Season 1, Episode 9
Forget Me Not
It's 1986, and Shawn, Gus, and the rest of their elementary school class are on a school trip to the zoo. Shawn teases a girl named Trish Conners, and is told off by his dad who's chaperoning. Shawn notices a ostrich choking on a tennis ball, and tells his teacher. Henry accuses Shawn of feeding the bird the ball, but Shawn insists he's innocent. When Henry asks who did throw the ball Shawn looks out at Trish, and says he doesn't know who did it. Another parent (Henry's captain) believes Shawn, but Henry tells the Captain that he calls the shots with his own kid. The Captain walks back to Trish while Shawn watches.
In the present Shawn and Gus look out of the Psyche office window at a older Trish, and her father, Captain Conners. Shawn claims he can read their lips, but it's just a joke. Shawn and Gus rush away from the window before Trish comes in, and Shawn pretends to receive a psychic vision about who they are. Captain Conners is a little confused, he has two sets of glasses, multiple crumpled notes, and a note about talking to Shawn written on his sleeve. After some prompting from Shawn the captain reveals that he witnessed a murder, but can't remember the details. He wants Shawn to look into his mind, and help him solve the crime, Shawn quickly agrees.
Later Shawn and Gus arrive at the cafe where the captain gets his morning coffee hoping to see what might have upset the captain. Shawn spots a crossword with distinctive I's, and tries to leave, but Henry steps out of the cafe and greets Shawn.
At the police department, a women named Sabrina Veto is upset that her boyfriend, Mike, is missing, and tearfully asks Julie for help.
Back at the cafe Shawn, Gus, Henry, and the Captain are sitting reminiscing about some of Henry's old cases when Shawn notices a note from the Captain that seems to relate to one of the missing posters that Sabrina has hung up. He jogs the Captain's memory, and the Captain remembers that he saw Mike arguing with Mort Crocker in the park, and that Mike was later mauled by a mountain lion. Henry interjects, asking the captain about a young brunette named Zoe Sharpe. It turns out that the mountain lion attack was actually from a case from 20 years ago that the two had worked together. Henry tells Shawn that the Captain has early onset Alzheimer's, and doesn't want Shawn to make the Captain look foolish.
At the Psyche office Gus brings Shawn a newspaper with the headline “Missing hiker dead; mauled by mountain lion.” alongside a picture of Mike. Shawn shows the story to Trish, who is impressed. She talks to Gus about what the next steps of the case will be with Gus. Trish mentions that Shawn seems much more mature then when he was younger, but Shawn's behavior when she isn't looking contradicts that.
Shawn shows Henry the article, but he isn't convinced. Shawn asks Henry about the case from 20 years ago. Mort Crocker was the owner of a restaurant chain, Zoe Sharpe was his secretary/lover, Captain Conner suspected that the case was murder rather then a accident as was decided. Henry insists that the similarity between the present situation, and the one from 20 years ago are coincidence, and tells Shawn to drop the case. Shawn thinks that the case needs to be investigated in spite of Captain Conners unreliability as a witness. Henry suggests Shawn talk to a mountain lion.
Shawn go's to the zoo where he and Gus quickly find a mountain lion. Shawn has time to notice a wound on the lion, before the zoo's director catches them. Shawn claims they are visiting foreign doctors. The zoo director buys it, and tells them that the lion would not eat a person, but might have attacked because it was hungry. The lion is unusually underweight for this time of year, even though there has been plenty of rain/prey for it to live off of. A call comes in from the warthog enclosure, and Gus is asked to assist in birthing a warthog, which Shawn agrees to for him.
At the police department Mort Crocer is taken in for questioning by Lassiter and Julie about Mike's death. He denies involvement, and asks if Captain Conners is involved in the case. Lassiter evades the question.
Shawn and Gus investigate the trail where Mike's body was found. Shawn determines that the lion tracks, and the drag marks from Mike's body don't match up. Just as he finishes explaining this to Gus a ranger announces his presence by cocking his gun, and tells Shawn that the trail is closed.
Later at a ranger station Shawn has convinced the ranger that they are lost campers. Shawn sees items in the station that link the ranger to Mort Crocker, as well as a animal cage outside. Shawn notices some blood on a loose wire in the cage, and guesses that the lion was kept in the cage. Gus says that the cut could have happened when the lion was taken to the zoo. Shawn asks the ranger about lion attacks on people, and the ranger talks about how hungry animals will attack humans. The ranger mentions that the year has been dry, so the lions are hungry, but that contradicts what the zoo director said earlier. Shawn and Gus decide that the ranger is hiding something.
At the police department Captain Conners walks in apparently thinking it's 20 years ago, asking for Henry, and saying he's going to go over the Zoe Sharpe file again. Captain Conner sits at Lannister's desk, and gets angry when Lannister asks if there is someone they could call. Shawn and Gus arrive just in time to watch Captain Conner fighting with Lannister. Captain Conner asks Shawn for help, calling him “Henry”. After a moment of hesitation Shawn defends the Captain, and escorts the captain out of the building. Before he leaves Shawn sees Mike's girlfriend, Sabrina, sitting with the box of Mike's possessions. Shawn notices some stuff on the bottom of Mikes shoes. Sabrina tells Shawn that Mike was from the east coast, and had come to Santa Barbra to find his birth parents. His mother had been dead for 20 years, but his father was still alive. Unfortunately his birth father was wealthy, and difficult to get close to. Shawn notices a bottle of medication in the box labeled biotin.
