PSYCH: “In For A Penny”

If there is one thing I have wished for on PSYCH this season, it is more use of Juliet. This episode delivered on that wish, with the added bonus of William Shatner as Juliet’s very Shawn-like father.

We start off attending Juliet’s birthday party, circa 1990. She’s upset because her dad didn’t show up for it. She had a piece of cake saved for him. Little Juliet is disappointed.

Back in the present, the SBPD and Psych team are working on a case involving stolen oxygen tanks. Shawn and Gus are also planning Juliet’s 30th birthday bash, complete with bounce house and slip ‘n slide. She has a birthday card from her dad on her desk, and explains to Shawn that her dad is off limits to him. He missed most of her birthdays anyway. Things with her dad are complicated, and she wants Shawn to stay out of it. We know what that means.

Leaving the department, Gus wonders what Juliet meant about her dad not being “presentable”. Shawn thinks that despite Juliet’s words, she wants him to solve the problem. Gus strongly disagrees. Good try Gus, but you know he never listens. They use the address Shawn got from Juliet’s card to track her dad down, eventually catching up to him on a golf course. Shawn introduces himself as the man dating his daughter. Mr. O’Hara shakes his hand, says it’s a pleasure to meet him, then invites him for drinks at his chateau. Shawn and Gus love the word “chateau.”

Juliet’s dad wants to know how Shawn makes a living, then doesn’t take him seriously when he says he’s a psychic detective. Mr. O’Hara wants to repair the relationships in his life, especially with Juliet. Shawn wants to be the middleman, help bring them back together. He thinks he can fix this.

Back at the station, Juliet wants to know why Shawn and Gus are smiling. Shawn blurts that her dad is coming to her birthday, which doesn’t have the effect he was hoping. Juliet is not happy. He was wrong in thinking it was what she wanted, which comes as no surprise. Shawn and Gus tell her how rich and powerful her dad is…but Jules has a little surprise for them as well. Daddy O’Hara isn’t any of those things, he’s a con man.

We see a glimpse of a prison, where a group of masked men are breaking in. Very organized masked men. They are there to rescue an inmate, and come up through the floor to do just that.

Shawn and Gus confront Mr. O’Hara about being a con man. He prefers “confidence man”, and admits it, but he’s willing to go straight to fix things with his daughter. Shawn still wants to help. Gus is out. Shawn has to sweet talk Gus back into the plan. They go back to SBPD to see Juliet and arrive just as a briefing on the prison breakout is starting. Mr. O’Hara recognizes the prisoner, and when he speaks up, Juliet realizes he’s there. She asks “Frank” what he’s doing there. She’s not happy to see Frank, and Shawn is going to be in the doghouse big time. Frank risks life and limb by speaking up and giving his thoughts on the breakout and what the criminals must be planning if they broke Jimmy out of prison. Lassiter asks how Frank knows so much, but Juliet has heard enough and wants to talk to her dad and boyfriend in another room. Frank tries to save Shawn and Gus from her wrath, then throws them under the bus and says he would have left if they hadn’t convinced him to stay. Turns out Shawn isn’t in the doghouse, he will have to work hard to make it into the doghouse. Shawn believes Frank is sincere about wanting to repair his relationship with her. Using the case as his ‘in’, Frank gives her insight into the gang they are searching for and what they might be up to. Jules still isn’t ready to give him a chance, she says goodbye.

Shawn still tries convincing Frank to stay. Juliet calls Shawn in on a case…complaints about construction noise downtown, but the city never issued permits. He wants Frank to come with them, but Frank wants to abide by Juliet’s wishes and he’s not officially on the case. The light goes off over Shawn’s head…Frank is now officially on the case. Good thing, because Jules is ready to kick him out of the crime scene when he arrives. She is not happy at all to learn Shawn hired him.

Shawn tries to make Juliet understand, but she’s beyond frustrated by his not listening. They enter the SBPD only to find Frank leading a briefing. Jules is furious. Shawn realizes, while listening to Frank’s suggestions, the coin shows Gus likes to go to might be the gang’s target. There is a coin at the upcoming show worth millions.

