brilliant Tim Kang who plays Agent Kimball Cho) is just kind of “meh.”

So what does all this have to do with the Season 6 Premiere of Psych, you ask? Well, Psych is exactly like that show, but better. And it came first—two years earlier. So not only is The Mentalist sup-par, it is also a rip-off. I shake my head at you CBS, for shame! (aside from Tim Kang, that is. He’s great. Give him his own show.)

Psych follows the adventures of Sean Spencer (James Roday) and Burton ‘Gus’ Guster (DuléHill). Gus is the studious and responsible one with a respectable job as a pharmaceutical salesman while Sean is the adventurous slacker, always looking for the next cool scheme. And Sean finds that scheme in the detective skills his overbearing cop father insisted he learn. Sean is a modern day Sherlock Holmes with all the moody hipster faults of a Gen-Xer. He decides to capitalize on it by creating a psychic detective agency, and he actually manages to get a contract with the Santa Barbara Police. He drags Gus into it with him, kicking and screaming, and he solves cases with his wits—all the while fooling everyone into believing he’s a psychic.

The tone of this show really sells it. It’s completely tongue in cheek every step of the way. Obscure pop-culture references abound, Sean is always introducing Gus under flamboyantly egregious pseudonyms (“Methuselah Honeysuckle” and “Ovaltine Jenkins” being two of my favorites), and there is at least one pineapple always floating around the set. This duo of bumbling metrosexuals is juxtaposed against strong female leads. There’s Chief Vick (Kirsten Nelson), who you’d never want to get on the wrong side of; and there’s Juliet O’Hara (Maggie Lawson) who, despite having an overly Midwest sense of niceness, is a total badass. Wrap that up with the foils of the gun-happy/Sean-hating Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) and Sean’s bumbling and exasperated dad Henry (Corbin Bernsen), and you’ve got yourself a fun little series which is rich with character- and comedy-heavy awesomeness.

In the season 6 premiere, Sean stumbles across a case due to his predictable shenanigans and manages to solve it (of course) despite the fact that the PD is blocked from investigating too closely because it deals with the staff of an ambassador from the United Kingdom (Malcom McDowell). This wasn’t the greatest episode of Psych, but it was good—as if the show took a moment to stretch and remind us of everything so that we as an audience could get back into the swing of things. And you could tell the writers were laying in the groundwork for future fun and drama.

If you’ve never seen Psych, it’s good. Watch it from the beginning. And if you’re a diehard fan, catch this latest installment (especially since you’ve most likely been waiting with bated breath for it to return). And don’t miss the signature outtake at the end; McDowell joins in on the fun.