This Was the Best Episode of 'Psych'

Psych ran for eight seasons, between 2006 and 2014 on USA Network. In that time, the tv show paid homage to just about every piece of famous pop culture media that existed in the 80s and 90s. Curt Smith, of Tears for Fears, made multiple appearances in later seasons, and there was a tribute episode to John Hughes films, a werewolf episode, an episode in the style of The Blair Witch Project. The show was even the first ever to remake its own episode. These were all fantastic, but there was one episode amongst all 120 that really stands out.

“Dual Spires,” Season 5, Episode 12, released on December 1, 2010. The episode finds Gus (Dulé Hill) and Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) invited to a Cinnamon Festival in Dual Spires, a secluded town tucked away into the mountains. Dual Spires is very clearly a direct rip off of Twin Peaks, but this is no cheap tribute—in addition to the town name and the spot on setting, Shawn and Gus enter a town that is teeming with original Twin Peaks actors. 

The show features a cast that includes Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks), Sherylin Fenn (Audrey Horne), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Lonny Von Holden (Harold Smith), Robyn Lively (Lana Budding Milford), and Catherine E. Coulson (Log Lady).

Much like the original plot of the Twin Peaks, Shawn and Gus are tasked with solving the tragic murder of a young girl, and must look into the hidden horrors of Dual Spires to determine what really happened. Rounded out with a younger cast to play the high schoolers enmeshed in the small town drama, Psych goes beat for beat with Twin Peaks. 

But this is still Psych. So in between the dreamscape music and the references to the source material, there was still buddy-comedy hijinx. Gus is the first Black man the town has ever seen. No one understands any of Shawn’s pop culture references, because Dual Spires only watches one movie each week. The duo eats so much pie they make themselves sick. One of the main suspects is a blind photographer. There’s only one square foot of cell service in the whole town, making it hard to call the real police. 

It was a big swing to take—even one for a show that had already established its ability to reference beloved source material so well. In a prior season, there was an entire episode dedicated to Hitchcock films. Rodriguez, who also co-wrote the episode, said that another aspect of making such an ambitious episode work centered on getting so much of the original Twin Peaks cast to sign on. 

“I feel like it was an experience within an experience because a lot of these Twin Peaks cast members we had there hadn't seen each other in 20 years,” Rodriguez told Entertainment Weekly back in 2010. “So it was almost like there was a Twin Peaks reunion happening on the Psych set in addition to these two shows sort of melding together to coexist as one, which could have been a disaster. But because we actually pulled it off — I'm proud to say — it turned out to be a doubly wonderful experience.”

That on set reunion with seven of the original cast members is felt throughout the episode, which still finished with a classic solve, and a bizarre little dance number at the end. It was such a good episode—and an homage—that David Lynch even approved. 

“After the episode aired, his daughter, Jennifer, directed a couple of Psych episodes and has become a friend,” Rodriguez told Vulture in 2017. “She insinuated that he had seen it at some point, and he was pleased. That was pretty awesome.”