Psych – Any Given Friday Night

In the spirit of Super Bowl weekend, USA Network gave us new, football-themed episodes of Monk and Psych. For fans of USA’s Friday night lineup (me), fans of American football (me), and fans of awesomeness (oh yeah, me), this weekend rocks.

When a dismembered foot ends up in police custody, Shawn and Gus go undercover at a football training camp to investigate the disappearance of the team’s kicker. Mykelti Williamson, aka Bubba from Forrest Gump, guest-stars as the Los Angeles Thunderbird’s head coach.

Lassiter and Juliet are pretty sharp this episode. They get very close to solving the crime without any help at all, which gives Shawn ample screen time to ham up his undercover role – as the team’s new kicker. While the adults are off doing the real investigating, the kids have a blast pretending to be football players.

The team’s colors and logo looks like a cross between the Baltimore Ravens and the Seattle Seahawks. And player names seem copied straight from NFL rosters. This episode’s flimsy plot is simply a placeholder. It is there to set up the real purpose – an homage to the game of football and a chance for the cast and crew to have a whole lotta fun.

* My absolute favorite moment was when Shawn mentioned he would make up missing a camping trip with his father by watching a couple episodes of The Mentalist with him. That darn CBS show… Every time an ad comes on for The Mentalist, I rail out aloud angrily. Usually I’m the only one in the room, so now you will all feel my wrath. The Mentalist? More like The Unoriginal Rip-Off-ist. I’d like to know your thoughts.

Favorite Pop Culture References:

Lassiter: Where have you two been? We’ve left you twelve messages!

Shawn: Sorry, we were having our bi-annual Rae Dawn Chong movie marathon.

Lassiter: Did you see Quest for Fire?

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Shawn: Sorry about that. It’s what happens to us when we run into one of our heroes. Gus almost fainted when we ran into Ralph Macchio at Del Taco.

Gus: For the record, he was not working there.

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Shawn: Benji the locker room attendant let us in. Big fan of Rent. Told him Gus was Taye Diggs, so he also gave us these old jerseys. How do I look Jules?

Juliet: Like my eleven-year old nephew in his Peyton Manning pajamas.

Shawn: Your eleven-year old nephew is ruggedly sexy. It’s weird.

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You know a show’s success is going to its head when it starts referencing itself. The photos in the dry cleaning store are of Ralph Macchio from The Karate Kid, Vlad Alexavic (the missing kicker), and Chad, the Spanish language soap opera character Shawn briefly played in Season 2’s “Lights, Camera… Homicidio.”