A recap
The episode begins with a sunny view over the bay. Shawn and Gus (Trapezius Milkington) are dining al fresco at a restaurant. It’s lunchtime and Shawn is having cereal, as usual he chats up the waitress, trying to guess her car (she drives a black jeep).
Gus confronts Shawn about his inability to date properly. To prove Gus wrong Shawn phones Abigail Lytar. Abigail, now brunette, working at a nursery, and is making the kids all lie on the floor for quiet time. Shawn asks her out on a date- Gus and Abigail simultaneously ask if he is sure about this. He replies in all seriousness, “Yes. I believe I am”.
At the police station and McNabb hands Chief Vick an evidence bag with a manila envelope inside. There is a yin and yang symbol on the back. Chief Vick immediately recognises the seriousness of the situation and phones Shawn and Gus, ordering them to get them down to the station.
When they arrive, everyone is attending a briefing. Lassie and Jules are there too. Chief Vick has projected a message onto a screen. She confirms that this is from the “Yin-Yang killer” The message is made up from words cut from a number of sources in typical poison pen style.
Lassie in an authoritarian voice reads out the message.
“Hey everybody I’m back, for one night only. I’m going to KILL someone tonight, guess who? guess where? guess how?
This is going to be so much fun!
Signed,
Mr.Yang”
Lassie, with machismo, states, “I feel he’s speaking to me” – Vick gives him an arch look - cue shot of an additional message “P.S. ... OH AND BRING YOUR PSYCHIC ALONG” in coloured stencil.
Shawn laughs awkwardly as everyone turns to him, and claims it could be a reference to anyone in the station.
Vick now gives him the look- cue the infamous photo of Shawn from the archaeology site.
Shawn’s powers start to work immediately and he focuses on a strange man sitting yawning loudly and playing on his cell phone. Jules drags Shawn away to explain that this man is in fact Mary Lightly, the profiler from the Serial Homicide and Abduction Taskforce. Shawn picks up on the general creepiness of Mary, played excellently by Jimmi Simpson.
There follows introductions, Mary has heard of Shawn. Shawn has also Googled himself, but there’s a lot of stuff missing. Mary offers Gus (Sterling Cooper) the weakest, limpest, effete hand to shake, and Gus takes it with suspicion. Shawn steps in protectively between them.
Mary explains a few facts about the killer, “...the most notorious killer this city has never seen”. His killing sprees have been sporadic. He only resurfaces when he feels there’s a worthy opponent. Shawn interrupts at this point to clarify why he has Mary for a name. (He comes from a long line of Marys and a Craig).
Mary continues, and introduces the first clue, sent as a telegram along with a stopwatch giving them one hour and ten minutes to solve it. According to Mary, each riddle relates to Shawn personally.
As Shawn critiques Mr Yang’s rhyming skills, Shawn’s dad Henry shows up at the station. He has hear d Yang is back, and angrily forbids Shawn from getting involved, but Shawn makes it clear he will continue with the case.
The telegram clue leads the gang, badges blazing, to the restaurant from earlier in the day. The waitress Shawn showed an interest in, is nowhere to be found. A stopwatch is hanging from a locker door and a new clue is written in cereal letters stuck on the inside. The waitress has been kidnapped.
Mary gets so excited he rips open a can of fish and starts his lunch. Mary notes that Mr. Yang still owes them a riddle, and that this message is just the amuse-bouche (starters).
Shawn cracks a joke about eating breakfast for lunch, so Gus calls him aside to try to get him to take it more seriously. Shawn explains his “fanciful rhetoric” helps him to diffuse the tension of the situation. Mary offers Jules some fish straight from the can, which she declines with one of her excellent facial expressions.
Lassie has now found the next clue, and they only have seventeen minutes on the stopwatch. Gus tries to help Shawn diffuse the tension with some pancake humour, which is met with silent horror from everyone. But they work out which direction the clue is pointing them.
When they get back to the station, Maddy Spencer is there (Cybil Shepherd). She also tries to persuade Shawn to drop the case. Shawn declines, being confident of beating Mr Yang.
A new clue has been delivered. This time it is a rat in a cage. To help Shawn think, Gus does his wicked Michael Jackson impression. At the base of the cage is a newspaper sheet, which has printed in the advertising section our duo’s previous cases. They work through the print- Gus and Mary’s love of ferroequinology, (a light-hearted term meaning literally ‘the study of iron horses’) via ‘love me tender’ and ‘black snake’ - to get the solution to the clue as being the coal train, which is due to pass through town at any moment. Mary pockets the rat.
