Season 7, Episode 11
Office Space
"Creech, that is ENOUGH!"
Directed by Andrew Bernstein
Written by Andy Berman and Todd Harthan
Gus wakes Shawn up late one night, and explains that he might be in big trouble. He had a standoff with his vicious, cruel boss, Dorian Creech the previous afternoon, after which Gus wrote a note telling Creech he quit. That night, he realized that without his pharmaceutical sales representative job, he'd be in serious financial trouble. He returned to the office after hours, only to discover Creech had been murdered - and Gus' note was still in Creech's dead hand. While trying to hide the note out of fear it might implicate him, a series of accidents led to him inadvertently "tampering" with the scene of the crime (read: completely destroying the office) and leaving evidence of his presence everywhere. Shawn helps clean up the mess, but the surprisingly competent head of office security, Leslie Sally, still finds plenty of evidence that will connect them to the crime scene when it's fully analyzed. Now, Shawn and Gus need to find the real killer before the police discover all the evidence and arrest them.
Tropes:
- Alliterative Name: Mitch Murray.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Shawn helped Gus clean up a crime scene! And now Juliet is roped into it because her prints are on the coffee mug that he left in the parking garage! And he didn't do the dishes last night like he promised he would!Juliet: (baffled) But I heard the dishwasher running!
Shawn: (miserably) It was empty, okay?! I ran it empty! - Asshole Victim: Dorian Creech. It's actually a plot point, as this makes it a lot harder for Shawn and Gus to nab a potential suspect since virtually the entire sales team hated him.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Gus dials up the Large Ham while acting like he's never seen Creech's corpse until the morning when the police were investigating.
- Bad Liar: After discovering their secret, Woody begs Shawn and Gus to tie him up (they do so, at the Psych office) since he won't be able to keep their secret for the life of him.
- Blackmail Backfire: Dorian Creech was hoping to get Mitch Murray's cushy job by exposing that he was fudging the sales numbers to make Central Coast Pharmeceuticals look like it was doing better than it really was. This got him stabbed three times in the back.
- Bound and Gagged: Woody asks to have this done to him to make sure that he doesn't tell anyone about Shawn and Gus manhandling Creech's corpse.
- Breather Episode: Following a string of atypically serious episodes dealing with Shawn and Jules' break-up, "Office Space" is lighthearted and highly comedic.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mitch Murray, a senior VP from headquarters and Creech's killer. When Creech discovered he was tampering with the official sales numbers, he tried to blackmail Murray for his job, and Murray killed him. Murray then killed Leslie when he came too close to the truth.
- Disaster Dominoes: When Gus comes across Creech's body, he realizes the corpse is still holding his outraged resignation note, which he fears might make him a suspect. He panics, tries to eat it, almost chokes, and knocks several things over and vomits up quite a bit of water trying to force it down.
- Eat the Evidence: Gus eats his resignation letter after taking it from Dorian. Unfortunately, he chokes on it and spits it back up.
- Epic Fail: Gus' attempt at escaping the murder scene.
- Flashback: Several of them, to exactly what Shawn and Gus did to try and "Fix" the crime scene.
- Giver of Lame Names: Shawn plans to name his first child "Starfish, after the graceful and stylish sea creature." Gus approves.
- His Name Is...: Sally confronts Shawn and Gus over their cover-up, then reveals that he knows Gus isn't the murder, and smiles and nods when Shawn asks if he knows who the real killer is. But as soon as Shawn asks who the real killer is, Sally then falls to the ground, foaming from the mouth as a result of being poisoned.
- Hopeless Suitor: Gus gets an admirer in Finchy, one of his (male) co-workers. It doesn't work out due to Gus already having a girlfriend, plus the Incompatible Orientation.
- Hyper-Awareness: Leslie Sally is good at noticing missing objects and spotting suspicious items that should not be there.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Leslie Sally, the Head of Security at Santa Barbara's branch of Central Coast Pharmaceuticals, almost solves the whole mystery singlehandedly.
