TV movie review: ‘Psych 2: Lassie Come Home’ is a return to the familiar

Beloved detective dramedy “Psych” returns Wednesday with its second feature-length TV movie, “Psych 2: Lassie Come Home.” The show, which follows detective prodigy and fake psychic Shawn Spencer and his comically knowledgeable partner Burton “Gus” Guster as they solve Santa Barbara’s toughest crimes, ran for eight seasons from 2006 and 2014. It is available on Amazon Prime Video.

For PsychOs (fanatical “Psych” fans) everywhere, the announcement of a new “Psych” movie was exciting. While “Psych: the Movie,” which was released in 2017, certainly didn’t hit every pin on the head, it hit the spot for many fans. With this second TV movie, the “Psych” team was determined to do even better, and in many regards they did good on that intention.

“Psych 2” includes every main character, from Shawn, Gus, Jules and Lassie to the Chief, Henry and the beloved Woody. Seeing the whole crew back together is enough to get any fan excited, maybe even a little teary.

Original show creator Steve Franks, who co-wrote and directed “Psych 2,” knows how to put longtime “Psych” fans right back where they want to be. The movie opens on an odd dream flashback scene with some new camera effects (all part of the early released first 4 minutes available on YouTube), but snaps quickly into form with a series of Gus and Shawn’s characteristic quips.

This is what “Psych 2” does best. With the exception of a few close-ups and odd shots that feel very uncharacteristic of “Psych’s” TV style, the show feels familiar. The actors and writers lean heavily into the characters’ roles as we know them, particularly Shawn and Gus’s interactions.

After eight years playing their roles, James Roday, Dulé Hill and the rest of the cast have cemented themselves into the characters. The on-screen interactions come off so naturally and with such comedic confidence that it still feels home-y for viewers. It’s nice to say that Roday and Hill have not lost a beat. They are back and as good as ever in their on-screen chemistry.

A huge focus is put on the construction of comedic moments and scenarios. The movie keeps the audience laughing from one scene to the next, only occasionally pulling them out of their euphoria to get back to the case at hand, which is a complicated and somewhat underexplained homicide investigation.

One of “Psych’s” strengths in its TV run was the construction of the episodes. Like most TV shows at the time, the structure of each episode was practically the same: They find out about a case, work to get on the case by procuring something of value, then apprehend who they think is the culprit before finding out (around 10 minutes before the end of the episode) that they were wrong and tracing their steps back to the correct killer.

This structure was so well understood by the writers that the balance between the episode’s case and the personal lives of the characters was always just right. There was just the perfect amount of comedy, some interpersonal intrigue and an interesting crime, which brought all these together in one place.

If “Psych 2” has one weakness, it’s that this balance is somewhat lost. The writers clearly tried to scale up the complexity of the case for the longer (90-minute) movie but seemingly did not give the case enough on-screen time or thought. The crimes feel like a side plot to the characters’ minute-by-minute interactions or a device to get them back to Santa Barbara. But the investigation doesn’t fit in as well as it did in the show. Furthermore, the criminal plot’s resolution seems a little thrown together.

There are enough great moments to keep the TV movie going, but the tightened-down, perfectly calculated feel of “Psych” is not present here. It’s a little too loose.

That said, it is thoroughly enjoyable. In leveraging the interactions of the characters and a few well-chosen quirks and commentaries, “Psych 2: Lassie Come Home” becomes a pleasure to watch. It’s a wonderful follow-up comedy for a show whose cast I simply cannot get out of my head.

Just seeing the old theme song play at the start was enough to get me, a longtime “Psych” fan with a significant number of full-series rewatches under my belt, excited about it. Anyone who misses Shawn, Gus, Jules, Lassie and the rest of the gang will enjoy this return to the screen.

Franks has pledged four more of these reunion movies, and while there is improvement to be made in his feature-length writing, I cannot wait to see what comes next.

“Psych 2: Lassie Come Home” will be available on NBCUniversal’s new streaming service Peacock. The service and the movie launch on July 15.