Usually Shawn acts like the resident psychic idiot in front of the police but then there are moments like these wear his brilliance hits him out of nowhere and instead of creating an elaborate lie he just blurts out what he observes and the detectives ask how he knows those things and he just stumbles through a really bad coverup yet still no one gets what’s up.
They actually talk about it a lot, Shawn is giftedly smart due to near perfect memory recall and hyper observance. But he’s embarrassed by this fact so he plays dumb to avoid confrontation. Declan even profiled this about Shawn
I can relate - being smart. Its hard to explain to people how I KNOW things to be true because of all the multiple steps of deductive reasoning in my brain that actually happened. I end up saying well, it seems to be that this is the case or I dig around for evidence that someone else has collected. I know its not really being psychic, its being observant and then cross-referencing different observations to draw a conclusion that fits. People are automatically suspicious of any of this type of knowledge. I've started using it more as a weapon to just say like hmm, how do I analyze this person and tell them something they may already know, people like to feel smart, not dumb. Then I put the things I know in the form of questions. Like I wonder if this is a possibility? hmm.. I miss school because at least I would get positive reinforcement from tests, socially its a lot more challenging.
@@trackboy17 Shawn early on in the series was actually right early on in episodes and often had to convince the police to keep looking into things. It really wasn’t until around season 4 or so when he started just throwing out the first theory that came to mind and being constantly wrong until the very end
Henry was grooming Shawn from a very young age so that he could eventually replace him in the force. It makes sense he would get a perfect score. Even though he didn't become an officer, he still gets to solve crimes without being bound to the rules cops have to follow or having to fill out paperwork. His dad should be proud. He raised a very intelligent man.
My favorite is recreating the battle field from memory during the Civil War reenactment episode. Or when he calls dinosaur as the murderer. Or when he solves an attempted murder case just because the shadows on the wall in a photograph are different than what he remembers.
When he recreates the staging of the re-enactment and Gus is like “How did you do this I thought you only saw it for two minutes.” And Shawn is just like “Yeah, two whole minutes.” Like it’s the easiest thing in the world to memorize where every single thing is
My all-time favorite scene of Shawn's recall being put to use is in the bank hostage episode, when Shawn puts together his memory of everyone's unshoed feet, all the shoes that were on the floor, and the shoes the captured wife saw, in order to figure out who had taken her hostage. Pretty fricken incredible, imo.
Hell yeah, great scene. Always loved that one as well as the scene in the first episode where we see Henry training Shawn’s detective abilities as a kid by asking him how many hats there are in a crowded room.
I really love the one in the dinosaur episode where he realizes that what he thought were tic-tac-toe games were actually markers for digs, and is able to perfectly correlate the markers on the paper to the digs in real life and know which hole they need to dig in a matter of seconds.
@rebeccahempleman That was a great scene, in a great episode! I loved how the psychologist Henry brought in for an intervention for Shawn, ended up totally amazed by Shawn, especially when the police came to tell him that the man he claimed was killed by a dinosaur, was actually a paleontologist! It was the perfect combo of smart and goofy Shawn!
Isn't it funny how it was easier to believe that he had supernatural powers than it was for them to believe that he was just that good? tried to tell the truth the first time, they wouldn't believe him, so he lied and it wasn't even a good lie. Almost the entire precinct was fooled because they were too prideful to believe that he was so good he could do what they couldn't just by watching the news for a few minutes.
Shawn still needed the guise of being supernatural to cover for his back door techniques of acquiring info. Even if the SBPD just accepted he was simply a genius, he wouldn’t be allowed to trespass and snoop the way he does to discover breaks in the cases. By selling himself as a psychic it gives him an alibi for all of his petty crimes he commits on his way to solving murders.
@@jloo6822I think they're talking about the first episode alone Where Shawn had solved a bunch of cases just from watching the news and the ploce thought that it was some elaborate crime sheme to make money? At that point he hadn't done any of the illegal stuff to solve the cases, just watched the news.
@@mealsome4450 to be fair, in the pilot they are literally arresting him at the end for basically just doing what he ends up always doing eventually. He wouldn’t be able to get away with that over and over without explanation
He wouldn't be allowed to work cases if they thought he was just a good detective. Having a criminal record (which Shawn has) bars you from being police. No one that's not police can work on cases except consultants that can be hired. There are restrictions on who can be hired as a consultant so they can't hire him just because he's a really good detective. But getting brought on as a psychic consultant can be done on almost a whim. The psychic lie is the only reason Shawn can do any detective work.