They go to the center hosting the coin show to ask questions. Shawn notes the name of a safe deposit company on a list they are shown. They question an electrician working there temporarily. Lassie is sure the guy knows nothing, he didn’t fold under his expert interrogation. Shawn and Frank both notice nervous tics and simultaneously declare he’s hiding something. Then they do a chest bump, excited they are practically reading each others minds. Juliet goes in to talk to the guy and tells him she has a little girl, temporarily freaking Shawn out until Frank tells him she’s just playing him. Juliet’s ‘good cop’ act works, and the guy tells her about a man who approached him and paid for information on the grounds where the coin is held. Frank is proud as he watches from the other room.

They watch the convention grounds from a van. Frank keeps picking out potential bad guys in the crowd, but keeps batting 0. The coordinator of the convention complains they are scaring people away. While he’s there, they receive notice that the safe deposit company was just robbed. That’s where the convention was keeping the real multi-million dollar penny.

Back at SBPD, Juliet sits down by her dejected looking father. He blew it out there, he was guessing. Lassie calls out to Juliet to come see the photos from the robbery. She invites Frank, but he feels he’s done enough damage already. Looking at the photos, Shawn recognizes a mark on one of the robbers necks, it‘s one of the guys that was playing golf with Frank when they found him. Shawn believes Frank conned them. He and Gus go out to find the guys that stole the penny. They end up back at the mansion where Frank has been squatting. Frank really did come to town to try and patch things up with Juliet. He didn’t decide to go after the penny until he found out about the other crime team at the police department and realized he could blame it on them. Shawn gives him until morning to make things right, otherwise he’ll tell Juliet everything.

When Shawn and Gus arrive at the department the next morning, Juliet is excited to tell them they got their man. An anonymous tip led them to him. Frank is there, still saying nothing. Shawn confronts Frank about planting the evidence on the guy, Chad. Frank says it’s win-win, cops get a bad guy, the penny goes back where it belongs, and Juliet never has to know. In the interrogation room, the suspect says someone had to have come into his room like a ghost while he was sleeping. You can see the moment Juliet puts it together. She leaves the interrogation room and chases her father down in the parking lot. Years of pent up anger start flowing, Juliet says a lot of very unpleasant things to her father. She doesn’t care about all the things he missed in her life. What really makes her sad is all the moments to come that he will miss, because she doesn’t want him to be there.

From the Psych office, Shawn is on the phone with Juliet, still begging forgiveness. Shawn even tells Frank off a bit. Chad, the suspect Frank tried to frame, was released, and they realize he is now free to go ahead with whatever his original hit was. Based on concert tickets they found in his place, they realize he’s been casing aconcert venue. Shawn and Gus go on stakeout with Juliet and Lassiter outside the concert hall. Frank shows up. He apologizes to Juliet, and sounds sincere. The one thing he can’t live with is not being there for all the important moments in her life. She says he already missed them. Frank surprises her by recounting things that happened at many of her important moments. She realizes he was there, hiding, at all those events. He thought she might be embarrassed by him, and he knew that her mom had remarried and given her a wonderful stepfather. Juliet has tears in her eyes as Frank leaves.

The criminal gang is putting their plan into motion, and Frank sees them. He gets back in the van and tells them who they are looking for. The robbers are there in a radio station van for a station that doesn’t exist in Santa Barbara. They don’t want to take them down there, with all those people. Someone could get hurt. Frank has a plan. The robbers get in their van, signal for the driver to go. The police van follows. As the robbers van pulls up in front of SBPD, we see Lassiter is driving it. When the back door to the van opens, the gang is arrested.

Juliet’s 30th birthday party happens at the Psych offices. She asks Shawn where her ponies are. Apparently they were too expensive. She does have the bounce house though. She thanks Frank for coming and excuses herself to mingle. Shawn asks Frank where the penny is…he knows the one Frank returned was a fake. Frank claims it’s being returned to the evidence room right then. Juliet returns and wants to know what they’re talking about. Shawn manages to change the subject by enticing her with cake. Alls well that ends well.

I couldn’t help but feel for Juliet’s disappointment in her father, but couldn’t help notice how much he was like Shawn in some ways. I’m sure Juliet will probably be more in the background in the next episode, but it was nice to see her featured more this episode. The only thing really missing in this episode, for me, was Woody the medical examiner. How could they possibly have a party without Woody?

PSYCH airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on USA.