Psych Episode 6.13 Let's Doo-Wop It Again

We open at a benefit for a Santa Barbara community outreach program that helps at-risk youths get out of gangs. The honoree is the charity's founder, Deacon Jones. Also there is his Financial Director, Tina, a former gang member and alum of the program, who is in charge of the festivities as well as handling all donations and pledges.

Shawn and Gus are excited because Gus' old friends, Joon (from the High Top Fade Out episode) and Drake are in town. Deacon Jones has asked their a cappella group, Blackapella, to perform at the benefit. We learn Deacon helped Drake and Joon when they were kids. Drake and Joon were headed for the gang life, but Deacon helped them stay away from it. We also learn Shawn has weaseled his way into performing with Blackapella and is suffering from stomach butterflies. Blackapella's performance goes great, but after their third group bow, Shawn collapses in pain.

At the hospital, we learn Shawn's appendix burst. Lassiter, Juliet, Henry, Drake and Joon show up. Shawn is touched, until he learns that after he left, Deacon was shot. Deacon is brought in unconscious, attended by cops, doctors and Jimmy Brigham, Deacon's head of security.

All Lassiter has at this point is a description of a black SUV with partial plates fleeing the scene. The Chief wants Deacon's shooting to be the SBPD's #1 priority and that Brigham is going to keep an eye on Deacon.

Drake and Joon want Psych on the case, but Shawn says he and Gus can't due to Shawn's incapacitation. Outside the room, though, Drake tells Gus, "You know you're helping us investigate this." "I know," replies Gus. Back in the room, Henry tells Shawn, "You know they're investigating this." "I know," replies Shawn feeling jealous and left out.

Back at the SBPD, McNab hands over a list of black SUV's that may or may not have been at the scene of the shooting. Gus, Drake and Joon show up and tell Lassiter they are here to help, but Lassiter isn't having it.

Lassiter learns that a gang, the Rolling Ones, has been harassing Deacon. Their leader, Lil Sis, is in jail doing five years for armed robbery, but is still calling the shots. Lassiter is against Gus, Drake and Joon helping until Gus explains that Lil Sis is in the same prison as Marlowe. If she helps get information it could earn Marlowe an early release. Lassiter brightens and has a change of heart.

Lassiter meets in the prison yard with Marlowe who's having trouble getting close to Lil Sis, but has an idea. "Just remember, this is for us," she whispers, then slugs Lassiter in the face and is dragged off by guards. Lil Sis watches, impressed.

Later, in the prison visiting room, Marlowe has definitive proof Lil Sis isn't behind Deacon's shooting, but she did reveal that someone in Deacon's organization is skimming money.

Lassiter theorizes that Deacon found out who it was, and they tried to take him out. Gus gets a call from Shawn, who busts him for investigating without him. Gus tells Shawn about the skimming lead.

Shawn flashes back to Deacon's second in command, Tina, who handles all the charity's money. Lassiter will go to the community center to question Tina, while Gus, Drake and Joon will go the charity's boot camp in case she's there. "Not without me, you won't," Shawn says. "You're not investigating any more unless I'm with you."

Gus, Drake and Joon arrive at the boot camp with Shawn, who is on Gus' iPad via FaceTime. They witness Tina taking money from a lock box in the office, and follow her to a cabin in the woods, where they confront her and she pulls a gun on them.

She tells them to get in the closet. They refuse until they hear a chopper motorbike roaring up outside, and they realize Tina is trying to protect them. From the closet, they listen as Tina argues with gang member Chuy. Tina won't give him the money until he tells her why Deacon was paying him off. He won't tell, which leads to a scuffle. Gus, Drake and Joon bust out of the closet to save Tina, but discover she's the one beating Chuy. Chuy manages to escape (without the money) and Tina confirms that someone is skimming from Deacon's charity and it's Deacon himself.

Drake and Joon refuse to believe Deacon is dirty. Later, at the hospital, Shawn and Gus speculate on why Deacon is stealing from his own organization. Deacon, in the next bed, has regained consciousness and explains that he was paying off Chuy to buy young gang members' freedom, but Chuy kept asking for more and Deacon cut him off.

Now they need to figure out where Chuy could have fled. Shawn flashbacks to the unfinished neck tattoo Chuy had and Deacon suggests that Chuy could be hiding out at the tattoo parlor nearby the community center. Gus, Drake and Joon drive to the neighborhood near the address where Chuy could be.

Gus explains the plan - take a picture of Chuy getting into the black SUV and match the license plate to the partial one from the scene. Then they will give everything to SBPD who will arrest Chuy, and they won't have to know Deacon did something illegal for a noble cause. Gus leaves Drake and Joon to hang back and out of danger, then drives up the block. As Gus puts money in the meter in front of Chuy's headquarters, he hears a car roaring up the street, turns and sees the black SUV fly past with Drake and Joon in back, kidnapped.

Lassiter and Juliet, who'd been tipped off by Shawn that Gus was in over his head, show up moments after Drake and Joon are abducted. Gus is freaking out and tearfully confesses to Shawn over FaceTime that he "messed up bad." They need to find Drake and Joon before something bad happens to them, so Lassiter and Juliet search Chuy's headquarters for clues while Shawn psychically "reads" the room over FaceTime on the iPad. Shawn is able to Shawn Vision a clue that tells them where Chuy may have taken Drake and Joon.

Following Shawn's lead, the police approach a run-down house and overhear Drake and Joon inside, begging not to be killed. Lassiter kicks the door in, and we see Drake and Joon inside tied up. Lassiter and Juliet, guns drawn, start taking Chuy and his gang down, but Chuy escapes. The second Chuy gets in his SUV and turns it on, it blows up, killing him.

Back at the SBPD, Drake and Joon tell Lassiter that Chuy was going to harm them and mentions he was going to use a bottle of lidocaine and some knives to do so. But Shawn figures it out that Chuy was innocent all along and only had lidocaine because he was going to self remove the bullet from his arm - the bullet Shawn saw in his arm in an earlier scene. The bullet went straight through Deacon and hit Chuy's arm - so Chuy couldn't have been the shooter.

Gus recalls that the only people allowed backstage were Deacon, Blackapella and Jimmy Brigham, the head of security. Lassiter and Juliet want to question Brigham. Shawn, who's seen and heard all of this via FaceTime, psychically tells them that Tina also had backstage access and that she's been hiding something else from the police. Based on Shawn's psychic hunch, Lassiter and Juliet say they'll question Tina before Brigham. We then cut to Shawn's hospital room and reveal that Brigham has a gun to Shawn's head.

Brigham has overheard every step of the investigation from his post outside of their hospital room because Shawn insisted on using FaceTime. When Brigham realized they were on to him, he pulled a gun on Shawn and Deacon out of desperation. As a stall tactic, Shawn breaks down the case. Shawn deduces that Deacon's charity was bad for the security business, since the community store-owners felt safer and were canceling their security contracts. But with Deacon now a victim of a violent crime, people will get afraid again and the security business picks up.

Brigham then turns up Shawn's and Deacon's morphine drips to full in order to silence them for good. Deacon immediately goes into a euphoric, but deadly state. Shawn appears to be tripping as well, until he turns the tables on Brigham, and takes him out just before Lassiter and Juliet arrive. Turns out Shawn's morphine drip wasn't covered by his insurance after two days in the hospital, so he used the ruse to get the drop on Brigham.

Shawn is released from the hospital right before Drake and Joon have to return home. But he convinces them to do one last song so he can sing with them. The episode ends with Shawn performing with Drake, Gus and Joon at the prison Marlowe is incarcerated at. Unfortunately, the performance is interrupted when a fight breaks out between inmates.