Gusing up the machine

Well after the sad news about psych was released by USA yesterday afternoon I set forth with the idea to savor all of the remaining episodes of psych that I can soak up, and then “Cog Blocking” happened.  Every season it seems they have to throw Gus a bone and have an episode that celebrates his side kicking goodness.  Unfortunately, Gus is not leading man material.  Don’t misunderstand me, I love “magic head” and I truly believe that without him Shawn would fall a bit flat, but that does not make him a leading man at all.

So we open with Gus going to work as a pharmaceuticals rep at central coast pharmaceuticals, yes he still works there, and he is the very definition of worker bee.  In the tradition of all worker bees his boss takes the opportunity to make his life miserable 5 min into the office.  I’d feel bad for Gus except he has had so many opportunities to break out of the “cog set,” that to be honest I just expect weakness.  In a huge juxtaposition we have Shawn sleeping away his sloth like life in a hammock in the psych office.  Always the strong and responsible figure *cough* over bearing and controlling *cough* in Shawn’s life, Henry takes the time to address Shawn’s lack of ambition or ability to accumulate a “monthly nut.”

Insulted by being called a leech, Shawn declares that he will become gainfully employed.  Immediately he sets off to ask everyone he knows for money.  He learns of a body over the police scanner and swings by the office to grab Gus.  Let’s be honest it was really to get Gus to drive him around in the blueberry.  When they get to the crime scene Lassie is quick to put him in the box marked suicide.  What scares Gus, is that he could double for the body.  Everything in the apartment screams of average Joe, worker bee, go nowhere with his life but straight to the vanilla entombed in a loveless, earth toned apartment.  Taking pity on Gus’s life crisis Shawn tries to convince Lassie it’s a homicide, really Gus has decided to take this up as his own personal crusade.

When they go to the victim’s place of work they find that no one seems to care about the loss of their co-worker Rus.  This is like confronting what would happen if Gus were to die.  No one knew him, or about him, they consider him bland and almost invisible.  He kept to himself, but was the top seller in his division and was considered a highly efficient employee.   Each comment about him being insignificant registers on Gus as if they were made about him.  While searching through Rus’s office, the number two seller comes into Rus’s computer and Gus snaps causing a huge scene in order to steal a door key off the janitor’s cart.

This change of character puzzles Shawn as Gus throws himself deeper into a more “Dangerous Gus.”  While breaking into the office at night they discover an email under the names of characters from the movie The Net.  The email leads to a restaurant for a meet up where Gus unloads a list of movie references trying to guess the name it’s under only to have it be under the victim’s real name.  Good try Gus.  The meeting is with a blind woman with beautiful long black hair who recognizes the Gus is not Rus.  With a few spinning moves both Gus and Shawn are taken out by a “blind ninja.”

At the coroner’s office, Woody discovers that the suicide was most likely staged and explains that there were traces of a pill that is deadly for people with heart conditions like the victim was experiencing.  Woody then shows them a stamp to “Putan on the Ritz” which is a shady Russian night club.  Why Santa Barbara seems to have so many Norwegian and Slavic night spots I have no idea.  The bar is a euro trash disco, however thus far it’s also a dead end.

Next, is the victim’s apartment again where Gus expresses that he sees the victim as himself.  Thinking as himself allows him to find clues in the victim’s apartment.  What he finds is a death certificate and an address, but for who?  The address leads to Gus elbowing in a glass window.  He’s taking this very seriously I see.  Once again we are met with the mysterious blind woman with two guns.  What on earth is a blind woman doing with two blind?!  Okay, she’s not blind she just has really crappy eyesight.  She explains that she is an investigator who was helping the victim uncover a fraud ring, and Gus begins his awkward flirty shit.  Nauseating. 

Back at Woody’s office, Woody notices that the cert is for a body he worked on but, the date is wrong.  The cert is dated two months prior and the body he had was only 5 days ago.  Upon investigating the name on the cert they find his wife who explains her late husband had taken out a loan to open up a male strip club. 

It appears as though he was borrowing against his life insurance policy, but how is that possible?  Well it’s not.  However, using forged documents the head of the company was able to get the policies to pay out in order to fund loans for unsavory people in exchange for a piece of the action.  Basically, he was forging to collect and extort.  A cute little scam until the person taking out a “loan” dies for real and his widow attempts to collect on the policy.  That’s how Rus discovered the scam and he paid for it with his life.

This is a huge wake up call to Gus who in turn quits his sales gig to stop living the “cog” was and live the “Gus” way.  My only issue with it is this guys… What happens now that Gus, who was the bread winner of the whole operation, is unemployed?  Lesson learned, don’t give Gus an episode, it will be just as forgettable as he tends to be at his day job.  Sorry Gus.