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Recap / Psych S 02 E 05 And Down The Stretch Comes Murder

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Season 2, Episode 5

And Down the Stretch Comes Murder

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"And the race is on!"

Directed by Michael Zinburg
Written by Josh Bycel
Jimmy Nickles, a bully from Shawn and Gus’s childhood, has returned. Though he’s still an obnoxious jerk, he hasn’t grown much since childhood, meaning he’s far less psychically intimidating. He’s become a jockey – and a good one - but has been having some serious troubles in the race lately, and he wants to hire Psych to see what the problem might be. Gus is all for showing Jimmy the door, but Shawn takes the case. He feels guilty for an incident in their childhood where Jimmy hit the teacher with a spitball, the elderly teacher fell and hurt herself, and Jimmy got expelled when Shawn ratted him out.

At the track, Shawn and Gus meet the various people who frequent the races, including a philandering jockey named Juan Carlos, a track photographer named Ryan, Barry the track announcer, Phil Shershow, a lifelong gambler currently on a hot streak, and… Henry Spencer, who’s apparently been trying to get Shawn out to the track for years. Things seem to be going smoothly, right up until Juan abruptly dies and falls off his mount right after a race. His body is filled with a ridiculous cocktail of drugs – from barbiturates to horse tranquilizers – and not only that, but Juan’s latest fling was with Jimmy’s wife... but like the spitball incident in their childhood, Shawn soon realizes there’s more going on than meets the eye, and Jimmy might not be guilty of this.


Tropes:

  • Accidental Murder: The death of Juan Carlos turns out to be this. Barry's gang was attempted to tranq his horse, but Ryan ended up hitting him instead, with the tranquilizer mixing with the other drugs in Carlos' system and the adrenaline from the race resulting in his death.
  • Barbaric Bully: Jimmy Nickles was very much this trope in childhood. It eventually got him expelled.
  • Big "WHAT?!": Jimmy yells this when Gus mentions that among the evidence against him was that his wife had been having an affair with Juan Carlos, which clued Shawn and Gus in that he didn't know about it.
  • Catchphrase: Barry the Track Announcer has this in-universe: “And the race is on!”
  • CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted on the last one: track photographer Ryan’s attempt to perform CPR on Juan is a total failure. This is somewhat justified because Ryan didn’t actually do CPR properly, and just wanted the tranquilizer dart out of Juan’s body.
  • Flashback: Shawn spends much of the episode remembering the day he ratted Jimmy Nickles out for hitting the teacher with a spitball, since he was never entirely sure Jimmy actually did it. Turns out he didn’t – it was Gus.
  • Frame-Up: After Barry and his gang accidentally kill Juan Carlos, they decide to use Jimmy as their Fall Guy by planting an incriminating bottle of ketamine in his locker.
  • The Gambling Addict: Henry's friend Phil is one of these, and is in on the race fixing racket. It becomes appropriate when the crew allows one last race to get some money; as Henry puts it, a bad gambler never knows when to quit.
  • Hidden Depths: Turns out hardass cop Lassiter has a soft spot for horses.
  • Jerkass: Jimmy Nickles is obnoxious, rude, immature, and often just plain mean. He’s slightly better as an adult than he was as a kid, but that’s mostly because he can’t physically intimidate anyone any more.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: After being a cruel bully to Gus and Shawn for years, a young Jimmy Nickles finally got expelled for an unrelated incident that he wasn’t actually responsible for. Except at the very end, we learn he was a Karma Houdini after all: after getting expelled, he went to live with his father, who spoiled him rotten all his life and he still became a successful, wealthy jockey.
  • Literal Metaphor: Just before cracking the case, Shawn tells everyone to "hold their horses". The winning jockey then hugs his horse.
    Shawn: Not what I meant, but I like the love.
  • Meaningful Background Event: If you pay attention to the background when Shawn first thinks back to the spitting incident with his younger self, you can see young Gus behind them with his hands cupped together as the spitball hits.
  • Not Me This Time: Shawn suspects that younger Jimmy Nickles didn’t hit the teacher with a spitball after all, and that there may have been a “second spitter”. He’s right, and he’s not responsible for killing Juan Carlos, either. Gus, however, doesn’t really care, since Jimmy still did enough rotten things that Gus was just relieved when Jimmy got expelled.
  • One Dose Fits All: Averted, and averted HARD. Turns out hitting a 90-pound jockey and a thousand-pound horse with the same cocktail of drugs has a very different effect. Especially if said athlete has dozens of other drugs in his system.
  • Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Shawn comments that Ryan was fixing the races by knocking out the favorites, Juliet asks "With what, his camera?". Turns out, yes. Ryan's camera was actually a disguised tranq gun.
  • Running Gag: Henry’s “lucky track shirts” are all… very, very loud.
  • Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Jimmy Nickles doesn’t go out of his way to make things miserable for Shawn and Gus anymore, but he’s still an unrepentant jerk who tries pushing people around as best he can.
  • Skewed Priorities: Young Shawn ratted Jimmy Nickles out for hitting a teacher with a spitball, despite never being sure it was actually him. Not because Jimmy was a cruel, vicious bully, but because the principal was holding everyone late until someone gave him a name, Chips was coming on TV soon, and Shawn wanted to get home in time to watch it.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Shawn pretends to do this. He claims the horses aren’t happy with their food.
  • Tranquilizer Dart: Track photographer Ryan was hitting the horses with these, loaded with enough drugs to slow the horses down. His failed CPR attempt was an excuse to quietly remove the dart from Juan’s body.

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