The Dynamic Duo- Solving crime...but not cops

Since we are talking about cop films this week I decided I would switch up my dark, drama theme that I have been going with and talk about one of my favorite shows of all time- Psych.

Psych is a comedy crime fighting show centered around two best friends, Shawn and Gus, who are not actually cops but run their own detective/investigative business while working for the Santa Barbara Police Department at the same time. Shawn's dad, Henry, raised him to pay attention to the details of crime scenes and essential taught him through various staged scenarios as a child how to be a good detective. Though Shawn didn't have the motivation or work ethic to actually become a cop, he was able to sneak his way into the force by solving crimes the cops couldn't by saying that he was a psychic. So he starts making his living by faking his psychic abilities while his partner Gus, a pharmaceutical rep, plays along and solved crimes with him.

What I like about this show is that it goes against some of the cop film stereotypes, which in a large part works with the comedy aspect. Usually the main guy tends to be the logical, sensible leader of the group who gets the job done, but in Psych, Gus is the logical one who keeps Shawn on track and holds the steady job rather than banking on the department to find them cases every week. Although, Gus is easily persuaded by Shawn to join insane cases or do crazy things even when Gus initially refuses or knows that it will come to no good.

This also sets up the white guy-black guy partnership that is becoming more and more common in cop films and shows. There is an interesting dynamic that works between these two life-long friends, which makes any racial jokes from both sides funny and acceptable. It also adds more to the crazy, thoughtless white guy character working with the intelligent, logical black guy character- Gus keeps Shawn grounded in terms of logic, but also Gus is able to follow through with all of Shawn shenanigans because he gives Gus his fun side.

Then there is also the male-female partnership between Juliette and Carlton. Where Carlton is the rough, no-nonsense detective who gets annoyed at every little thing Shawn does, Juliette is the calmer, more down-to-earth detective who works with Shawn and realizes how much help he is to the force.

More commonly seen in cop films and TV shows, Shawn and Gus go about solving crimes in very unconventional ways. They break into peoples houses without warrants, they pretend to be people they are not to get information (although Shawn usually introduces himself by his actual name while Gus gets a ludicrous, crazy made-up name), and then they are obviously lying to the cops and to their clients about the psychic nature making them average citizens who really shouldn't be out there solving crimes and catching criminals. We see this a lot in crime films and shows. The cop or cops take a not so legal route in order to get the information they need to catch the bad guy, and in the end it all works out since the bad guy is behind bars, so we don't see the repercussions of handling a crime outside of the codes of criminal justice.

In this way, the media portrays the criminal justice system as something that can be flexible as long as the good guys defeat the bad guys, which is not the case in the real world. A show like Psych glorifies this not strictly legal form of setting the world right and it does so in a comedic manner, which makes the viewer feel more inclined to this idea of the criminal justice system even more.

Despite its obvious flaws, Psych is a cleverly written show and has fantastic plot lines in each episode- honestly some of the stuff they come up with is way out of the box and of course, super funny. That's the other thing you have to remember about cop comedies- it will never follow the rules otherwise it wouldn't be funny.

Plus, (spoiler alert) you gotta love the on-screen relationship with Shawn (James Roday) and Juliette (Maggie Lawson) coming together. One of the funny parts of the show is knowing that Roday and Lawson are together in real life but he still has to chase her in the show while she constantly rejects him (until later seasons of course).