Directionless Vector

feel like psych deserves more credit for manifesting guest stars from almost every single property it referenced. i know plenty of shows have pop culture relevant guest stars but none of them make references that are so very specific and none of them get 99% of their references to actually show up. like psych will throw out a name exclusively for the bit and then an unpredictable number of episodes/seasons later that person will literally show up as murderer/victim/random extended family member of the week with no comment. george takei. william shatner. cybill shepherd from moonlighting. almost every single actor from the breakfast club (one of them recurring!). biff and doc brown from back to the future. dr frankenfurter himself. literally carey elwes. john cena??? john rhys davies. half the cast of twin peaks. the original "come on son" guy. alan ruck. michael rooker. both leads from she's all that. winston from ghostbusters. bud's mom from the cosby show. curt smith from tears for fears (who also sang live with them at an event, like, twice). they mentioned billy zane and val kilmer so many times per season that through sheer willpower they got billy zane and val kilmer to both show up in their series finale. those guys committed to their bits so hard that they ended their show with one of the most diversified and stacked cameo rosters in tv & thats honestly so funny and iconic of them

I love love love the psych pilot bc it introduces shawn as this really gritty bad boy who rides a motorcycle and is a perfect shot and has just enough charisma to be having sex all the time but also just enough drama to be calling in tips to the local police (and then pretending to be a psychic about it instead of doing literally anything else) and in opposition to that it introduces lassiter as this mean nasty cop who’s having an affair (?) and hates everyone but in a serious way not a funny way and then for the rest of the show shawn never acts like that again and lassiter does act like that but in the most pathetic meow meow extreme you’ve ever seen. AND YET the homoerotic tension from the pilot never changes ever. actual cinema.

The Shawn & Gus dynamic in Psych is so subtly yet beautifully shaped by the fact that they cast a naturally deadpan introvert to play the world's most hyperactive attention-seeking detective, then cast a chronic theater kid to play his supposedly boring, reasonable best friend

one of my favourite things about psych as a sherlock holmes variant is that it nails the freak4freak dynamic of the original, specifically gus being the watson to seeming like the normal, well-measured counterpart to shawn's insanity until he's spotted 3 meters away doing the same thing if not worse

psych is so funny. shawn pulls gus out of his day job, they walk into a crime scene uninvited, then shawn goes "hi jules! <3", pisses off lassie, looks at stuff for five minutes, touches things in an active crime scene with no gloves, says "bye jules! <3" pisses off lassie again, breaks into someone's home, lies to people, gives gus a stupid name, bothers his dad, lies to the police, solves the entire case, and gets paid, meanwhile gus hasn't been at work for three days because he's been making sure no one punches out shawn's lights