Season 1, Episode 1
Pilot
In 1987 a boy and his father sit in a diner. The boy, Shawn, keeps asking nicely for the cake he was promised for dessert, but Henry, his authoritarian father insists he describe all the hats in the room…without looking. After the boy brilliantly demonstrates his ability, and impresses the cute waitress, Henry grunts and says, “Not bad.” Showing how much he appreciates…doesn’t actually…his son.
Fast forward to the present and Shawn has found someone who does appreciate him. As he pulls her onto the couch with him, he glances at the TV and sees a news story about some stereos stolen from an electronics store and by watching the store clerk being interviewed figures out that it was an inside job and the clerk was behind it. He calls the police and gives them the tip, which is not easy when there’s a really cute girl nibbling on your neck. His public service completed, Shawn turns to more important matters. She must not have been that good, since we never see her again.
The next day, Shawn is called into the police station for his well-deserved reward. At least, that’s what he thinks, but when two detectives (who he realizes are sleeping together) take him into an interrogation room, it becomes clear they think he was in on it. The first, Detective Lassiter, who makes Henry look positively lenient, demands to know how Shawn knew, thinking his information was so good, it could only have come from the inside. Shawn is about to walk out, but the threat of arrest forces him to come up with something fast. One of the officers is highly superstitious and he plays on that by claiming he’s a psychic. He then reveals the detectives’ relationship, the superstitious officer has been hiring mediums to contact her deceased grandmother and the other officer has been taking dance lessons for his upcoming wedding.
Everyone is impressed, except Lassiter, and Shawn is set loose to claim his just reward. Before he leaves, however, he is stopped by the interim police chief. She noticed him and wants his help with a case. Shawn agrees to a pro-bono case as a trial run.
He then goes to his best friend, Burton “Gus” Guster, who, despite being behind on work, is playing video games in his office. Shawn tells him they have the chance to live their dream of being detectives, and explains that the police have given him an actual case. Gus decides to be stubborn, until Shawn tells him there will be forensics there. Gus finally agrees and drives the two over to a very impressive looking house where the son was kidnapped from.
Shawn is drawn to the pictures of the family’s extremely attractive daughter, and while he drinks them in, she suddenly appears on the stairs behind him. An embarrassed Shawn introduces himself as the police’s consulting psychic. She is suitably impressed but soon after her father (who looks remarkably like General Hammond from Stargate SG-1) comes in, looking shaken.
Later, Shawn and Gus start running down some leads. On the way, they are pulled over for speeding, but Shawn gets out of it by slipping one of his father’s old police cards to the officer, and in the process finds out his dad has been back in Santa Barbara for over a year now.Eventually they find a cabin in the woods with a dog, more importantly, the son’s dog. Gus wants to tell the police, but Shawn has a better idea. He finds Lassiter and his lover about to have lunch. Lassie blows him off, but not before Shawn warns him not to eat the chicken. Inside, Lassie notices the cook start sneezing, right over the chicken. He comes out to see what Shawn wants.
Using his “visions”, Shawn leads the detectives up to the cabin to find…two corpses. Gus quickly goes outside and starts screaming. From the look of things, the son’s partner got in a fight with his partner who killed him then killed himself. As far as police are concerned its case closed, but Shawn knows better. He tries to persuade the chief to continue investigating, but she won’t have any of it, other than agreeing to give him future cases.
Shawn goes to see his dad, who is about to head to lunch but lets Shawn come along. In the old diner, Shawn tells him about his new gig as psychic detective. Henry is skeptical, outright incredulous actually, and forces Shawn to describe the hats in the room to prove he still has it. Shawn once again performs brilliantly and Henry is, once again, unjustifiably reserved.
Later, Shawn and Gus begin tailing the girl from earlier, and notice she has a black bag that looks like it could contain stacks of bills. They follow her to an alley where she hands it over to a shifty-looking guy, or was about to before Shawn decided to heroically intervene. He grabs the bag and races back to the car…which Gus locked when he got out. The girl and the guy corner them and Shawn opens the bag to find…old clothes? He then realizes the guy works at a thrift store. They take the bag back and leave, but Shawn still wants it. He convinces Gus to distract the scary guy, while Shawn grabs the bag and runs. Gus does, for a bit, then points at Shawn and runs. Fortunately, they both escape.
Back at Gus’ office, Shawn examines the bag and finds indentations in the bottom, which are just the right size and shape for dollar bills. He figures this bag could have easily held five million dollars. Which means a ransom was paid.
Shawn and Gus go back to the manor to talk to the girl, at least that’s what Shawn told Gus. He’s really here to talk to her father. He then tells how there was actually a ransom and that he followed it at first, but before he could make the drop, he sees his son’s friend’s car and realizes that they’re in on it together. He goes to the cabin, and finds his son there. A fight starts, and ends when his son is thrown down, hitting his head on the corner of a table, killing him. The son’s friend comes in and the general overpowers him too…then shoots him and tries to make it look like a suicide. The man in incensed and has them thrown out of the house. Shawn and Gus sit in the car staring at it, until Shawn calls the police and informs them of two trespassers on the property.
