This episode opens with a flashback to 1990 establishing Shawn, Gus, and their friend Dennis Gogolak as UFO enthusiasts. Flashing forward to the present day, Roy Kessler, a lawyer on anxiety medication (Charles Martin Smith) witnesses a very convincing UFO landing and sees his partner abducted. Lassiter, O’Hara, and Henry arrive on-scene the next morning and dismiss his claim, but Shawn and Gus take his case.
Psych has shown Shawn to have been very open-minded as a boy, and while he remains fun-loving, he has become skeptical about the occult and the paranormal (e.g. demonic possession, werewolves…). I was surprised he hadn’t grown similarly skeptical of UFOs. Meanwhile, the first person Shawn and Gus consulted about the case was Dennis, who had apparently transformed from a chubby, nearsighted boy into an athletic software billionaire (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) with a stunningly beautiful wife (Becky O’Donohue). In front of his wife, Dennis claimed he was no longer interested in UFOs and couldn’t help Shawn and Gus. When his wife left, though, Dennis invited Shawn and Gus into a secret room of his house, filled with real UFO tracking equipment and sci-fi memorabilia.
As with even the most convincing paranormal episodes of Psych, I knew there would be a logical explanation behind the abduction, but until it was revealed, Shawn and Gus were laughingstocks at the station. For a while, I wondered if the Psych agency’s reputation would be affected. At the same time, even if you guessed Kessler’s assistant was scamming him, the partner’s motive was unclear.
The explanation involved a scheme by the CEO of Budding Textiles to convince people to vacate real estate that he would then buy and mine for oil. Discovering this, Shawn and Gus came as close to being killed as they ever have. Dennis had backed out of following Shawn and Gus onto Budding’s land, so I was pleasantly surprised when he came to their rescue.
I quibbled about adult Shawn maintaining his UFO fantasy, but I couldn’t help getting caught up in the fun of this episode. Freddie Prinze Jr. had great chemistry with James Roday and Dule Hill, as if the three of them really had been boyhood friends.