This is my absolute favorite part about Psych! Of course we know that Shawn is, off the bat, a very intelligent and perceptive person. But his character is very much the opposite, goofy and flippant and of course all the while pretending to be a psychic (with the express purpose of hiding his talents). These layers make the show very nuanced for a comedy, and I absolutely adore when they strip back some layers and really let Shawn show himself as the sharp and brilliant person he is.
Actually we discussed in the community tab, Gus is most Intelligent because of his School Grades and knowing Facts. Shawn the Smartest when comes to detective life and Henry is the Wisest
Um no. Shawn is the intelligent one, Gus is the smart one. One is biologically more relevant than the other. Shawn didn’t care as much as Gus when it came to school. Gus IS very smart and he’s definitely intelligent, but Shawn, although not as “smart” is certainly more intelligent.
@@xanderarson3676 Gus is the most educated and knowledgeable, if we're talking about pure intelligence it's no contest Shawn. As far as IQ and fluid intelligence goes Shawn is a genius, like that profiler said Shawn is uncomfortable with the fact that he's on the extreme end of intelligence so he uses humor as a coping mechanism.
Some of my favorite moments is when he said a dinosaur killed a man and drew a t-rex perfectly (even though he said he didn’t have a forced perspective or time for shading). He also made a model schematic from his classroom in 5th grade from memory and put Gus on the detention list haha. Or how he knows if the peanut/frozen yogurt guy is outside the office just from hearing the bells on their carts. I also like how he memorized the civil war battlefield in 2 minutes and beat his dad in chess. One of the best ones was Shawn estimating how much money was in a bag just from a little dent inside it (pilot episode).
The dinosaur one is totally my favorite. Especially when the Chief comes to his dad's house and tells Shawn in awe the murder victim was in fact a paleontologist
Shawn figured out who was behind the crimes of juliet ohara dossier within 1 min of viewing Jules case board & easily deduced where the surveillance photos of Jules had been taken from.
4:56 that's literally how most of their relationship on the show goes, Henry trying to give Shawn a good life lesson, or cop lesson, and Shawn using it and twisting it to work in its favor, to be fair to Shawn, he's almost always right, and Henry, despite being the one who taught Shawn to see more than what's obvious, he's still a very narrow-minded and one line of thought kind of person.
I always thought that Declan’s profile of Shawn was a bit off. I found that he was a bit frustrated with the fact that he had to pretend to be psychic and not someone who’s basically a genius. Imagine how much quicker the police would move if he was just a private detective and didn’t have to pretend to divine stuff. He could be like “LOOK. ITS VERY FUCKING OBVIOUS”
His profile of Shawn just said he was always for some reason shameful of his high tier intellect, woulda been cool if he had pointed that out too but he would’ve exposed Shawn if he did since everyone at the station believes Declan instantly as he’s a proven profiler. I wanna know why and what he’d be shameful of with his high intellect?
@@Artryom Maybe it's because his dad forced him to be that way, and he rebels against his dad. His dad tried to turn him into a supercop, and simultaneously stopped Shawn from having any fun. So now Shawn only wants to have fun and masks his father's talents with the fool persona he enjoys playing so he can experience a real childhood as an adult.
Shawn is actually quite intelligent but probably due to a combination of his own insecurities and a desire to have people underestimate him he hides just how smart he actually is.
I think sometimes they leaned a little too hard on making Shawn an idiot/seem like an idiot, but some of the best moments on the show were when he got to show off just how good of a detective he actually was/is.
It's always weird to see them not believe him when more often then not he's right. It's even weirder when his theory actually makes sense and it just makes them believe him less.
This is a year old and all but! The show, and your view, takes place from Shawn’s perspective. If you take out the things we know Shawn knows, the disbelief is insanely more probable bc they have no context
He isn't always right. He guesses wrong just enough for them to be skeptical. Similar to how House MD has a half dozen wrong guesses before getting it right at the end of the episode, but not as bad because Shawn has lots of correct detective moments throughout. And he can't explain How he knows what he knows, so they can't see the deductive reasoning that connects the dots. So all they see is the conclusion of the clues.
