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Original Air Date: February 8, 2008
1987
Ever sneaky, young Shawn tries to get out of wearing a sweater vest his mom chose for him to take his school picture in by changing into a Knight Rider t-shirt instead. His dad catches him when he comes downstairs, however, and orders him to put the vest back on because pictures last forever and his father wants him to look his best.
Present
As GUS repeatedly states emphatically that he’s not working that night, SHAWN takes Gus out to a surprise location for his birthday. The surprise turns out to be the fall line launch party for Ciao Clothing, the most exclusive event of the year, filled with hot unknown models and fake celebrities. Shawn gets the guys in by having their retired “modeling-team” name of Black and Tan — no first names and guess which one is Black (the other one) — put on the VIP list, and the bouncer deciding who does and doesn’t get in is stunned they’ve been invited.
After Gus spots his favorite model, Berlinda Desidovicz, and goes over to talk to her, Shawn notices Ciao co-owner Ciaobella hurl a green beverage on the floor after berating her assistant. Ciao Clothing chairman and founder Gregor Uwe Steeb takes the stage next. The microphone is set really low on its pole, so after making a crack about looking forward to doing some menial work raising the microphone himself after having designed all the clothes himself, too, Gregor grabs the mike stand to increase the height. Suddenly, electricity crackles, and the designer falls to the floor, dead.
With a death on the premises, everyone must sit tight until the law arrives. Soon, LASSIE and JULES are on the scene, and Lassie makes it clear he doesn’t think anyone there murdered anybody because none of them could possibly have an IQ above 40.
Shawn has to return his father’s half boots he wore that night before the next day, so the guys pay a visit to HENRY SPENCER‘s house. Henry should have been asleep two hours ago, at about 9pm, given his normal routine. But, when the guys arrive, they find Police Chief VICK there with a friend named Susan who works at City Hall. Yes, people, it’s a hook-up for sourpuss Henry Spencer.
Chief Vick is called away by Jules’ news that the electric cabling at the Ciao event had been tampered with, making the designer’s death suspicious. Henry tries to get an opinion from Shawn about Susan, who’s dressed like a librarian and comes across as prim and proper, but Shawn refuses. He’s upset his dad is on a blind date, and he storms out of the house.
With Gus still refusing to do any work on his birthday, the guys head to an arcade to celebrate the remaining 72 minutes with junk food and games. When the clock strikes midnight, though, they get on the case and head to the police station, where Lassie is predictably exasperated about the less-than-bright suspects/witnesses, one of whom can’t even confirm the spelling of his own name.
Despite Lassie’s objections, Chief Vick hires Shawn and Gus to work the case from the inside because they’ve already infiltrated the world of the Ciao models by posing as models themselves to get into the party earlier. The friends then manage to move into the loft Gregor maintained for his top models since another model was recently kicked out. Gus is against living there at first, until Berlinda walks by in a towel and changes his mind.
The models in the loft decide later to head out to an oxygen club for the night, but they ditch Shawn when Henry shows up for a little dating advice regarding Susan. Alone after he finally manages to escape his dad, Shawn spies Ciaobella’s alleged assistant Emily Bloom entering Gregor’s design studio.
He follows her in and starts talking to her, during which he notices the initials EB on several of the design sketches she’s carrying. Emily is obviously overworked and harried, but at least she’s one person — the only person — who believes Shawn used to be a model.
The next day is Gregor’s funeral. Before it starts, Gus reports to Shawn that the models revealed Ciaobella was grilling all of them because she suspected her husband was having an affair with one. Combined with Gregor’s death and how shabbily she treats her assistant Emily, Shawn concludes Ciaobella is a top suspect.
At the viewing of the body, most all of the models make snarky comments over Gregor’s casket, such as admitting they were the person who peed in the hot tub or calling him a sellout for being dressed in Hugo Boss clothing instead of his own line. A model named Sigrid leaves a piece of paper with a heart on it in the casket, however.
When Shawn witnesses this after informing Gus that Berlinda was the model who couldn’t spell her own name, he concludes that Sigrid was the model having an affair with the designer, causing his wife’s murderous rage. Yet, that theory goes up in smoke when Ciaobella dies while speaking at Gregor’s funeral. Thus, Sigrid becomes the primary suspect.
The model does a bang-up job infuriating Lassie during the ensuing interrogation when she points out he’s wearing the same suit and tie he’s worn previously that week. Before Lassie gets pissed about her fashion observations and kicks her out, Sigrid reveals another Ciao employee has more motive to kill the owners than even she does — Emily Bloom, Ciao vice president and third in line, not just Ciaobella’s mousy assistant, who now has control of the entire company.
Jules heads to Ciao to question Emily, who’s drinking one of those puke green shakes while busily transforming the company into a more socially responsible and realistically fashionable business. She admits she has no alibi whatsoever since she spent all day, everyday with the murdered couple. Moreover, Emily doesn’t seem the least bit disturbed by her lack of protection, and she even advises Jules that as a detective, she can still “dress to arrest.”
At the Psych offices, Shawn engages in a four-way telephone relay between Chief Vick, his dad, Susan, and himself concerning Henry finally returning Susan’s calls and asking her out on a date. Shawn, who is doing everything he can — yet failing miserably anyway — to avoid therapy by staying as far away from his father’s love life as possible, notices after the call is over that Gus is wearing a shirt supposedly designed by Gregor. Yet, he recognizes the garment from the sketches Emily was carrying the night he bumped into her. It’s now quite clear that Gregor and Ciaobella had been stealing Emily’s designs all along.
As Henry gets freaked out on his dinner date with Susan — she brings her own beer, insists on eating meat instead of flaky fish, rips off her cardigan to reveal a low-cut top that barely covers her ample cleavage, and ultimately shoves Henry into a bathroom for some private time while he’s on the phone with Shawn in a panic — a toxicology report indicates that Ciaobella died from poison in the green beverages she customarily drank. Since Shawn saw Emily bring her one of the drinks at the fall line party, he, Gus, and the detectives, rush to Ciao to bring her in. When they arrive, however, they find Emily near death in a chair.
The hospital pumps Emily’s stomach, and when she comes to, she reveals to Shawn, who’s sitting bedside, that she had a green Superfood smoothie for dinner. Putting a few more common-sense clues together, Shawn cracks the case.
What Happened
- Gregor and Ciaobella were approaching their tenth wedding anniversary, which means a split afterwards would have resulted in their joint assets being split down the middle, as well.
- To avoid losing half of his company, Gregor poisoned the green Superfood powder Ciaobella used for her shakes.
- Gregor didn’t realize his wife was bulimic, however, and her constant purging increased the length of time it took for the poison to kill her.
- Meanwhile, Ciaobella was furious her husband was stepping out on her with model Sigrid, so she used her electrical savvy to rig the mike stand and electrocute Gregor.
- Emily was an innocent victim caught in the marital crossfire when she drank a smoothie made with the poisoned Superfood powder.
Shawn scores zero points for his insight this time because not only is Gus angry Shawn ruined his chances with Berlinda, who dates models only, when he revealed they were undercover, but Lassie and Jules are irritated Shawn wasted their time making them come all the way to the club for something he could have said in a phone call or email.
At least our fake psychic comes to partial terms with his father’s decision to start dating “dominatrix” Susan when he shares a little advice with him on how to proceed with the relationship — advice he actually learned from his father in the first place.
MY TAKE: Psych is one of the silliest-funniest series on TV right now, and the entire cast has gelled and hit full stride. If you hate the show, I’ve got really bad news for you, then — it’s going to be around for awhile.
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