Psych: #119 A Nightmare on State Street (S8E9)

Ah, Psych.  That enigma of a show, brainchild of Steve Franks, that started out as a crime-comedy show, tried its hand a bit at drama and decided drama was for losers, experimented with realism, then decided that realism is also for losers, and finally in the last few seasons threw its proverbial hands up in the air and shouted, "What the heck?  We've made it this far; we can do whatever we want, so let's add zombies and food trucks and terrible British accents, and no one can stop us!"  Remember that show?

I love Psych.  I discovered it years ago when I was watching The Hardy Boys DVD I'd recently gotten - yes, the late 70s/early 80s show starring Shawn Cassidy and Parker Stevenson in all his man-perm glory - and one of the commercials was for this detective show where the main character is hyper observant and pretends to be psychic.  I found it on Netflix, and I was sold.

The show is many things: funny, stupid, goofy, silly, sometimes serious, occasionally deep, sweet, awkward, endearing, frustrating, immature, outlandish, exciting, and just an all-around good time.  The show has a cast of deeply memorable characters with incredible chemistry.  Personally, I'm most invested in the father-son relationship of Shawn and his dad Henry, the frenemy relationship between Shawn and Detective Lassiter, the budding but just out of reach romance between Shawn and Juliet, the hilarious bromance of Shawn and Gus, and the ever-solidifying friendship between Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara.  And I know that I just listed almost every major character in the show.  Just goes to show how expertly put together Psych and its cast are.

Now, there are some episodes that I hate.  There aren't many of them, but those that I genuinely do not like will be dealt with first.  I'll be going from my least favorite episode all the way up to my favorite, so even though things may look grim now, be at peace, for there is light ahead!

Without further ado, I present to you the first blog post in my Psych: Ranked! series.

Episode Title: A Nightmare on State Street
Episode Number: S8E9

Ranking: 119 of 119
Ranking Category: The Banes of My Existence…Pointless Remakes, and Zombies.

Summary: Gus begins to have trouble separating dreams from reality when uncertainty about his friendship with Shawn and his future begin to plague him.

TV.com

Quotable Moment: "As much as I try not to take my work home with me, when I'm alone in bed, and I turn out the light... I see them.  They talk to me.  They tell me how they wish they made a different choice in life.  How they wish they had taken a different path to work that final day, or, or made absolutely sure they locked the front door.  We all come into this world the same way we go out.  Alone." -Woody (directly after this he gets eaten by a zombie)

Highlight: Probably the moment between Shawn and Gus in the Psych office after Gus's dream therapy session, in which he claims not to need Shawn but Shawn's still there for him anyway.

Lowlight: Zombies.

The Hat Game: I've watched most of the Psych episodes at least two, maybe more times.  "A Nightmare on State Street" isn't one of them.  I've only seen it the one time, and I'm not exactly thrilled to be watching it again.  Why?  One word: Zombies.  I hate zombies.  My husband's tried to convince me that zombies are awesome, at least in video games, where you can blow them up.  My best friend's tried to convince me that Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies is worth watching.  They both failed.  Well, partially.  I can handle the zombies in the video game The Last of Us because they look like fungus more than the undead.  And I still refuse to watch Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies, though I did give in and watch Pride & Prejudice (which I loved).  But I digress.

From what I remember from "A Nightmare on State Street," it's really a very poorly written excuse to throw zombies in the mix.  There's no real plot, no depth, no meaning.  What makes it even worse is that it's the second-to-last episode of the entire series, and what should be a monumental episode leading up to the finale is stupid, gross, and not engaging.  And it's a dream.  I greatly dislike dream episodes (oddly enough, I'm going to be covering a Wild West dream episode in my next MacGyver post) because they contribute nothing to the plot, ultimately mean nothing to the story, and are, in my opinion, a waste of time.  The only exception would be episodes like "The Polarizing Express," where Shawn goes on a weird It's a Wonderful Life adventure in order to deal with an internal crisis.  But episodes like this, where it's just a frivolous excuse for stupid jokes and gratuitous amounts of the undead?  For turning these beloved characters into zombies themselves?  It adds nothing to the story.  Changes nothing.  It's forty-some-odd minutes that never actually happen, and so are pointless.

Most of my reviews are not going to be this negative.  And I'll probably find a few things I forgot about that I enjoy as I re-watch this episode.  But overall, from what I can remember, this is dead last (or should I say undead last, har har) on my list because (1) zombies are gross and (2) dream episodes are pointless.