The highly anticipated season six premiere of TV show Psych satisfied many a fan. Titled “Shawn Rescues Darth Vader,” the episode premiered on Wednesday, October 12, 2011. Psych is on Wednesdays at 10/9C on USA Network.
“I love Psych,” says super-fan Rachel Auton, an Arrowhead senior. “The endless eighties references are so funny, and I love that it can still be funny even if it’s not a reality TV show.”
The opening scene shows the main character, Shawn Spencer, at a fancy party, which fans know wouldn’t happen unless he came uninvited. Yes—he crashed a British Ambassador’s party.

“I loved the Shawn-as-James-Bond opener,” says junior Brenda Suhan. “That was the best part.”
It turns out Spencer and his best friend Burton “Gus” Guster were hired by an 11-year-old boy to track and bring back his Darth Vader toy. In order to retrieve the toy, from the boy’s British Ambassador neighbors, Shawn snuck into the party. He ends up hiding under the Ambassador’s bed (don’t ask why), discovering a dead body.
Spencer then pulls his signature “I divined the location of a dead person” skit to the Santa Barbara police department, earning high marks for his unusually specific location. But once everyone shows up and the Ambassador barely lets them inside, the body is gone from under the bed.
Spencer then leads the police to the pool house, where he finds the body of a British embassy lawyer, Annabeth York. She was in the process of clearing a British university student Colin for the murder of his girlfriend.
Despite clear warnings from his father Henry, Spencer continues to give overly specific clues about the case that help immensely in its closing. Eventually, this comes back to haunt him, but in the meantime, he uses his temporary diplomatic immunity.
“The part where he dumps the Skittles package on the sidewalk to demonstrate his diplomatic immunity was hilarious,” says Auton. “Also, the way he parked on top of the curb was a classic Shawn. I laughed so hard.”
After a bunch of the usual Shawn and Gus antics, the real killer is found, but not before the most dramatic moment in Psych history: while hooked up to a polygraph, head detective and psychic-hater Carlton Lassiter asks Spencer why there is a picture of him at the Ambassador’s party. Spencer insists it’s not him, but Lassiter won’t have it. Then, he asks the ultimate question: are you psychic?
For those who know the show, fear was starting to set in, because Spencer pretending to be a psychic is the whole point.
Spencer answers, “No.” And the polygraph showed no sign of deception. Spencer wins again, and then proceeds to “divine” the killer. Turns out, Colin’s host father killed Annabeth and also murdered Colin’s girlfriend. Yet again, Psych solves the case.
The theme around of this episode was lying, whether it was to partners, girlfriends, employers, or best friends. Of course, the all important flash back to 1991 shows the reason Spencer was able to outsmart Lassiter’s polygraph—Henry taught him how to believe a lie to beat the machine. He definitely has been believing his lie ever since.
“That flash back was the best to date,” says senior Peter Sawall. “Psych is the best.”