My name is Josh and I’m a TV addict. I have to admit it. Even during this slow summer season, I watch far too much TV. If you think that this week here at The Bonus View has been heavy on the TV recaps, keep in mind that I don’t even recap everything that I watch. One of the shows that I follow this time of year, though perhaps not religiously, is ‘Psych,’ which recently started its fifth season on USA. This is the type of series that I enjoy and will watch when I have the time, but don’t generally prioritize for immediate viewing. I’ve only just caught up with the season’s first two episodes. As I look at the schedule, I realize that another new episode will have aired by the time you read this. Oh well. Let’s take a look at what happened in the season’s second episode, called ‘Feet Don’t Kill Me Now’.

I’ll just start with a quick note that the season premiere (‘Romeo and Juliet and Juliet’) pretty much disregarded the previous season’s cliffhanger. Sean had captured the serial killer called “Mr. Yin,” but the finale left us with the revelation that there’s also a “Yang,” and dropped a weird clue that many fans have interpreted to mean that it may even be Sean’s own mother. So far, this season hasn’t done much to follow up on that, except to place O’Hara on stress leave. (She’s voluntarily taken a desk job to do office paperwork, but the boys keep pestering her about their cases.) Frankly, I’m fine with that. I didn’t really like the introduction of a serial killer last season. It was too dark for such a frivolous show. I’m sure the writers will pick it up again later on; for now, I’m glad to see the series back to embracing the formula that works best for it.

The case of the week in ‘Feet Don’t Kill Me Now’ involves a woman’s body found in a car pulled out of a lake. Problem is that she appears to have been killed before going in the water. We’ll just cut to the chase here and say that she was a researcher at some sort of laboratory, was involved in a love triangle, and one of her jealous co-workers did her in. The revelation of the killer should surprise precisely no one. The mystery aspect of this show is rarely the most interesting or entertaining part. It’s just the MacGuffin to keep us watching.

The real meat of the episode is the storyline in which Gus has decided to take up tap dancing again, which we see in the flashback was one of his passions as a kid. And he’s really good at it. In fact, the episode ends with Dulé Hill going to town on stage and bustin’ out some pretty impressive moves. Improbably, Lassiter decides to join him in the tap class. His therapist recommended that he move out of his comfort zone, and something “fruity” like tap dancing ought to count. He’s of course a clumsy oaf, but finds that the dancing helps to clear his mind of stress and focus his thoughts. Throughout the episode, he very hilariously starts tapping whenever he needs to figure something out.

Having somewhat bonded with Gus over this, Lassiter decides to partner up with him on the case, figuring that Gus’s pharmaceutical knowledge will come in handy. Sean’s not invited, which doesn’t make him very happy. However, Juliet has decided to come back to work this week, and Sean teams up with her. So, these two teams – Lassiter & Gus vs. Sean & Juliet – race to see who can crack the case first. Eventually, both teams realize that they were better off doing things the old way, and switch back.

This episode finds the show in fine form. It has a ton of very funny jokes. My favorite line comes from Lassiter, still obviously bitter over his divorce, explaining what the case boils down to: “People have sex and they kill each other. That’s the real world.”

However, James Roday is looking pretty pudgy this season, and I find a lot of the jokes about food puzzling. This episode has him obsessing over KFC, cookies, and hot dogs. Is that supposed to be an acknowledgement that he’s been putting on weight (which isn’t addressed anywhere else), or just some ill-considered scripting on the writers’ part? That’s perhaps a bigger mystery to me than the case of the week.