Season 3, Episode 14
Truer Lies
"A hired assassin... no, two of them, actually. Yes, you see, that has to be it! The night before, I went to this restaurant to get a basket of these things called fries cuatro quesos, dos fritos. You know, the ones where they inject potatoes with a four cheese mixture, fry them three quarters of the way, pull them out, batter them, fry them again and then serve them with bacon and an ancho chili sour cream. Anyway, as I was sitting there, a car speeds right through the storefront across the street! It makes such a loud noise, I had to turn my head and look, and that is when I overheard the guy with the curly Q's on his face tell the other guy at the corner table about the assassination plot!"
Directed by Martha Coolidge
Written by Tory Walker
Shawn is at the police station when a man named Ryan Bainsworth is brought in for the murder of his apartment building's Super. It seems "Lyin' Ryan" is a notorious compulsive liar who has been a pain in the ass for the cops for years, as he tends to call in phony tips that lead them nowhere. Ryan insists that he didn't kill his Super, telling an unlikely story about a pair of hired assassins who started gunning for him when they realized he had overheard their plans. Shawn starts looking into Lyin' Ryan's story, and discovers that a lot more of it adds up than one might expect. Now, Shawn and Gus have to figure out how much of Ryan's story is true, and where the two assassins might be... before they can finish the job and kill Lyin' Ryan.Tropes:
- Backup Bluff: At the very end, Shawn bluffs the assassins, claiming there's twenty police around the corner. The bluff gets them to hesitate just long enough for the police to actually arrive.
- Blatant Lies: Ryan tells a lot of these in addition to better-considered ones, making it difficult to tell when he's telling the truth.
- Cassandra Truth: Lyin' Ryan's entire story. When Gus Drives Like Crazy away from the hospital near the end on Ryan's word they're being followed, he finally slows down once they get to a back alley, and tries to kick them out… only for the very real assassins to pull up right behind them and start shooting.
- Compulsive Liar: Ryan Bainsworth, and how. He even lies to Shawn, who's obviously trying to get him off the hook, purely because of his compulsion.
- Consummate Liar: Deconstructed thoroughly; Ryan is a convincing liar—as is Shawn—but people who know them well are still reluctant to believe both of them.
- Crying Wolf: Nobody believes Lyin' Ryan's story for obvious reasons, even though Shawn detects that he might be honest this time.
- Easy Amnesia: A man named Tom Lieber seems to be connected to the whole thing, but he was hit by a car before the episode kicks off, and is in the hospital missing a lot of his memory. It slowly comes back to him over the course of the episode.
- Get Out!: Ryan leads the police to the hospital where a man named Tom Lieber is staying. They overhear several strangled yells from his bed, yank the curtains aside… and see he was playing a video game. Lassiter hits Ryan with this trope before he can say another word.
- He Knows Too Much: The assassins' troubles with this kick off the plot; Ryan Bainsworth overheard them in a diner, and they killed his super by accident while gunning for him. Ryan overheard their plans to kill Tom Lieber, who witnessed them killing a defense attorney.
- In-Series Nickname: "Lyin' Ryan" Bainsworth.
- Murder by Mistake: The assassins were trying to kill Ryan, but killed his Super by mistake when they caught him in Ryan's apartment.
- Skewed Priorities: As Shawn, Gus, the department psychologist, Juliet, and Vick watch Lassiter grilling Ryan at the beginning, Shawn gets distracted by Ryan's description of the fries at a restaurant he went to, and starts verbally musing about how cooking them would work while everyone else is trying to concentrate on the rest of his testimony.
- Skipping School: In the Cold Open, Shawn decides to skip school, and when Henry catches him, he gives a terrible excuse about a hypnotist who accidentally sent several kids to the hospital.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Shawn gives Vick some fries from a restaurant to try to get on better terms after Ryan duped them again.
- Useless Security Camera: Downplayed. The file on a security camera in a parking garage is badly corrupted, but the police see Tom Liebert running away from where the body of a defense attorney was found – however, Shawn also notices two shadows following him, but the file gets too corrupted to read before they can be seen.
