Last night, Psych paid tribute to Alfred Hitchcock in its entertaining fourth season finale. The episode is called “Mr. Yin Presents,” so the Hitch references are there from the git-go.
The episode begins with Shawn arriving late at a Hitchcock film festival – but just in time for the shower scene from “Psycho.” As the story unfolds, they visit their nemesis, Yang (played by Ally Sheedy!), in a scene that borrows from “Silence of the Lambs.” The boys learn that there’s a Yin to her Yang, and Yin has been busy – he’s set up an elaborate trap inspired by Hitchcock movies, in which Shawn, Gus and the police are forced to play out brief moments from Hitchcock movies including “Frenzy,” “Vertigo,” “The Birds,” “Rear Window” and “Marnie,” with references to “Life Boat” and “Topaz.”
My favorite bit in the episode may have been when one of the cops is chased across a park by a biplane…an RC biplane, that is, operated by a 12 year old. There was more “North by Northwest” in the story, though; it’s one of the clues Yin leaves for the team to follow. I also dug Shawn’s discussion of Hitch’s love of Japanese house slippers – which was completely made up, of course.
If you want to see it, it’s being rerun next at midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning, and I’m sure it’ll be rerun again a bunch of times after that.
Also, if you visit the USA Network website, there’s a commentary on the episode here from writers Andy Berman and James Roday (who stars as Shawn and also directed this episode) that talks about Hitchcock some.
Oh, and special thanks to my buddy J.C. Vaughn, who pointed the episode out to me!
The Hitchcock Report 
Glad you got to see this one. I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think everything worked, but I really appreciated that they tried it and that so much of it did come through.
I will have to catch the rerun, thanks for the heads up!