Gus and Shawn arrive at Mort Crocker's estate, and due to Gus' medical knowledge, suspect Mike's biotin indicates a hereditary disease, and if they can find more medication they can link Mike to Mort. Shawn wants to just walk inside and search the house, thinking they can use the various people setting up a party as cover, but they are quickly discovered by Mort's wife Edna Crocker, who throws them out of the estate. Gus takes Shawn to a pharmacy where he thinks they can pick up Mort's prescription, but the pharmacist says they don't have the prescription. Shawn begins acting like someone who's going off their anti-psychotics, and the pharmacist says that the prescription was filled 2 months ago, and was for biotin.
Lassiter and Julie meet Shawn, Gus, and Captain Conner outside the cafe. Shawn tells Lassiter that Mike was in town to meet his birth parents, Zoe (his mother), had been dead for 20 years, but Mort (his father) was still alive. Mort killed Mike to protect his reputation. Lassiter asks about the lion. Shawn prompts Captain Conner, who realizes that Mort dumped Zoe's body in the hills where the lions, hungry due to the long hot summer of 1986, ate the evidence covering the murders tracks. Lassiter then says that Mort has a airtight alibi, he was talking to a crowd of 200 people in Chicago at the time of Mike's death. Captain Conner, incensed that Mort is getting away with a second murder, storms to his car and drives off to arrest Mort.
At the estate the party is in full swing when Captain Conner runs up to Mort to arrest him for murder. Mort seem unconcerned, and Lassiter soon arrives to remove Captain Conners, but he runs off into the house before Lassiter can do so. Everyone runs after the Captain, and Shawn notices that the potting soil from the estate is the same substance that was on the bottom of Mike's shoes. Shawn reveals that it was Mrs. Edna Crocker that killed Mike. The Captain crawls out from the table he was hiding under, and remembers that the ranger is Edna's brother, and he must have used the lion to cover up the latest murder. Shawn tells Lassiter to check the security camera for the estate, Mike should be shown arriving on the day of his death. Edna admits to the murder, if Mike had lived Mort would have given him half of his fortune, just like he would have if Zoe had lived. Captain Conner's triumphantly tells Lannister to arrest Edna Crocker.
The next day at the cafe Henry and Captain Conner are looking at the Captains new commendation. Henry asks Conner if he's going to go after more cold cases, Conner says he's going to leave that to younger people. The camera pans over to Shawn, Gus, and Trish in a different part of the cafe. Trish thanks Shawn for giving her father a moment of glory. Shawn asks Trish if she remembers the incident with the tennis ball and the ostrich, and if she'll finally admit she was the one who did it. Trish says that Shawn still hasn't grown up. After Trish walks off it becomes evident that Shawn deliberately annoyed her so Gus would have a chance, but Gus prefers a fair fight. Shawn agrees, and says he'll kiss Trish in the next 10 minutes, and they both stand up and walk toward Trish.
Tropes in this episode:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Downplayed with Henry, refusing to believe that Connors actually did solve a murder and that Shawn is on the right track. He has a perfectly reasonable, highly emotional basis for this. His dear friend is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's. Where Shawn sees a case, Henry sees his friend's mind falling apart.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: When Shawn is posing as a foreign animal expert he impersonates a Nordic accent for himself, and claims Gus speaks a dialect that involves almost nothing except clicking.
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Genius Bonus: Specifically, he calls this language Xhosa, which is an actual click language (and Shawn even pronounces it more-or-less correctly). When they're actually "conversing", however, it's just a bunch of random clicks and sounds.
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- Blatant Lies: For a given level of blatant. The zoo worker said that the season had been incredibly lush and the lion should have been well-fed, but was surprisingly malnourished. The park ranger says the season's been particularly dry.
- Contrived Coincidence: Shawn, correctly, refuses to accept that it's just a coincidence that the man Connors knew was a murder victim happened to turn up "attacked by mountain lions" after Connors stated that would be the case, and that it matched a previous case Connors worked on.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Shawn is ripping the Missing poster off the bulletin board, there are posters referencing past episodes such as a Wanted poster for a "Green Spirit" comic book from the previous episode
- It's Personal: Connors took a leap and believed Shawn in the past when his father didn't. Shawn remembers that and is determined to believe Connors today.
- Oh, Crap!: Shawn sees a crossword puzzle with distinctive lower case 'i's filled in and starts to panic. His father's there.
- Later, Connors, determined that Crocker won't get away with it again, gets in a car and drives off.Lassiter: He wouldn't do anything stupid, would he?
Shawn: Define stupid.
Lassiter: Go after Crocker himself.
Everyone: [bolts]
- Later, Connors, determined that Crocker won't get away with it again, gets in a car and drives off.
- Red Herring: At first, it seems the victim's biological father killed both him and his late mother in order to keep his wife from knowing about the affair. But as it turns out, it's the other way around. The victim's father was willing to welcome him into his family with open arms all along. It was the wife who had a problem with him and hired her forest ranger brother to make it look like a mountain lion attack.
- Refuge in Audacity: Two entirely clean and well-groomed men claim to have been lost in the woods for days.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Captain Conner has early onset Alzheimer's. The crime this episode was structured such that his accusations seem like a symptom of his disease. However, it's really the case that the villain of the week is essentially repeating a crime he committed in the past. Murder someone, pin it on a mountain lion.
- She's All Grown Up: Both Shawn and Gus are in awe at how beautiful their childhood classmate Trish has grown up to be.
- Smug Snake: Mort Crocker definitely comes off this way, looking like a rich bastard who has committed multiple murders. Turns out, he's definitely rich and only maybe a bastard. His wife committed the murders and he had no idea. In fact, he's heart-broken to learn the truth.Crocker: Please, Edna... tell me you didn't.
- Spotting the Thread: Shawn notices that the drag marks come from one direction, while the mountain lion's tracks come from the other direction. They should come from the same place if the lion was dragging its prey back to its lair.
- Thicker Than Water: The reason Park Ranger DeSoto is willing to help cover up a murder; his sister is the murderer.
