Psych – Thrill Seekers and Hell Raisers – review

After Gus breaks the news he has a secret girlfriend, Ruby (Sarah Shahi), Shawn puts her through an elaborate screening process, including crashing what he and Gus believe to be Ruby’s picnic with her friends. It turns out Ruby and friends are extreme sports enthusiasts, and the “picnic” is actually a whitewater rafting trip. During the trip, Ruby’s friend Stu–the most experienced rafter–disappears. Soon after that, Stu is suspected of killing his business partner.

One of Psych’s best elements is the banter among the series regulars. At times, I almost forget it’s a crime show. By contrast, the dialogue among Ruby and her friends seemed weighted down with hints: “We’re a tight-knit group,” “Stu’s the most experienced rafter,” and so on.

Given the guest characters’ loaded dialogue, I was all the more pleased not to spot the murderer too early. As much as I wanted Shawn’s suspicions of Ruby to be wrong and for Gus to be lucky in love, I couldn’t dismiss her as an accomplice–especially after she told Gus she knew Stu planned to fake drowning and begged Gus not to share this with Shawn. In fact, all of Stu’s friends seemed as if they might be covering up.

Gus finally broke down and told Shawn what Ruby knew. Shawn passed Stu’s whereabouts on the SBPD, but they found him dead of a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound. This threw suspicion onto Ruby’s friend Jessica (Stacy Keibler), who owned a rifle of the type that killed Stu’s partner.

When the episode’s perspective switched to Ruby on a excursion with another friend, I realized she was innocent and began rooting for Shawn and Gus to save her from the real killer. By the end of the episode, Ruby and Gus decided to take it slow, but she did seem a good match for Gus, and she met Shawn’s idiosyncratic approval. As a Shahi fan from NBC’s cancelled cop show Life, I’d love to see her back on Psych.

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.