The coal train does not stop at the platform, so Shawn and Gus have to chase it down. During this, Abigail calls and Shawn explains he is hunting a serial killer. Abi is sceptical so Shawn asks Gus to confirm his story. “We’re chasing a train like hobos!” is the shouted response.
Leaping onto the moving train Shawn and Gus find the next clue and a stopwatch, showing they have 27 minutes to solve it. Suddenly Mary appears, running alongside the moving carriage (ankle weights are his secret). Together the next clue leads them back to the waterfront and to a bin that Gus had earlier that day thrown rubbish.
Heading onto the pier, a phone rings- they search for the sound- and find a cell phone taped to the underside of a bench. Rather than answer, Shawn works out Mr Yang must be watching them, and in a direct challenge, throws the phone into the sea. Lassie is furious, Jules is concerned that Shawn knows what he is doing.
Shawn sees a flash of light from one of the windows of the Psych office. They race back to Psych HQ and see that Mr Yang has been there (and left his binoculars behind). To help Shawn think, Gus’s distraction involves being a giant next to a toy plane- his King Kong impression does not go down well.
Looking at framed photos on the wall, Jules sees one of the kidnapped waitress. Lassie finds a stopwatch hidden in Shawn’s drawer and Mary reads out a message, which berates Shawn for being naughty, but gives them a second chance- they need to return to the station. At this point Shawn claims he has had enough and gives up on the case. Mary and Jules try to talk him out of it. Shawn is mean to Jules. The gang leave without him and with Jules hurt and angry.
Alone Shawn confesses to Gus it’s not over yet, they are still on the case- but need to work independently.
Meanwhile Lassie feels the new clue relates to him and his knowledge of the civil war. Here Simpsin as Mary gets an excellent line about Patrick Swayze in North and South “Talk about civil war buff, huh?” The clue leads them to a hotel.
At the same time Shawn realises the waitress’s jeep has been taken and tells Lassie- who has already found it. At the hotel, the waitress is bound, gagged and unconscious. A new clue has been left and Shawn realises that Mr Yang now has his mum. Written with lipstick on the bathroom mirror is another scrawled message leading the gang to the drive-in.
At the drive-in they look for Madeleine’s blue sedan. Shawn stumbles across it, and finds Maddy gagged in the front seat. A laser sight is focused on the back of her head from the projector room behind, however Shawn sees that this is a decoy and that Madeleine is actually wired up to explode.
Maddy indicates that Mr Yang is in the adjacent car, calmly eating popcorn. Except Mr Yang turns out to be a she-Ally Sheedy no less. Shawn goes over to her and gets in the car and she smiles evilly.
Meanwhile Lassie Jules, Mary and Gus realise they have been duped at the projector room and head out to look for Shawn.
Mr Yang and Shawn chat. She chose Shawn because he is the Yin to her Yang. During an increasingly crazy conversation, she says that wants Shawn to like her, and threatens that they will be working together again (on her book “it’s going to be epic”). She gives the detonator to Shawn, whilst laughing and hauntingly suggests Shawn think about it on his date tonight.
So, Maddy is saved and Mr Yang arrested. Shawn realises that Yang was present throughout the whole day and is freaked out by it. Mary is also upset that Yang has been caught, as he has done nothing but chase her for years. Gus narrowly avoids a racket ball date with him. Maddy insists that Shawn goes on the date with Abigail.
In the next scene Abi arrives at the drive-in. She apologises for not believing him earlier.Shawn goes to buy some popcorn, where Jules shows up, looking stunning. She bares her soul to Shawn finally. David Gray’s version of “Say hello, wave goodbye” is playing in the background . Jules says that she wants to take Shawn to dinner. He tells her, her timing is just awful, and that he is already on a date. To which Jules queries “What, here?” slightly incredulously. Shawn tells her it’s with Abigail, and Jules, understanding, kisses Shawn tenderly on the cheek.
Shawn keeps his eyes closed well after the kiss has ended, and Jules tells him to get out there to Abigail. Shawn calls her back- but just to apologise for snapping at her earlier.
Juliette leaves and Shawn backs out through the doors with the popcorn. Abi asks if he is okay, commenting that he looks “like he got punched in the stomach and stopped breathing for a few seconds”.
Shawn says everything is not ok- and for a second we are led to think he is going to end the date. But no, he bottles it and says the cinema had run out of butter instead.
And so there we leave it- a romantic mess. They get into Gus’s car for the date. But...Yes! Gus is in the back seat and saves Shawn from being on his own with Abi. Good old Gus - a true best friend. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that, with Gus in tow, Shawn and Abi aren’t quite on a date - at least not yet anyway.
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