PSYCH: “Indiana Shawn and the Temple of Kinda Crappy Rusty Old Sword” Recap

It’s been a long break, too long. When we left off before the holidays, a shocked Gus had found an engagement ring in Shawn’s Nintendo. An event that Gus didn’t seem likely to just let slide.

We pick up in the spring premiere with a flashback to Shawn’s childhood. It’s 1991 and his pet lizard has died. Much as Henry tries to push Shawn to facing the tragedy and give the pet a proper burial, Shawn ends up running away. Twenty years later, Shawn really hasn’t changed that much.

Back in the present, Gus confronts Shawn over the engagement ring. Shawn says it’s his emergency ring, if a perfect proposal moment suddenly presented itself he would want to be ready. But he isn’t ready for marriage right now, although he hopes to some day. Gus doesn’t appear entirely satisfied with the answer, but he lets it go.

Shawn and Gus go to the Santa Barbara Art Museum to scope out a priceless collection they are hosting. Shawn gets his GPS watch caught in a crate of artifacts, he mistakenly thought there was a candy bar inside. The curator, Chris Holme, is furious with them. He didn’t sign on for them guarding anything, so he makes them wait outside. Instead of standing guard over the display, they have to guard a wall at a loading dock. They see a woman being chased by two men at the end of an alley and Shawn runs to her assistance. When he calls out to them, the men run away and the woman is incredibly thankful for Shawn’s help, and to a lesser extent, Gus’s. While they stand there talking to her, they see an explosion in the area of the art museum. They run back and find that the wall they had been guarding has blown up and a truck drives through making a getaway.

At SBPD, Mr. Holme is furious as he demands Shawn and Gus be put in jail. Annoying as they may have been to him, Lassiter doesn’t see that they have committed any jailable offenses. Shawn remembers he lost his GPS watch in the crate, which he keeps to himself until he and Gus are alone. Maybe they can find it and save the art collection. Gus can’t locate the watch, because it needs it’s distress signal on to work. They need someone more experienced in art theft, someone savvy, someone like….Despereaux. Shawn already called him, and he’s there and anxious to help.

Holme tells Lassiter and Juliet that the artifacts are priceless. It was a collection from an eccentric rich man, sort of a combination of Howard Hughes and Indiana Jones, Yearden. Juliet promises they will find it, but Holmes is inconsolable. He will be forever known as the man who lost the Yearden Masters.

Gus says Despereaux can’t help them because he’s on trial at the time for doing the exact same thing they are investigating. Despereaux assures them his acquittal is imminent, he’s shocked it hasn’t all been called off already. He says he will locate their GPS signal, but it will take him a couple of hours. In the meantime, Shawn and Gus prepare, which means Shawn gathers his best Indiana Jones garb. Despereaux leads them to what appears to be an abandoned plant, and they sneak in. They spy on the criminals in their lair, and are surprised to see them take a civil war era dagger and leave all the priceless paintings behind. They are more surprised to find that the woman they rescued is their ringleader. Her name is Jacqueline Medeiros and she’s one of the best. Despereaux is curious why someone of her caliber would go after such a collection, valuable as it is it’s small potatoes for her. He thinks she must be going after Yearden’s core collection, it’s a legend that he kept his most secret and valuable items kept in a core collection, but he died before anyone could find out where it was kept. Despereaux slips away from them to move in closer.

Juliet is worried about Shawn, he doesn’t take failure very well. She doesn’t feel any better about things when he won’t answer her calls. She doesn’t know that’s because he’s busy at the plant, watching Despereaux steal the dagger while the criminals backs are turned. When Despereaux gets back to Shawn and Gus, the bad guys notice it’s gone and it doesn’t take them long to spot their uninvited guests. The three make a run for it, with the bad guys in pursuit. They separate, and Shawn and Gus are to meet Despereaux at a boat he showed them on the way in. Only, Shawn and Gus end up in a different boat. As they struggle to start it, they see Despereaux pass by, with Medeiros and her crew close behind him. Despereaux’s boat becomes disabled from gunshots, and as Shawn and Gus look on from the sidelines, his boat explodes.

The police arrive on the scene, and Juliet regretfully informs Shawn and Gus that Despereaux is dead, but the good news is they recovered the stolen paintings. Lassiter, however, couldn’t be happier that Despereaux is gone. That, coupled with Shawn’s screw-up at the art museum is making this one of his best days ever.

