"Spellingg Bee" is the second episode of Season One. When the revered Spellmaster of the Regional Spelling Bee suddenly dies, Shawn and Gus are soon on hand to investigate.
Plot Summary[]
Shawn comes into the diner where he meets Juliet for the first time. He has a conversation with her, "psychically" figuring out she has two cats and parents in a long-lasting marriage. Halfway through, a man enters and sits down at the counter. As Juliet eyes him, Shawn figures out she is a cop who is on duty. Juliet tells Shawn to duck and draws her gun. Detective Lassiter comes in with a few other uniform police officers and arrests the perp. He takes one look at Shawn and hurries out.
In 1985, Gus is at the Regional Spelling Bee and it is his turn. Shawn is in the audience and is telling him the answers. Unfortunately for Gus, Shawn mouths the wrong letter and Gus gets eliminated from the Bee.
In the present, Shawn and Gus are watching the Regional Spelling Bee, mostly because Gus insisted. Suddenly, this year's favorite, Brendan Vu, collapses after breathing in from his inhaler. Shawn doesn't think it was an accident, and gets a call from Interim Chief Karen Vick to go investigate.
Vick tells them that Brendan said that the inhaler felt strange. When the ambulance arrived, the inhaler was gone. Shawn and Gus need to interview all the witnesses by 5 p.m. – because when the Bee finishes, all the contestants and potential suspects will go back to their hometowns.
After eliminating the Bee contestants who were already kicked out, Shawn begins going through the remaining suspects, when the Spellmaster, former champion Elvin Cavanaugh, decides to make a big announcement. As Shawn and Gus come out to hear it, they see Cavanaugh staggering around. He tumbles over the railing in the Spellmaster's box and is killed.
Upon investigation, Lassiter and Juliet believe that Cavanaugh was incredibly overweight from eating junk food. They believe that he had a heart attack and fell. Shawn and Gus sneak into the Spellmaster's box to do some investigating, and (using Gus' amazing "Supersmeller" ability) realize that Cavanaugh's Chinese noodles might have been poisoned. Shawn and Gus need to find a lab that will analyze the food.
Shawn decides to visit Henry, who has a friend that could analyze them, but he wants Shawn to do a favor in return. Because Shawn has never fully completed anything in his life, Henry wants him to finish a dog house that he started on as a child. Desperate to solve the case, Shawn agrees, only to quit in the middle of the night.
While riding home he flashes back to when he was young Henry comes come and finds his son building the dog house. He then tells him that a dog won't be able to live in it. He walks away telling him to do it right. As he flashes back to present, a van runs him off the road and he is thrown from his bike.
After getting himself checked out at the hospital, Shawn and Gus decide to check on Brendan. Brendan has new inhaler, but is strangely identical to fellow Bee contestant Jiri Prochazka's inhaler. After further inspection, Gus informs Shawn that Jiri's inhaler is a fake because the doctor on his prescription did not exist. Realizing that he needs to know the results to the drug test on the noodles, Shawn leaves for Henry's house to finish the dog house.
After noticing Shawn's injury, Henry decides to help out and finish the dog house. Shawn asks Henry why he never helped with these things in the past and Henry simply responds that he was never asked. Soon, the results for the noodles come in. They were poisoned, and now Shawn has to tell the police in the form of a "vision." The police say that they can't solve a case off of his vibes; Shawn and Gus need to find concrete evidence.
Back at the Bee, Shawn poses as the new Spellmaster and he and Gus sneak back into the Spellmaster's box. There, Shawn notices distinctive indentations on the carpet. He finds a tripod in the closet with a camera attached, locked in an awkward position. The feet of the legs fit into the indentations perfectly. As Shawn moves the tripod around, he realizes Cavanaugh was spying on Jiri's father, Miklous. Cavanaugh had suspected Miklous and Jiri of cheating and was going to disqualify the boy in his big announcement.
Back downstairs, Shawn watches Miklous as Jiri comes up to spell. He sees Miklous tapping something in his jacket and then Jiri gripping his inhaler. Shawn realizes Miklous rigged a system that sent electrical pulses to the inhaler to spell out the word for Jiri. Brendan accidentally got hold of that inhaler, and that's why it felt strange in his hands and didn't work when he needed it to. It was Miklous who poisoned Cavanaugh and ran Shawn off the road. Gus calls the police and Shawn has a grand psychic episode onstage, pointing to the inhaler as the definitive proof the cops were looking for.
Outside, Shawn reveals to Gus that he purposely misspelled the word that Gus got eliminated on in that earlier Bee. Shawn just wanted Gus to live a normal life not worrying about studying and Spelling Bees. An incensed Gus then starts chasing a hobbling Shawn around the property.[1]
Trivia[]
- A pineapple appears when Henry comes home and Shawn is working on the doghouse – he's holding a slice of pineapple in his hand.
- The picture accompanying the Santa Barbara Mirror article Henry is reading at the end of the episode is seen again in S4E9 "Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark" when Henry shows it to Rollins.
- This is the only episode where Young Shawn is played by Kyle Tejpar.
Transcript[]
The transcript for Spellingg Bee can be found here.
Gallery[]
The gallery for Spellingg Bee can be found here.
Digital Releases[]