When the police arrive, Shawn and Gus are cuffed and about to be lead away, but Shawn suddenly starts having another “vision.” The dog saw the murderer, it was someone he knew, and bit him. He starts yelling for them to check his arm. He bristles and declares that no one will be checking anything. The chief starts wondering why, and threatens to get a warrant if she has to. He breaks down and starts trying to explain it was an accident. The police cart him off, and Gus demands to be let out of his cuffs.
The next day, Shawn shows Gus their new detective agency, which he has called “Psych.” Gus isn’t sure about the name, but Shawn explains that the best way to convince people they’re not lying is to tell them they’re lying. Besides, Shawn put Gus’ name on the lease as well, so they have at least six-months before they can get out without paying a penalty.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: McCallum Sr. didn't mean to kill his son, and seems to be horrified once he realizes what happened. That doesn't stop him from intentionally killing Malcolm, though.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Downplayed. At the shooting range, although they're both wearing eye protection, Shawn's not wearing earplugs.
- Cassandra Truth: The whole reason why Shawn had to tell everyone he was psychic in the first place was because him just being super-observant was somehow less likely.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Malcolm pulls a gun on Camden Sr. when he walks in and sees what happened to Camden Jr., but seeing as Camden Sr. is a trained soldier, Malcolm gets easily disarmed.
- Death by Falling Over: Camden Jr. dies when, in the course of roughing him up, his dad throws him, knocking his head into the corner of a table.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Well, it was the pilot episode, after all.
- This is the only episode to feature Lassiter's then-partner, Lucinda Barry, before she was transferred after Shawn revealed the Office Romance between the two with Lassiter being then estranged from his wife. By consequence, this is one of the few episodes to not feature Juliet O'Hara.
- Lassiter would also become much more morally upright (and not the person to have an extramarital affair with a co-worker) and more inept with the opposite sex as the series went on.
- Shawn's more hostile and belligerent towards Lassiter in this episode, while in later episodes he becomes significantly more playful, if still disrespectful.
- In both this and the other first few episodes of the series, Shawn routinely claims to be speaking with and interacting with ghosts, which quickly went away. Furthermore, Shawn's "visions" are generally more elaborate in both this episode and the first few seasons in general while they become more "relaxed" and subdued as the show goes on.
- Subverted with Shawn being shown to be an expert marksman in this episode, as while he wouldn't be given a gun by the police in later seasons, times when Shawn does use a gun (i.e., "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark" and "We'd Like to Thank the Academy") would show him to still have incredible skill with firearms.
- This is the only episode to feature Lassiter's then-partner, Lucinda Barry, before she was transferred after Shawn revealed the Office Romance between the two with Lassiter being then estranged from his wife. By consequence, this is one of the few episodes to not feature Juliet O'Hara.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Shawn shows off his skills as a sharpshooter here, hitting each hole shot by Lucinda Barry on her target sheet.
- Laborious Laziness: Camden Jr. went to the trouble of faking his kidnapping and taking $5,000,000 from his father when he could have straightened his life out and gotten back into his trust fund.
- Lampshade Hanging: Shawn tells Gus as he’s rummaging through the McCallum trash that everything he needs to solve the case is right in front of him. Bonus points for him pulling an actual lampshade from the trash.
- Meaningful Background Event: In the second "how many hats are in the room" test Henry puts Shawn through, the woman with the cowboy hat sitting behind Henry can be seen getting up and leaving in the background.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Camden McCallum Sr. may have been livid at his son for setting up his own hostage situation, but he was still nothing short of shocked when his anger lead him to rough-handling his boy to the point of death.
- Never Suicide: Camden Jr. is found dead on the floor, with Malcolm Orso next to him, apparently having shot himself after killing Jr. Shawn doesn't believe it.
- Offing the Offspring: Camden McCallum Sr. accidentally killed both his son and his son's friend.
- Playing Games at Work: Gus is gaming when he's introduced. Shawn notices immediately due to his hands being on the keyboard in the proper position for playing a First-Person Shooter.
- Refuge in Audacity: Lampshaded by Shawn.
- Running Gag: The pineapple gag starts in this episode, with Shawn offering to cut one up for the road to the lakehouse.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Henry is hyper-critical of his son's impressive abilities, as demonstrated by his finding reasons to be unimpressed both times Shawn accurately identifies how many hats can be found within a room. However, he struggles to hide a proud smile after Shawn displays his skill at counting hats and, as he drives away at the end of the episode, we see a newspaper praising Shawn's work sitting in the front seat.
