Season 3, Episode 13
Any Given Friday Night at 10PM, 9PM Central
Directed by Mel Damski
Written by Josh Bycel
"Two days!... to fulfill 20 years of fantasies."
Shawn is called down to the station after a severed foot is found by hikers. Shawn deduces it belongs to Vlad Alexavic, pro kicker for the L.A. Thunderbirds football team. It initially looks like Vlad’s ties to the Russian mob finally caught up to him, but Shawn is confused – it looks like the foot was intentionally left out for someone to find. He thinks it’s probably someone on the team who wanted Vlad dead for their own reasons. With the aid of coach Sammy Winslow, Shawn poses as a kicker, and Gus as his training intern, to infiltrate the Thunderbirds and see who might have wanted to kill Vlad…Tropes:
- Accident, Not Murder: What really happened to Vlad. He was offroad A.T.V.ing with some of the other players, got in an accident, and was killed instantly. The accident also severed his foot. It was covered up as a murder as the players' offroading activities were in violation of the behavioral causes in their contracts, meaning they would have been kicked off the team if they told the truth,
- An Arm and a Leg: Vlad's foot was severed at the moment of his death, and left to be found by a couple hikers.
- Attention Whore: Shawn gives ESPN an interview after being “recruited” onto the team, and asks Coach Winslow to be allowed to lead the team out onto the field for a game. He eventually gets to do it at the very end.
- Badge Gag: Shawn wants an official police badge, but is denied one because he’s not police. The best Juliet can give him is a laminated unofficial badge. Unfortunately, it turns into a Chekhov's Gun when the people involved in Vlad’s death find it.
- Baseball Episode: A football variant.
- Beleaguered Boss: Coach Sammy Winslow is basically if Da Chief was in charge of a football team, as he’s more competent than most examples of the trope. It’s just that some of his players are pretty hardheaded and wild.
- Eating the Eye Candy: While watching a practice, Juliet finds herself doing this to a player’s ass… and is stunned to realize she was ogling Shawn.
- Has a Type: A less aggressive example than most, but Juliet admits she has a weakness for football players.
- Initiation Ceremony: There’s some hazing for new team members, as Shawn and Gus find out when several other members of the team haul them up to the roof of the stadium and pretend to be about to throw them off.
- The Load: Shawn is a minor example for the rest of the team while undercover; he’s in decent shape and has some kicking skills, but he's nowhere near good enough justify a legitimate spot for a tryout. They invent that he's recovering from an MCL tear as an excuse for him to not be practicing yet.
- The Mafiya: Vlad had a lot of connections to them, and it's initially believed they killed him after owing them too much money that he couldn't pay back.
- Out of the Frying Pan: Gus is visibly disturbed upon first seeing the foot in the coroner’s office, and leaves through the nearest door… right into the storage room where they keep whole bodies for identification. Gus comes back in a hurry.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: In the Cold Open, young Shawn meets then-quarterback Sammy Winslow after a crushing defeat, and explains why he threw an interception in the third quarter, giving him some advice. Sammy stumps off… then comes back and gives little Shawn a football as thanks.
- Starstruck Speechless: Shawn and Gus have this reaction when meeting Coach Winslow – they don’t say a single word while Lassiter and Juliet are asking him questions.
- That Came Out Wrong: Gus is unhappy that, in his role as a training intern, he’ll be expected to massage some of the players. In his own words, “I only use these hands to touch myself!... Let me rephrase that.”
- Thrill Seeker: Several members of the team are this, to the point where Coash Winslow had to put a clause in their contracts saying that anyone caught participating in risky behavior off the field would lose their spot on the team. A group of four of them – who called themselves the “Warriors” – were the worst offenders.
- Who Murdered the Asshole: According to Gus, nobody on the team really liked Vlad; he either owed them money, tried to sleep with their wives, or called them out in the press.
