Psych: “Let’s Get Hairy” Review

Stewart Grimbly (Joshua Malina) stops into the Psych office asking Shawn and Gus to tie him up as best they can and watch him through the night. Stewart believes he is a werewolf and that he has already killed a lamb. With their usual mix of fear and skepticism, Shawn and Gus agree to bind Stewart and keep an eye on him, but they fall asleep. Stewart appears to escape, crashing through the Psych office window, and waking up in the woods next to two dead hunters.

This episode wasn’t much of a mystery. As in the Exorcist spoof episode earlier this season, I knew there had to be a logical explanation, that Stewart wasn’t actually a werewolf. He was revealed to be a schizophrenic, and when David Naughton was introduced as Stewart’s psychiatrist, I knew Naughton’s character was the real culprit.

Supposedly, Stewart’s psychiatrist was dosing him with horse tranquilizers instead of his schizophrenia medication, looking to frame him for murder. I’ve seen horse tranquilizers used in TV and movies many times, but I’m not sure they work as advertised. Would they just put a man to sleep and not stop his heart?

The fun of this episode wasn’t in the specifics of the mystery, but in its spirit of Halloween fun, particularly the situations in which Stewart wakes up naked and how the other characters react to his nakedness. I also enjoyed Larisa Oleynik’s performance as Stewart’s sister Willow—owner of an occult shop—on whom Gus develops a crush. If I were a bigger werewolf movie fan, I would have gotten more out of seeing David Naughton, who appeared in An American Werewolf in London.

Psych often balances a far-out main plot with a very grounded B story or vice versa. In this case, the B story involved Henry trying to win a pickup truck by keeping his hands on it for the longest period of time. In the end, he faces off with an old rival (played by Back to the Future’s Tom Wilson). As competitive as they were, I was surprised that Wilson’s character was trying to win the truck for charity. Until the credits rolled, I expected the charity to be a scam cooked up to make Henry let go.

“Let’s Get Hairy” was a good lighthearted break before next week’s midseason finale, in which Shawn is apparently kidnapped and shot.

About Gerald So

Gerald So covers THE BIG BANG THEORY, BONES, BURN NOTICE, NCIS, NCIS: LOS ANGELES, and PSYCH each week for BSCreview. His personal blog is If You Want to Know About My Life.