Lassie and jules should have put two and two together the moment shawn said he got a hundred on the detective exam and knew shawn was faking the psychic thing i know that deep down chief vick knows because she knew how good of a detective henry was seems natrual that he would teach shawn how to be a good one too and just rolled with it which which did allow for the department to solve cases without all that police procedures. Though due to their pride my guess is that jules and lassie did not except that will lassie anyway once jules found out she admitted that shawn was probably one of the best detectives she has ever met.
I kind of think henry told chief vic the truth in episode one. The whole truth including why shawn couldn't become a police officer and why shawn had so much to offer the sbpd anyway
@@nygma619 because it points to a more logical idea that maybe he just have super great memory instead of psychically predicting what the answers to the scores are
Lassie knew too. I firmly believe that. I think he was annoyed that Shawn was a “better” detective than him and thought Shawn was a little bit of a coward for not coming clean about his gift
I'm not the only one who wishes Shawn would've came clean about his "psychicness" and became a detective, right? We all know Shawn isn't made to follow rules and protocols, like his father, but he deserves the credit for his real detective work.
@@thereal.tommycoleman Jules cant be trusted with secrets. eg: season 2 ep 2 65mill yrs, Shawn tells Jules about the time he requisitioned a segway, Jules immediately told Vick.
My observation is that Vic had always somewhat know Shawn wasn’t really a psychic because probably Henry told her from the beginning and lassie had from the beginning suspected Shawn wasn’t psychic but could never complete that though
The sbpd ruled a body with giant amounts of heroin, meth, AND PCP with rope burns on their wrists, who just got out of prison, as an accidental overdose...seems a little strange.
He is incredibly clever and smart... but he's a dumbass. He's childish and quick to make jokes, and even has poor judgement on when those jokes might be appropriate, making him seem even dumber and more immature. But at the end of the day, he's still collecting data and forming theories in the back of his mind. Pure Bordem says that "he just asts stupid for the cops" but... that's not true. the only act he puts on for them involves a finger to the side of his head: because this is how Shawn acts ALL THE TIME. Even when he's just hanging out with Burton. He's a Lawful Genius, with the heart of a Chaotic Dumbass.
11:37 I love this scene so much, the exam scores were an argument throughout the whole episode, and Shawn just casually mentions getting a perfect score on the Detective Exam as a 15 y/o 😂
I swear, the people "Thumbs Down-ing" these compilations are "The Mentalist" troll fans.... Anyway, IDK if RU-vid would allow it, but a "Son of a B!&@H" and or "Suck It" compilation might be kinda funny, especially the one with Shawn and Henry after the softball game.
Patrick jane is just as smart, the difference is that jane is much better and controlling others and changing situations to his advantage. Unlike Shawn, Jane isn't afraid to make himself a hostage to save other's lives because he knows he'll be able to get out perfectly fine. That and Jane doesn't have to run to his dad every other episode because he got stuck on a case, or when he's low on cash. Sean could do what Jane does, but he wastes his potential, he could be a millionaire like Jane by doing exactly what he did and become a celebrity psychic. That and the Red John case will always be more difficult than the Yin/Yang cases (although honestly, the Yin/Yang cases were MUCH more entertaining and cool to watch)
@@colechill4186 the idea of mentalists and brilliant detectives wasn't invented by psych lol, the trope has been done in plenty of media. The idea isn't a new thing invented by psych
Shawn's superpower is photograpgic memory that's been trained by henry to work as cop from very young age. Every minute details he takes from his memory remembering such details can only be done with photographic memory
I love psych but it kind of lost what made it great in the last few seasons the comedy and plots got lazy, instead of Shawn using his immature yet clever wit it feels like he just lucked into solving the cases, and the comedy is pretty much all Shawn's character development thrown out the window to he can say something stupid.
Sooooo, completely random....@1:24, Lassie and Jules talk about using Helvetica Font. Uhm, it will never be a "better" font, even this default Arial is way better.
0:38 solders have a high rate of suicide especially after trauma which is possible as Shawn describes him as "the man who's seen everything" pretty stupid from someone who's supposed to know so much
@Corberus How is it stupid when Mccallum boasts in himself about going in war. Mccallum is the type of man that says "he seen everything". Shawn is saying he lying about suicide because Mccallum acts like he's bigger than everybody and has pride.
