Episode Title: "Dead Bear Walking"
Writer: Andy Berman
Director: Andy Berman
Story:
When a zoo trainer is found dead inside a polar bear's housing, Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) quickly pins the blame on the great arctic beast. However Shawn (James Roday) suspects there's more to the murder than a simple case of bear-on-trainer violence.
With Lassiter's little sister Lauren (April Bowlby), a beautiful aspiring documentary filmmaker in tow shooting the investigation, Shawn and Gus (Dule Hill) splinter off from her big brother to look into their own leads. Gus takes a shine to Lassie's 'lil sis but at the same time can't get past her biological connection to SBPD's cantankerous head detective. As for Lassiter, he does nothing but play to the camera, to the point of compromising the investigation. Meanwhile Jules (Maggie Lawson) is reduced to giggles when the camera is on her.
Shawn tracks down one of the hippie protesters from the zoo who leads him to the bear, which was believed to have escaped from its inclosure. Shawn brings the bear to the Psych office in order to stave off the inevitable euthanasia. His attention turns to the trainer's wife, who after talking to a neighbor, Shawn postulates was jealous of the trainer's relationship with the bear. However Lassiter appears to have beaten him to it, taking the woman in for questioning. But Shawn quickly disproves the theory, embarrassing Lassiter in front of his sister, who once looked up to him, in the process.
After putting two and two together, Shawn determines that it was the neighbor who killed the trainer over a property dispute. But in order to restore Lassiter to his former greatness in the eyes of his kid sister, Shawn let's the bumbling detective solve the case with some evidence stored at SBPD.
The episode closes with interview snippets from Lauren's documentary, including one in which we learn that Henry Spencer not only suspects his son has inherited male-pattern baldness but is counting on it. Ouch.
Breakdown:
I really thought this was going to be the one. By "the one," I mean the one episode of "Psych" that I really just didn't enjoy. But dagnabbit, they got me again.
The opening of "Dead Bear Walking" just didn't work for me. The introduction of Lassiter's beautiful younger sister, everyone's surprise over the fact that Lassie could even have a comely sibling and her planned documentary on SBPD all just felt off.
And the case of the zoo trainer killed by the polar bear he raised from a cub also seemed a bit too silly, even for "Psych." When Shawn smuggled the big white beast into the Psych office with the help of his new hippie buddy, I just about wrote the episode off as a clunker.
But once the boys started digging their heels into the case, "Dead Bear Walking" really started to hum. At first, the introduction of Lassiter's documentarian sister seemed like nothing more than another excuse for Shawn to embarrass Gus. Like he needs more of those.
But in fact, Lauren's documentary added another dimension of comedy to the episode. I especially enjoyed watching Jules (who is usually a straight woman to Shawn's antics) freeze up and smile like a big dork every time the camera was turned on her. And that last moment, when the usually highly composed detective goes to arrest the baddie and drops the cuffs was priceless.
As I mentioned in my look at the previous episode in this "Psych" doubleheader, "The Polarizing Express," it warms the cockles of my heart when the boys do good deeds, so naturally I was heartened when Shawn let Lassiter take the glory for cracking the case.
While I love watching Shawn and Gus do their thing, I think "Psych" is at it's best when the the writers' spread the comedy love throughout the cast. "Dead Bear Walking" had fun with Jules and Lassiter, two characters who usually play it perfectly straight. I only hope Lauren's documentary makes it onto the Season Five DVD bonus features.
Crave Online Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
