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Psych

Bollywood Homicide

Season 4, Episode 6, Aired Sep 18, 2009

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7.1

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An actor in a local Bollywood theatre production takes a vow of celibacy when he believes he has proof his family's curse is manifest in him. Shawn and Gus, who are true believers in love, vow to find out why the man's girlfriends keep getting hurt and stumble upon a motive that may be close to home.moreless

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Cast & Crew

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GUEST STAR
Sendhil Ramamurthy

Raj Singh
GUEST STAR
Azita Ghanizada

Mina
GUEST STAR
Madhur Jaffrey

Rani

James Roday

Shawn Spencer
Dule Hill

Burton Guster
Timothy Omundson

Carlton Lassiter
Maggie Lawson

Juliet O'Hara
Corbin Bernsen

Henry Spencer

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Fan Episode Reviews (9)

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The writers portrayal of Shawn as cultural insensitive has made me dislike his character.

1.0

"Abysmal"

By kyravon, Sep 22, 2011

I was excited to see the show. I like the occasional Bollywood film. I like the cute guy from Heroes who was the guest star. I loved the Bollywood style opening credits. Now, I've always preferred Gus to Shawn who I feel is too egotistical and too selfish for my tastes, but Shawn's character is usually pretty funny. This time I felt he just came off as an ignorant bigot. His boorish behavior alienated me from the character completely and even made me disappointed in Gus for not calling him on his behavior. 1. He refuses to call Raj by his real name and instead insists on Anglocizing it to "Roger". I know people who changed their names in the 50's because of discrimination based on "weird/foreign" names. I still know some Chinese people who use their "American" names because of racism. This has always made me sad and to see Shawn perpetuate that was inexcusable. How hard is RAJ to say anyway?

2. The most unforgivable moment, in fact the nadir of the entire show was when Shwan (uninvited of course) drops by and gets invited to dinner at Raj's house and proceeds to insult all Indian people and calls them stupid.
As a guest of this house, eating their food, he insults their entire culture by saying something like "it's STUPID for YOU PEOPLE to eat food this hot". First of all "you people"? Secondly, just because you don't agree with something it's stupid? Third, insulting all Indians? I can't eat most Indian food either do to the spiciness, but I don't insult the entire nation of India becaues my tastebuds haven't grown up eating their food.

3. Shawn displays his uttter ignorance again by slaughtering more names (this time converting one to Dipstick). If I wasn't so mad at his character, I would have just cringed at how ignorant this made him appear. 4. At the festival, Shawn yells out "Indian giver". Offensive enough. But then he compounds it by saying "I meant to insult a completely different race".
(oh yeah, haha. racism is funny... NOT!)

and just in case I wasn't bothered by the racism & cultural insensitivity of the show, they had to close with a sexist remark about getting 'hit by a girl".

This "girl" was a woman who had engineered some serious attacks & could have killed Juliet, but yeah, let's just dismiss that with a terribly trite & cliche stereotype..... (real original & real funny..... NOT!)

I am sad that they have ruined the chacter of Shawn for me, and that I may not be able to bring myself to watch the show again. It's bad enough when I hear 87 year olds who grew up in Nazi-occupied France say things like this in real life. I can try to forgive their racism as a product of their times/their homogenous upbringing. To see what's supposed to be a 20+ year old who grew up in a diverse big city in CA consider such behavior acceptable and to have this displayed to me as amusing & entertainment is disturbing.

Did the writers think these incidents were humorous? If so the writing staff at USA/NBC desparately needs some diversity and some sensitivity training. This episode was sad, disturbing and made me angry.

p.s. an earlier review was removed because I supposedly insulted other users.
This review is not meant to insult any users. I'm not insulting the actor. I am merely expressing my personal opinion. I am disgusted at the writers and NBC for perpetuating racism and thinking that would serve as enjoyment.moreless
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Disappointed, to say the least

6.0

"Fair"

By MatthewKremer, Jul 08, 2010

What has happened to Psych? Seriously? I am a huge fan of the show, don't get me wrong, but this series has taken a turn for the worse. It used to be a show I could kick back, relax and not worry about it being a disappointment. However, the scripts have been horrendous, mostly in the case of Shawn, and the plots have been laughable. Since I'm reviewing this episode, I will use it as an example. The ending to this episode was completely predictable. I enjoy watching a show that gives you hints, maybe you see the evidence when you don't realize it's true importance yet, but to give it to you so plainly? That's no fun. The few hilarious moments hardly made up for the spoon fed ending that left me desiring more. I really truly hope that this show can be corrected and go back to being what it once was. Where Shawn was a goofy, lovable, brilliant idiot. Not a major pain in the ass. Where the police were actually involved in the investigations, not just tagging along watching Shawn solve cases. Hopefully Shawn's "Psychic-Sense" is not gone for good. His noticing details, shown via the highlights and camera zoom. And one last thing to close on; remember when the flashback piece at the start of the episode actually meant something? No, this episode Shawn is writing a love letter to his teacher--a love that he cannot have and in the episode a man is unable to get his relationships to go anywhere. Small parallel there. Gone was the life lesson he learned the hard way or the investigation technique tip passed on from his father. Please Psych, come back. You are missed.moreless
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I LOVE THIS EPISODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10

