Shawn Spencer is a fictional character on the American television dramedy Psych played by American actor James Roday. Taking advantage of his eidetic memory, he poses as a psychic and works as a private detective who often consults with the Santa Barbara Police Department. Since the season 3 finale, he had been dating Abigail Lytar, played by Rachael Leigh Cook; they broke up in the season 4 finale when Abigail declared that she did not want to live a life of danger. He is in a relationship with SBPD detective Juliet O'Hara, played by Maggie Lawson.

Fictional biography[link]

Shawn was a breech baby,^[3] born in February^[4] 1977, and comes from a family of police officers. His parents separated in 1992, and later divorced; his mother, Madeleine (a psychologist), eventually returned and explained that she left to pursue a job opportunity.^[1] His father, Henry Spencer, schooled Shawn in detective work from as early as age 7, aiding the development of his extraordinary powers of observation and deduction. At the age of 15, he achieved a perfect score of 100 on the detective's exam.^[5] This is drawn loosely from the childhood of series creator Steve Franks, who was also born into a family of police officers and whose father "was training [Franks] in his own way to follow his footsteps." Franks' father would ask him how many people were wearing hats in a restaurant, a tactic employed in the show's pilot episode by Shawn's father.^[6]

Shawn's relationship with his father is complicated and at times highly strained. Though often it may seem that Henry is intentionally aggravating or imposing his will on his grown son, it is usually revealed that his motives are genuine. For example, tipping off the meter maid to ticket Shawn's motorcycle which is parked too close to a hydrant outside his apartment. The impounding as a result was Henry's ultimate goal, as Shawn had gotten into an accident some time ago.

Despite his obvious talent, Shawn has no interest in entering the police force, and after graduating from Leland Bosseigh High School in Santa Barbara, California, in 1995,^[7] takes up a string of random jobs selected strictly for his own enjoyment. He is shown to be a crack shot, hitting all of Detective Barry's bullet holes in a target with little experience and disabling a suspect's truck during a chase while he was hanging from the top of Lassiter's car. In his spare time, he entertains himself by calling in tips to the police hotline based on observations he has made on crime scenes shown in television news footage. After one such tip, the Santa Barbara police become suspicious of Shawn, whose information is so good that they believe it could only have come from an inside source. Desperate to avoid jail time, Shawn lies, explaining that he obtained the information in a psychic vision. Although initially skeptical, the department is impressed when he uses his "psychic" abilities to deduce that McNab was going to a wedding, that the secretary was "haunted" by her dead grandmother, that Lassiter was in a relationship with his partner, and to solve a vandalism case. So they hire Shawn as a consultant. Burton Guster, Shawn's best friend, hesitantly allows Shawn to recruit him, and they open their own psychic detective agency, "Psych".

Characterization[link]

Although Shawn and Gus often have disagreements, they have been friends since early childhood and actor James Roday describes the pair's bond as "unbreakable. It's one of those friendships that make people who don't have one ask, 'Why does Gus put up with Shawn?' It's not about putting up with one another. It's about knowing each other so well that things that might annoy someone from the outside don't annoy you anymore."^[8] Shawn knows exactly how to manipulate Gus, and often frustrates his friend with his antics, but has come to rely on him more in their case work as the series has progressed. Roday believes that Shawn has "evolved a lot" as a partner, moving away from "dragging Gus around by the collar against his will from case to case to case" toward a more equal partnership.^[9] He states that under Gus's influence, Shawn has "wisened up a little bit" and is learning to display a little more discretion at times.^[10]

Shawn's seemingly random stream of consciousness often belies the far-reaching logical connections that his observational skills allow him to make. He explains the multiple-personality-afflicted Robert Dunn's condition to Gus by referencing The Flying Nun, which starred Sally Field, who played the similarly-affected title character in Sybil. He also hybridizes movie quotes voiced by James Earl Jones in two separate films (The Lion King and The Empire Strikes Back) when addressing a mountain lion: "Simba, I am your father." Running jokes on the show center around Shawn's love of Jerk Chicken and pineapples (even though he has a "distaste" for pointy objects), which he will often bring as a gift to people he is meeting for the first time; his frequent desire for Kit-Kat bars (source:Episode 6, Season 3: There Might Be Blood) his inability to set his cell phone to vibrate, even when spying or infiltrating the homes of suspects; his fondness for Val Kilmer; his love of Curt Smith and Tears for Fears; his comments on other people's hair; his difficulty in pronouncing certain words (such as "chassis"); mispronouncing or misquoting phrases (e.g. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Marzipan", "Abercrombie and Fletch") and after being corrected, claiming "I've heard it both ways" (this is usually intentional) ; his use of other people's property in his psychic "visions" (i.e. using O'Hara's scarf to cover his eyes, him ripping out the paper tray of the printer belonging to Chief Vick, Gus's head); and, of course, the pseudonyms he makes up for Gus each time he questions a person of interest, often a reference to an obscure '80s movie, a combination of two or more celebrities' names, or something he created on the spot.

Shawn was introduced in the serial killer Mr. Yang's book on page 11. He is described as "a thick-tufted boy genius who ice skates through life on polished blades of snarky eloquence". Shawn is friends with the Santa Barbara Coroner, given they share a similar sense of humor. Shawn bribes the coroner with gifts in exchange for information on cases Shawn has not been officially hired to take.

References[link]

Sean James Spencer (born May 29, 1975 in Seattle, Washington) is a former Major League Baseball relief pitcher for the Seattle Mariners and Montreal Expos.

Spencer was drafted out of the University of Washington by his hometown Seattle Mariners in the 40th round of the 1996 Major League Baseball Draft. He made his major league debut with the Mariners on May 6, 1999, pitching 1/3 of an inning and giving up 2 earned runs against the Cleveland Indians. On August 10, 2000, Spencer was announced as the first of two PTBNLs traded to the Montreal Expos for Chris Widger. In 8 games for Montreal, he struck out 6 and had an ERA of 5.40. The Expos released him on July 19, 2002. On July 25, 2003, Spencer signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles and pitched in the minors for them until his retirement after the 2004 season.

Spencer played for Greece in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference

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