Season 4, Episode 9
Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark
"Trunk yelrfx ocone pol peac sig — binshot not lol"
Directed by Mel Damski
Written by Andy Berman
Gus, Lassiter, and O'Hara are summoned to a dark storage yard late one night by Shawn. However, when they get there, Shawn is nowhere to be found, but Gus receives a couple of cryptic texts. From a puddle of blood on the ground and by interpreting the texts, Gus realizes that Shawn was shot while investigating a crime they’d been working on, and was carried off by the criminal. Gus calls Henry, and Henry teams up with Lassiter while Gus teams up with Juliet to figure out what happened to Shawn, and where he is now...Tropes:
- Bullet Time: Shawn's quick reflexes and hyper-perceptiveness allow him to observe a bullet being fired from a gun. He can't move fast enough to actually dodge it, but it's still impressive.
- Car Chase Shoot-Out: Rollins gets caught in a shootout with the cops while they're trying to arrest and stop him from getting away with Shawn, whom he has as a hostage.
- Crazy-Prepared: Shawn's survival skills throughout the episode are the results of Henry teaching his eleven-year-old son what to do when, not if, he's in danger.
- Darker and Edgier: Not to the extent of the Yin/Yang Killer episodes, but it's still a good deal tenser and more urgent than the average Psych episode.
- Flashback: Gus uses this to explain the case they'd been working on for a few days.
- Shawn also remembers his father’s lessons about breaking out of the trunk of a car and evading pursuit in this fashion.
- Hot Pursuit: The climax: it's Lassiter and Henry in Lassiter's new car and Juliet and Gus in the blueberry, chasing Rollins in a red pickup truck with a tied-up Shawn in the back.
- Hypocritical Humor: When he goes to Shawn's place, Gus borrows one of Shawn's shirts so he doesn't have to keep wearing his fireman pajamas (he got out of bed in a hurry) the whole time. He's deeply annoyed when he realizes that a big chunk of Shawn’s wardrobe has been borrowed from him.
- Just a Flesh Wound: After being shot in the shoulder, Shawn wakes up, has the presence of mind to try to call Gus, text him, remember his father’s lessons to break out of the trunk of a car, run through the woods, and finally shoot out the engine of the main bad guy during a high-speed chase. with very little in the way of medical attention. He does pass out from the pain at one point after taking shelter, but that’s about it. Given a justification in that the man who shot him is former military, a sniper, and deliberately aimed for non-lethal incapacitation.
- Leet Lingo: Shawn’s last text message is mistaken for being written like this by Henry and Lassiter. Turns out it’s from texting in a hurry while in a bumpy car trunk after being shot, on a mid-2000s cell phone, causing a bunch of typos.
- Noble Demon: Macquerrie, one of the two criminals of the episode, is this. Though he shot Shawn, he’s actually the more decent of the two, allowing for Shawn to make a "last call" to his girlfriend.
- Not What It Looks Like: Henry locking Shawn in a trunk in his childhood was seen by a (horrified) neighbor. He was doing it as part of a lesson on how to escape a locked car trunk.
- Papa Wolf: Henry forces his way into the investigation about where Shawn went, and is an instrumental part of figuring out a lot of it.
- Poor Communication Kills: Shawn wakes up and tries to make a phone call from inside the trunk of a car after being shot. First, he accidentally calls an old date while trying to call Gus, but she hangs up on him. By this time, they’re out of range, so he’s forced to send a cryptic text through a haze of pain and a mid-2000s cell phone. It takes the main characters hours to work out everything in the text.
- Punk in the Trunk: After getting shot, Shawn is stuffed in a car trunk and driven up into the mountains. Luckily, Henry prepared Shawn for this when he was younger.
- Running Gag: Mostly related to Gus's choice of clothes. He ran out of his apartment so quickly that he didn’t get to change out of his pajamas. When a mechanic scoffs at his outfit before he has time to change, he uses a stop at Shawn’s apartment to borrow Shawn’s clothes. Cue Shawn, near the end, recognizing Gus wearing his shirt.
- Shout-Out: A number to the 1964 Inspector Closeau film A Shot in the Dark.
- Also, a more overt one to The Fast and the Furious in the climax.
- Skewed Priorities: At the end, Gus and Lassiter both yell at Shawn not to jump on their cars to get away from Rollins – the blueberry is a company car, and Lassiter’s is brand new. Shawn eventually goes with Lassiter’s.
- Tap on the Head: The mechanic Rollins delivers one of these to Shawn after Shawn turns his back on him.
- The Engineer: Macquerrie uses his skills as one for their plan: cut out a small weak spot – working as a “trapdoor” – in the bottom of an armored car, allowing him and his partner Rollins to run it off the road, break in, and steal the money in a hurry.
- Wham Line: "Oh my God. Shawn's been shot!"
- Wham Shot: After we see Rollins threatening Shawn with a gun, and hear a gunshot as the scene transitions, the police and Gus break into the gas station where Shawn’s being held. Inside, they find a body on the floor… Macquerrie, who was shot by his partner.
- You Have Failed Me: Rollins pulls this on Macquerrie after the latter allows Shawn to make a last call to his girlfriend.