- In the Back: Dorian is killed when the killer stabs him thrice in the back with a letter opener.
- Incompatible Orientation: Ted Fincher has a huge crush (bordering on stalker levels) regarding Gus, who at best is weirded out by him.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In his introductory scene, Creech throws his letter opener at Helen, showing how much of an asshole he is. Mitch Murray uses that letter opener as the weapon to kill Creech.
- Logic Bomb: Lampshaded; When Woody starts panicking about how he's a Bad Liar, he notes that he was already reflexively dialing someone on his phone to unveil Shawn and Gus' secret. Cue a confused Shawn pointing out that Woody was dialing him.Woody: Don't pick up!
- Mean Boss: Gus' boss, Dorian Creech, who is somehow even worse than Ogletree in "Ghosts" was. Heck, Creech's Establishing Character Moment has him yelling his head off at his secretary for putting sugar instead of sweet'n'low in his morning coffee and then throwing a letter opener at her for not opening his mail for him. Is it any surprise he winds up getting murdered?
- The Nose Knows: Woody smells Gus' Cocoa Butter moisturizer and Shawn's Axe body spray on the corpse, and realizes they know more than they're letting on.
- Oh, Crap!: Both Shawn and Gus have multiple cases of this trope when realizing that Sally is really on the ball regarding how to solve the murder investigation.
- Overly Long Gag: Gus's initial attempt to escape the murder scene might go on for several minutes, but every second of it is gut-bustingly hilarious.
- Promotion, Not Punishment: Gus is terrified when Mitch Murray and Leslie Sally confront him about how he insulted his late boss in the middle of the office, only for Murray to promote Gus due to how brave that was. Later, Murray admits that he really promoted Gus because that act gave him a low opinion of Gus's intelligence and wanted an idiot in Creech's old job to avoid being blackmailed again.
- Race Against the Clock: Shawn and Gus are desperately racing against time to figure out who the killer is before Shawn's coffee mug is swabbed for fingerprints by the forensics and the SBPD think that they were the true murderers.
- Red Herring: Both Helen Blaine and Ted Fincher are suspected for murdering Creech before they're given definite alibis.
- Running Gag:
- People being surprised that Gus is still working his pharmaceutical job.
- Shawn suspecting that Gus might've actually killed Creech.
- One of Mitch Murray's scratch and sniff stickers has a pineapple on it.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As soon as they all spot police tape around Creech's office, Gus tries to run away and Henry has to physically drag him away from the elevator.
- Sexy Secretary: Creech's assistant Helen wears a form-flattering dress and inspires Gus (who is normally a Lovable Coward) to risk his job by coming to her defense when their Mean Boss screams in Helen's face and throws things at her.
- Sex with the Ex: Juliet tells Shawn that they aren't back together after last night, and the sex they had was a one-time thing.
- Shout-Out:
- Several to Glengarry Glen Ross.
- When Woody calls Shawn in the middle of the episode, Shawn answers with "Spenser for hire
".
- Something We Forgot: At the very end, as Shawn, Gus, and Juliet return to the Psych office, they remember that they never remembered to untie Woody from the couch where he's been all day.
- Strongly Worded Letter: Gus's resignation letter. "You're an a-hole! I quit!! Drop dead... Fondly Burton Guster. :)"
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Juliet hasn't even had coffee in twenty-eight hours! Twenty-nine hours! Twenty-eight hours!
- Wham Shot: Leslie Sally foaming at the mouth and falling over dead right when he was about to reveal to Shawn and Gus who actually killed Creech.
- Working Out Their Emotions: Shawn and Gus find Helen skipping work and jogging in a frightened, guilty haze. She thinks that Mr. Creech died because she put eyedrops in his coffee after he yelled at her. She's relieved to find out that he died of other causes.
- Workout Fanservice: Helen looks pretty good jogging in a low-cut tank top, especially once she stops feeling afraid that she may have accidentally killed her boss.
