Psych is an American one-hour dramedy series billed as "a fake psychic detective series", starring James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a young police consultant whose eidetic memory leads people to believe that he's psychic.
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The pilot opens with a scene of Shawn as a child, in a diner, with his father. His father bribes him to point out a number of obscure facts about the scene around him in order to get cake. He complies, impresses the waitress, and the audience begins to understand that he has extraordinary powers of observation and a photographic memory.
Cut to Shawn's apartment, 20 years later. He has apparently seduced a lovely young waitress,but in the middle of a rather long kiss, the television plays in the background. Briefly ignoring her advances, Shawn realizes that the man being interviewed by the TV reporter is guilty of the theft about which he is being interviewed, calls the police, leaves a tip, and then goes back to his romantic activities.
The following day, Shawn appears at the local precinct, trying to claim his reward for calling in the tip. The police are suspicious that he is involved with the guilty man, whom they assert must have had a partner. To avoid getting arrested, Shawn claims to be psychic. When the police are understandably skeptical, he reveals a number of facts about each of them, drawing natural conclusions from previous observations he made while waiting earlier—but he does so while putting on the traditional act of a psychic. He gets hired on a trial basis by the Interim Police Chief, Karen Vick, to find the missing son of a textile magnate.
At the mansion of the magnate (played by Don S. Davis), Shawn carefully examines family photos, noting things that help him to understand interfamily dynamics well. He also arranges to meet the attractive daughter of the magnate, and when Gus leaves in exasperation at his antics, Shawn takes her out on a date (unseen by viewers).
Shawn realizes that the kidnapped heir is likely not kidnapped at all, but more probably has faked his own disappearance—perhaps to bilk his family out of money. After some old-fashioned investigation, he finds the cabin where the heir is hiding with his dog and his best friend. He calls the police, claims to have had a psychic vision of where the heir is being held, and then leads them to the cabin. When the entire group walk into the cabin, the heir and his best friend are found dead in an apparent murder/suicide. Gus is ill at the sight. Shawn realizes for a moment that he might have gotten in a bit deeper than he intended.
Dulé Hill as Barton 'Gus' GusterThe police are convinced that the murder/suicide happened exactly as it appears, but Shawn is concerned that there might be more to the story. After the police tell him that the case is closed and he shouldn't investigate further, he risks their displeasure by continuing to pursue his hunch. He convinces Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara to help him. While they are discussing the case in the police firing range, it is revealed that Shawn is a crack shot with a pistol—putting a bullet through all of the same holes that Juliet had previously made in a target paper.
Shawn confronts the textile magnate with his suspicions that the magnate himself was involved in the murder. The magnate angrily denies this and has Shawn thrown out of his house. Shawn calls the police on himself, and when they show up, he makes a scene, pretending to have had a psychic vision. It seems that Shawn has noticed a cut on the magnate's arm, and Gus has also found some medication used to treat dog bites in the magnate's bathroom. At Shawn's instruction, the police check the magnate's arm for a dog bite, find that he indeed has one, and arrest him. The dog bite has come from his son's prized pet dog who tried to protect his son.
Corbin Bernsen as Henry SpencerAfter his triumph with this case, Shawn returns to the police station. His father, who has been very skeptical of Shawn's ability to pull off what he knows is an act, is just leaving the Interim Chief's office. She was doing a background check on him. To Shawn's surprise, his father backed up Shawn's assertion that he had a psychic "gift". The police hire him on for a second case. When Shawn is leaving, his father stops him outside and tells him that he won't cover for Shawn again. His stern manner is belied by the sheaf of newspaper clippings about Shawn that Shawn notes on his father's car-seat. Realizing that his father is proud of him but won't say it, Shawn adopts their typical brusque tone with each other so as not to embarrass his dad, and tells him that he wouldn't expect any further favors from his father.
In the final scene, Shawn takes Gus to his new office, for which he has signed a six month lease (also forging Gus's name on the lease). The name of his new agency is "Psych". Gus notes the irony of the double entendre, but reluctantly agrees to the partnership
