Psych 2: Lassie Come Home review – a healthy slice of film comfort food

I may be perpetually biased here, but I love Psych. The wife and I have been huge fans since it aired as we kept a running count of who spotted the “pineapple” (she’s up 71-52, for the record, but she’s a professor). Admittingly, the show abused its brand of humor a hundred times over by the end of its original run that closed out six years ago; I mean, how many times can you hear Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) call Gus (Dule Hill) an eclectic first and last name in front of a beautiful woman weekly? I’m relieved to say that Psych 2: Lassie Come Home is a welcome return to the show, with the same trademark humor and a clearer focus on the human element of the film while putting the psychic detective shtick on the back burner for a stronger result.

Psych 2 starts with our beloved duo coming back to Santa Barbara after their colleague and dear friend, Police Chief Carlton “Lassie” Lassiter (Timothy Omundson).  He is recovering from gunshot wounds after being left for dead when ambushed on the job. Lassie though, always the detective, sees unexplained things happening at the clinic while having flashbacks of his deceased father (Joel McHale) and calls in his old team to have them check things out. Together, with the help of Shawn’s wife and Carlton’s ex-partner Jules (Maggie Lawson), they investigate the facility’s emphatic director (The Good Doctor’s and The West Wing alum’s Richard Schiff), a nurse with a crush on a certain detective’s perfectly shaped cranium (Scrubs’ Sarah Chalke), and a catatonic patient who comes from a different world than where you come from (A Different World’s Kadeem Hardison).

Omundson missed out on the first film after suffering a stroke. For the creator, Steve Franks, writer Andy Bermann, and Rodriguez to center the film around him is a testament to the respect they have for him as a performer and the love they have for each other. The script from the trio I mentioned above, Director Frank’s story that has the character’s concern for Lassie feels real and organic without being advantageous. It gives an added weight to the series that was never really there before and makes the ending even overwhelmingly emotional.

Rodriguez and Hill are very funny here. They still have a natural chemistry that shows up on the screen. It took me a while to notice that Rodriguez’s onscreen love interest from A Million Little Things (Allison Miller) had a role in the film, and it’s a hilarious cameo (Allison Miller’s character in Things is named Maggie, Roday’s love interest; Maggie Lawson plays Jules in Psych, also Roday’s love interest; both look oddly similar, sisters really, and both are from Kentucky; mind blown?). The film has a jump the shark moment that goes on too long with an old friend, and the plot is rather obvious when you can easily narrow down the number of familiar faces, which is a standard tax when watching films like this that are an indulgence.

This Psych film, unlike the musical and the initial film release, is less reliant on the show’s original run and has a clearer focus on the characters without going into the well too many times. It certainly has those elements, with a couple nicely placed Easter pineapples eggs along the way and a few winks that only add to the film’s enjoyment for their hardcore fans. The comedy though can stand on its own, which is saying a lot nowadays with the constant reboots and remakes no one asked for. It’s one of the few spin-off films that disproves the rule — Psych can go home again.