PSYCH Recap: No Trout About It

We open this episode with a very flirtatious Henry preparing to run a 10K race. He’s got his eye on the cute girl next to him. Things go downhill quickly when a motorcycle speeds through the middle of the runners, followed closely by Shawn and Gus in the Blueberry. From the opposite direction comes Lassiter and Juliet in Lassie’s car. The two cars screech to a halt just they collide…a much lower impact than it could have been, but still enough to shake things up and spray a layer of dust over all involved. The mayor is very unhappy with the angry mob that results from the event, clamoring for justice. He sends in a no-nonsense consultant named Trout to evaluate.

Trout believes in firing first, asking questions later. He gives them all a chance to convince him they shouldn’t be fired, and the story of what led them on the chase begins to unfold.  Shawn relays the story of Leo Quinn, a client who hired he and Gus to find his murderer. He was healthy just hours before, but was a wreck when he came to them…sweating, yellow eyes. He had been to the hospital for tests already, and learned he had been poisoned. He has only a day or two to live.  They take Leo back to the hospital where his doctor confirms his story, and identifies the poison as Compound 1080. He also reassures Gus repeatedly that it isn’t contagious. Leo, despite being on his death bed, insists he must pick up his wife Rita at the airport. She’s been visiting her family in Mexico City. Shawn and Gus go to pick her up instead, and break the news of her husband’s impending demise. Rita turns out to be quite beautiful, and Shawn has a hard time believing a guy like Leo could land such a beautiful woman. He notices a few other things about her also. She doesn’t seem very concerned about Leo, and there are no airline tags on her luggage. On a hunch, he calls her parents in Mexico and learns that she hasn’t been home in years. She suddenly moves up to  suspect number one.

She doesn’t remain at the top of the suspect roster for long. When Shawn and Gus go to confront her at her home, they find her bleeding on the floor…she’s dead. Shawn and Gus finally call in the police, and they learn a few more things during the investigation…Rita had sticky fingers, there is a lot of stolen merchandise in their home. Also, she was having an affair with a guy named Chuck.  The guys go back to talk to Leo. He reveals someone broke into his office a few days earlier. Shawn is a bit miffed that he just now gave up that information. Leo insists on going with them to help, and they search his office for clues. Shawn notices a file cabinet lock has been broken, and after looking inside they learn that a safe deposit key belonging to a wealthy client is missing. That box contained millions of dollars worth of diamonds. They go to the bank, with the client, and open the box. It’s empty, the diamonds were stolen.  No one is noted in the bank records as having opened that box, however there was a V. Manus who opened the box just next to hers.

They quickly learn V. Manus was a fake name, there is no one by that name in any database Juliet searches. He rented the box next to the clients intentionally. On the video it appeared he was opening his safe deposit box, but instead opened hers. He had the help of an accomplice, Charles Sax, a bank employee who quit the next day. Charles is also known as “Chuck”,  the guy with whom Rita was having an affair. They try to track down Sax at a hotel whose name Shawn noticed in an ad among the things at Sax’s home. He is staying there under Manus’ name. They find him and he tries to confess everything to them, but as he moves backwards onto his balcony he is shot from below before he can get the words out.

Trout seems more and more dismayed by the team as the story goes along, they haven’t really followed police procedure at any stage along the way. Still, he urges them to continue, probably just so he can ridicule them more. Shawn and Gus continue, telling him how they searched for Manus, and also of Leo’s death. They arrived at the hospital to give him a report just as his doctor covered him with a sheet. That’s not the end of Leo, however, Shawn and Gus are later given the urn containing his ashes. They put it in the Blueberry and continue searching for Manus. Shawn says they planned to spread the ashes at the docks, but something happened. Juliet realizes the “something” was the chase that resulted in the collision during the 10K….and the substance that covered all of them when they collided wasn’t cake mix as Shawn had claimed, it was Leo’s ashes. Lassiter is in the process of strangling Shawn when Chief Vick arrives and breaks it up.

Shawn tells the group that in addition to his ashes, Leo also left them a note in which he names a former client that might have a grudge. Shawn and Gus went back to Leo’s office to investigate said client, Curtis Stanzen. He has a long arrest record, so he definitely warrants further investigation. They call in Juliet and Lassiter and go to the Stanzen’s home. He must have seen them coming, because he speeds off on a motorcycle while they are waiting for him to open the door. This results in the chase that ultimately ends up on the race course.  Stanzen crashes his motorcycle during the chase, and he’s dead when they catch up to him. Shawn recognizes him as the mysterious “V. Manus”, the thief and killer. He also has yellow eyes, suggesting he had been poisoned by the Compound 1080 as well. The medical report confirms this, and also provides Shawn with important clues. Stanzen has physical symptoms that were absent in Leo. In fact, the only major symptom Leo seemed to have was the yellow eyes. Shawn realizes Leo was the mastermind. He didn’t actually die. He hired the doctor to help him fake his death, then killed the doctor. That’s whose body was cremated. Leo killed Rita, because she was cheating on him. Also, he knew it would freak his co-conspirators out and they would turn against each other. It worked, because Manus killed Sax before ultimately dying himself. The only one left was the doctor, whom Leo also killed before making his getaway.

Shawn has an idea where Leo might be, so they all take off to find him….only, Trout stops them and forbids them to go. He’s giving the case to someone else and suspends the whole team. After he struts out of the room, Chief Vick tells them her hands are tied. They take it upon themselves to go after Leo anyway. They catch up to him at the airport, on his way to Rio (which Shawn had learned earlier was his favorite song). Leo tries to run away, but Juliet and Lassiter block his exit.

With the case resolved, the four go back to the station. Trout and Vick appear to be arguing. He leaves the office and stops to glare at them, then orders them back to work. He leaves, and Vick comes out of the office with a box of her things. The four of them may be going back to work, but Chief Vick has been suspended. Fighting back tears, she tells them she’s off to pick up her daughter at school. Trout returns and orders McNabb to clean out Vick’s office, and his own too because he’s fired over that whole moonlighting as a stripper thing. Trout is taking over as the temporary replacement for Chief Vick.  Shawn and Gus will no longer be employed by the department, and Lassiter will be demoted as lead detective. Trout arrogantly walks away, singing Shawn and Gus’s patented “Suck It” song. Something tells me his reign is not going to be pretty, and I can’t wait for this hiatus to be over to see how Shawn and Gus will get rid of him.

Psych returns to USA  this winter, and will finally air the long awaited and highly anticipated musical episode.