"Perfect"

By luvJONASalways, Dec 08, 2009

They have some great moments in this episode. I wasn't seeing much Shules moments before this so they definitely made up for it in this episode. And I just absolutely positively LOVE this episode!!! Although I don't like Abigail with Shawn it made for some good awkward moments between Shawn/Jules and Abigail. (So this 100 word min thing is hard for me so I'm just going to type Shules for the rest of this...lol) Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules, Shules I LOVE SHULES!!!moreless
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An indian man thinks he is cursed and seeks help from the police

4.0

"Poor"

By abcd-tv, Oct 02, 2009

first of all , let me preface this review by saying that i'm a huge fan of psych and this poor review is not a reflection on the show as a whole. i couldn't believe that the writers of psych could be so crass and insensitive while portraying other cultures. the dinner scene in particular rankled me. there is a saying in sanskrit " athithi devo bhava". it loosely translates as "a guest who has come to your house is equivalent to god". no indian will show disrespect or complain about the fact that guests have come unannounced to their homes.infact most people dont feel the need to call ahead and ask if they can come over. india is the land of spices.so yes, the food is spicy. well done to steve franks..for throwing in that cliche while filming an "indian-oriented episode"..very imaginative indeed...the use of the phrase "you people" also rankled me...if the same phrase had been used against gus or other african americans it would have been been considered offensive.
on the whole,i enjoyed parts of it..was disgusted by parts of it..moreless
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Average.

7.0

"Good"

By thefanof, Sep 24, 2009

Filler episode. Nothing more, nothing less. You had the usual jokes between Shawn Spencer and Carlton Lassider, Juliet being one of the more underappreciated female cops on TV and a lack of Corbin Bernsen, but as far as watching TV at 1 AM, a rerun of Psych is better than a lot of other stuff on at the time.

I feel like Monk and Psych share storylines too much though. Next week's Monk for example features Meat Loaf in a very similar role to the exorcism episode of Psych a few weeks back, and this Indian episode reminded me of something we would see on Tony Shalhoub's show. I get that they are similar programs with the same viewers, but you have to try and differentiate them if you want more people to start watching.moreless
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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (4)
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- Teen Flashback: This episode included an edited version of "Hair Today, Bald Tomorrow," presented by MasterCard during the next-to-last commercial break which included the possible cause of Henry's baldness (the full version was available at USA's PSYCH web site).
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- Psych-out: Gag reel from the theater scene as both teams watch the Mina dance.
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- Continuity: When Shawn is confronting perpetrator about the crime, the old man throws red powder on Shawn. However, if you look closely at his shoulder it already has red on it before the old man throws the powder on him.
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- Pineapple Spotting: The pineapple is a lamp at the dinner with Raj and his family. It is behind the grandmother on the right side of the screen (on the shelf).
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QUOTES (3)
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- (Shawn and Gus surveil Raj and Juliet's date.) Shawn: Man, I don't like this. Gus: You don't like Juliet dating somebody. Shawn: Fake dating. That's not it. It's the whole using-her-as-bait thing. Gus: You had no problem dangling his girlfriend out there as bait. Shawn: Now you're changing the rules, aren't you? Look at Raj. He's getting awfully hands-y over there. Taking advantage of the situation like that. Lassiter: (over the walkie talkie) No, he's definitely bugged by O'Hara dating this guy.
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- Shawn: I'm sorry. Was this chicken seasoned with molten lava?
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- Shawn: I solve a case every week. And usually one around Christmas.
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NOTES (6)
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- International Episode Titles: Czech Republic "Vraždy po indicku" (Homocide in the Indian way)
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- Original International Air Dates: Germany May 10, 2011 on RTL Czech Republic July 23, 2011 on Prima COOL
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- Special billing was given to Jay Chandrasekhar (and) for this episode.
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- Just like several previous episodes, the opening credits were altered to reflect the theme of the storyline. In this case, most of the theme song was sung in Hindi and the actors' names appeared in Hindi text (before switching to English characters). This is the first time the language of the theme song has been changed since "Lights, Camera Homicidio" in Season 2.
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- This episode was originally scheduled to air on August 28, 2009, but an episode shuffle just before the season premiered bumped it to mid-September and put "The Devil's in the Details and in the Upstairs " in its place.
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- Cast Relations: Jay Chandrasekhar and Sendhil Ramamurthy are cousins in real life.
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- Shawn: (while eating spicy Indian food) Dude, I can't see anything out of my left eye. Gus: I see dead people. Gus is using the iconic tag line from M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 film The Sixth Sense.
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