Despereaux’s attorney visits Psych to inform Shawn that he was left the bulk of Despereaux’s possessions. His cash accounts in the amount of 1.6 million dollars were all willed to Psych, and Shawn is to give the eulogy. He doesn’t think he can do it, after all these years Shawn is still unable to face death. Gus will be there front row, and will start the wave if need be. He’s rather excited over the money Despereaux left. Shawn is torn by the tragedy…Despereaux was about to be acquitted. Well, so he said. His attorney says otherwise. With this information, Shawn realizes Despereaux isn’t dead. He goes to Woody and asks to see the remains, which consist of teeth, part of a foot, his wallet, and a bunch of Gus’s belongings he apparently lifted off him. The dental records match, they have everything but the DNA and it will arrive soon. Woody is sure it’s him. Shawn refuses to accept it, even with Henry encouraging him that it’s okay to hurt.

At the funeral, Shawn is sure Despereaux is somewhere watching. He makes jokes, not taking it seriously at all. That is, until Henry shows up with the DNA results confirming the remains were Despereaux’s. Shawn is devastated, and after having a breakdown at the podium he runs into Medeiros behind the church. She thinks Shawn has the dagger and threatens him. Henry interrupts, and she makes a quick exit. Shawn ID’s her to Juliet, Lassiter and Henry, and they go after her. Gus wonders why Medeiros thinks they have the dagger. Shawn thinks it might be because he does. He lifted if off of Despereaux before they split up during the getaway. The two of them end up having a little fight on the church lawn, which results in the dagger falling and breaking. Only, it didn’t break, it had a cap. And it isn’t really a dagger, it’s a key.

Back at the art museum, Holme tells Shawn and Gus that the core collection never existed. But he has seen a key like the one at the end of the dagger. It’s designed to open a lock you can’t see, deep inside something else. He saw one once before on Mr. Yearden’s estate. Shawn and Gus go to the estate and take a public tour with the tour guide from hell. Shawn spends most of the tour sticking the dagger any place he thinks it will fit, trying to find the lock. When he eventually starts tearing up a sofa cushion, he and Gus are tossed out of the tour. Finding themselves in front of the entrance, they sit on a concrete bench. Shawn notices a slot, and the key fits perfectly in it. When he pushes the key in, the water fountain in front of the bench stops running. Shawn keeps reinserting the key, trying to figure out what the rumbling sounds were that he heard. The tour guide catches him pushing the key in the bench, and throws them a little further out of the estate. On their way out, Shawn notices an open crypt that wasn’t open before. He and Gus go inside. Before they can find anything, Medeiros makes her presence known behind them, and she has a gun. She orders Shawn to open the crypts compartment. There are levers, and Shawn pulls one. The compartment opens, and a sign says “Look Behind You.” When Shawn and Gus turn around, they see Despereaux run up behind Medeiros and knock her out, proclaiming “Don’t you just hate people who kill you?”

Despereaux is incensed by how much she had enjoyed killing him. It was poor taste. Shawn is excited to see him, but wonders how he can be alive. He reveals that he had a perfectly good medical school body on ice. He already had the plan when Shawn contacted him and gave him a much better idea. He located the GPS signal immediately, but told them he needed a few hours to give him more time. He changed his planned accident. To get his DNA to match, he changed his DNA in the database to John Doe #12’s. He didn’t, however, anticipate Shawn stealing the dagger from him. It was a great move, and he no longer has anything to teach Shawn anything, the student has become the teacher. As to the core collection, they assume the answer is in an urn contained in the crypt, but it turns out to be nothing but ashes. Despereaux is sure something is wrong, it was Yearden’s legacy. If his ashes are in the urn, what’s in his crypt? They take a sledgehammer to Yearden’s crypt in order to find out. Once the outer wall is opened, they see the words “Congratulations,” and know they have found the core collection. The bad news is, it’s all Yearden’s actual paintings, the ones he painted himself, and they really aren’t very good. Shawn remembers the tour guide saying that Yearden’s own paintings were never seen. Those were his most treasured possessions. He wanted someone to go on a quest for his works the way he had for the masters paintings. They hear sirens approaching, so they get away while they can.

Despereaux hugs Shawn goodbye. The 1.6 million dollars he was leaving Psych will still be deposited in their account, but only for about nine seconds. Then it will disappear and they shouldn’t try to stop it. Gus threatens to refuse it, but Shawn argues. While the two of them bicker over whether they will accept it, Despereaux disappears.

Shawn apologizes to Juliet and Lassiter for his behavior at the funeral. They tell him not to beat himself up. Juliet tells him he found five paintings of the core collection in the crypt, that’s something. Shawn is confused, he thought there were six painting, but he must have been mistaken. At the same time, in a location unknown, Despereaux is seen in front of one of Yearden’s bad paintings. He sprays it and wipes it with a cloth, uncovering a valuable Rembrandt.

Psych airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on USA.