‘Psych’ recap: ‘Office Space’

In this week’s episode of Psych, “Office Space,” Gus and Shawn end up messing with a crime scene and have to find the murderer before they become suspects.

Gus shows up at Juliet’s house, tapping on the door. Gus is covered in dirt and is really upset. He begins to tell Shawn what happened at work that day. His boss Creech was screaming at his assistant and threw something at her. Gus stood up for her and told his boss off. Creech called him “scared and pathetic.” He started yelling at her again after Gus has returned to his office. He wrote a note saying he quits and has someone take it to the boss’s office. Shawn tells him he did awesome, but Gus says it was a bad decision financially.

Gus continues his story and says he went to apologize to his boss later, but found him stabbed to death in his office chair. Gus said he was going to leave, but he saw his note in the boss’s hand, so he grabbed it and ate the note because he panicked. He choked on it and ended up making a crazy mess in the office, and knocked over the body. Shawn tells Gus they’ll fix everything. They go to the crime scene and Shawn tells him to call the cops. Shawn trips over the body and gets a bloody nose.They have to take off Creech’s socks because of Shawn’s blood.

They run to Henry’s house and tell him they “really screwed up.” He asks if they tampered with the crime scene and they make awkward noises. Henry says they have to go to the scene so he can see what happened. The police are there and Gus is freaking out. Lassiter says the scene is really clean, which is because Shawn and Gus cleaned it. Leslie Sally (David Koechner), the head of security comes in and notices the trash can liner is missing, and there’s something in the victim’s hand. Sally notes the trash hasn’t been picked up yet and goes to search for it, but finds Shawn’s mug instead. Henry talks to them about telling the police, but they say they can’t.

Woody says Creech was stabbed by something thin and Gus thinks it might be Helen, the assistant from earlier. Shawn talks to Juliet and it’s clear they aren’t back together yet, but they did spend the night together. Shawn tells her about what happened, since he’s trying to be honest. She tells them she won’t lie for them, but he says the mug has her prints on it too.

Shawn takes Gus back to the office so they can find Helen. Sally introduces them to Mr. Murray (Michael McGlone), from corporate. Sally makes Gus do a handwriting sample because he’s checking everyone’s handwriting against the note. Murray talks to the workers, and they discover Helen called in sick. One of the workers, Teddy, sings a song to the tune of “Time After Time.”

Woody calls them and tells them he smelled cocoa butter and Axe body spray on the body, which he associates with Gus and Shawn. They ask Woody not to tell anyone, and he agrees, though he says he can’t be trusted. They tied Woody up on the couch which, was his idea. Juliet tells them they’re crazy, but allows Woody to stay tied up since he says he would tell. Woody is really comfortable with the situation.

Shawn and Gus find Helen on her jog. They accuse her of murder, and she says she put eyedrops in his coffee. She thought she killed him, but they tell her he died from stab wounds. They think someone killed him because they could get his high paying job. They return to the office and Murray compliments him on standing up to Creecher the day before and promotes him to Vice President. Shawn and Gus are worried about Sally, but discover Teddy seems obsessed with Gus. Sally finds the trash and the note Gus wrote in a dumpster, but says he knows Gus isn’t the killer, but then he dies. Gus tells Shawn they are not tampering with evidence this time.

The police show up just in time for Shawn to figure it out from a paper in the trash bag. Lassiter realizes Sally is dead, and the handwriting analysis that says Gus did it is on his body. Shawn goes into the office and interrupts Murray’s speech to say Murray is the murder. He inflated numbers, and Creech was going to tell on him to try and get Murray’s job. He also poisoned Sally because he was getting too close to the trust. Murray admits to the murder and Juliet cuffs him. Later, Juliet tells Gus and Shawn she doesn’t want to know how they work on cases. They go back the office and realize they left Woody tied to the couch.

Quotes and Comments:

“Life is so fleeting. One day you see a man, alive, yesterday, and then today, without seeing him at all in between, he’s dead. Hark the harold angels.” (Gus talking about his boss’s death to Juliet)

“You call it insane, I call it Tuesday.” “It’s Thursday.” (Shawn to Juliet, but then Gus lets him know he’s got the wrong day)

This was a really funny episode, especially at the beginning. Gus messing up the crime scene was hilarious, and trust Shawn to come along and make the situation worse. Gus was so bad at trying to act like he was innocent. Murray’s scratch-and-sniff stickers were so random, but it made me laugh. I really liked Sally and his persistence to find the murderer. It’s amazing Shawn and Gus haven’t messed up a crime scene before now. I also like how Shawn and Juliet are really trying to work on their issues. Overall, it was a strong episode of Psych this week.

Photo Courtesy of NBC Universal