PSYCH Recap: S.E.I.Z.E. The Day

With Psych no longer pulling in work from the police department, thanks to the rules of new Chief Harrison Trout, Shawn tries to find a new angle to pick up a paycheck. He decides he will be a life coach, despite Gus’s misgivings and the fact he has no experience. He will call the company S.E.I.Z.E., although he never does quite decide what the acronym will stand for.

Chief Trout lectures the troops and tries to inspire them in an odd and unsuccessful self promoting speech in front of a home they are about to raid. Shawn moves closer through the crowd and spots a dejected looking guy named Patrick that Trout won’t let return to his home next door. He appears to be a good potential first client for S.E.I.Z.E. Patrick is sipping his coffee and holding a bouquet of flowers he intended for his wife. It’s their anniversary, but she’s in the house and big bully Trout won’t let him pass. After a pep talk that only Shawn could pull off, Patrick is convinced to stand up for himself and demand Trout let him through. Of course, this advice gets him arrested. Lassiter is in the process of the arrest when he spies the suspect from the planned raid trying to escape. Lassie abandons his charge and bravely goes after and apprehends the criminal, but gets no credit for it. Trout doesn’t want anyone being acknowledged by name except himself. Trout continues his self promotion, but someone apparently has had enough…..shots ring out and the bullets narrowly miss the blowhard.

At the precinct afterward, Shawn targets Lassie as his next client. Lassiter needs to speak up for himself, get his position back. Lassiter takes the advice to heart….he takes over Juliet’s meeting (she’s the new lead detective since his demotion) and gives the officers an inspiring speech, then heads home to his wife. His newly returned spine doesn’t stay with him for long. Upon learning that Marlowe is pregnant, Lassie becomes the kind of coward that the real him would hate. All he can think about is how he needs to be there for his child, and what a dangerous profession he is in. He can’t even bring himself to approach a soccer mom in a van without calling for backup, for fear it may be Trouts’ would be assassin. Lassie has truly lost his mojo.

Lassie goes back to the precinct and joins the investigation into Trout’s attempted murder. There are enough people who want Trout dead to start their own club. He has an entire binder full of death threats he has received, and he’s oddly proud of them. With Shawn and Gus assisting, because he can’t admit to other officers that he is afraid, the suspect list is narrowed to Trout’s mom. Upon meeting her, it’s apparent where Trout gets his charm, but she really doesn’t like him. Trout seems absolutely thrilled that his mom is the top suspect, and he wants first crack at interrogating her. The mother and son reunion is interesting, enlightening and quite hostile, but before it’s over news comes in that there has been another shooting in town. The details are similar, the same kind of gun, same van spotted at the scene. Trout’s mom was in custody, so she couldn’t have done it. He’s so happy thinking it’s her, no one wants to be the one to tell Trout that it wasn’t his mom that tried to kill him.

The latest victim was injured, but still alive. He’s very much a jerk, just like Trout. Shawn’s theory is that someone is killing A-holes. He’s suddenly worried for his dad and gives him a call to make sure he’s okay. Trout loves the new victim, he’s going to be his new best friend and golfing buddy. He sends Lassiter to take A-hole #2’s personal belongings back to him, and the newly afraid of his own shadow Lassie encounters the van in the parking lot. He calls Shawn and Gus for backup. They find A-hole #2 dead in his apartment. The killer hunted him down to finish the job, which means the targets aren’t random and Trout is still in danger. They feel they should warn him, although Shawn questions whether or not they really have to.

Lassiter’s behavior is increasingly un-Lassiter-like. Shawn thinks about all the clues he has seen and things Lassie said, and wrongly concludes that he is dying. Gus tries to shed tears for Lassie and is embarrassed when he is unable to do so. Shawn is intent on getting Lassiter his old job back before he dies, but Lassie now has no job, not even in uniform. Trout is so livid that his new BFF is dead, he orders Lassie to turn in his ticket book and pens.

The boys tell Juliet that Lassiter is dying, and she invites him to come along to the fish market where they traced the suspect van and it’s owner. Lassiter thinks everyone is showing him sympathy because they know he lost his job, but he goes along anyway. Shawn sees a partial pair of glasses taken from inside the catch of the day and recognizes them from the photo of their suspect. They find the rest of the suspect inside one of the fishies, and he is no longer a suspect. In fact, they learn he was really kind of an A-hole, so the killer likely killed him and then took his van.

Shawn starts putting clues together…one thing some victims had in common was that they get their coffee from Java the Cup. Shawn recalls that the dejected guy Trout had arrested had a cup from that place in his hand. He certainly had reason to want to shoot Trout. It turns out that A-hole #2 was constantly cutting in front of him at the coffee shop, and his run-ins with fish market guy had gotten him fired from his job. His wife tells them that she kicked him out because after he lost his job he became scared of his own shadow. Who would want to be married to and have children with someone like that? These words cut Lassie like a knife.

Through the window, Lassiter spies Patrick sneaking into a cellar next door and goes after him. Patrick gets a drop on him and manages to disarm him. Lassie tries to reason with him, and reveals he’s going to be a father. When Patrick makes it clear his family will have to manage without him, Lassie has an epiphany. He wants to make the world a better place for his family. That awakening is all Lassie needed to get his mojo back….he dives, rolls, and comes up with the weapon takes Patrick down easily. Shawn, Gus, and Juliet overheard the conversation and congratulate him on his impending papa-hood.

Shawn decides S.E.I.Z.E. just isn’t going to work, but his last life coaching act is to convince Lassie to go to Trout and get his job back. Trout is still an A-hole, but he realizes from the reports that his new buddy was already dead before Lassiter arrived on the scene so it wasn’t his fault. He can have his job back, sort of…if Lassiter hated being a uniformed officer, he’s going to really hate being Trout’s driver. He does go to Henry for advice on fatherhood, though. Henry offers good advice, which Lassie appreciates. He still tickets Henry for having a broken signal light, but he feels good about becoming a dad.

Psych airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on USA.