(S02E10, sort of) "He's going to shoot his eye out, isn't he?" -- Burton "Gus" Guster

"Yes he is." -- Shawn Spencer

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you -- The Gusters. Yes, after a season and a half we finally get to meet the people that made Burton "Gus" Guster the man that he is today. I was starting to think that we would never meet the parents who kept Gus out of one of the most prominent high schools in the area. Perhaps they would have been like Vera on Cheers -- heard and talked about but never seen. Luckily, the producers were generous enough to connect some pretty big faces to Gus' lineage.

Gallery: Psych: Holiday Special

I find it very apt that Phylicia Rashad and Ernie Hudson were cast as Bill and Winnie Guster. Not because they were the perfect parents for Gus, but they fit right in with the retro reference sub-theme that can be found in most episodes of Psych. Of course, we all know Rashad as the beautiful and headstrong matriarch of the Huxtable family on The Cosby Show. And Ernie Hudson? Well, how can we forget him in the role of Winston Zeddemore in the classic 1984 horror comedy Ghostbusters (although, some do for one reason or another).

As parents, the Gusters do to Gus what millions of other parents do to their kids: treat them like little children. That, and they don't seem to be impressed with the way his life has turned out so far. This is especially true when it comes to the continued relationship between their son and Shawn. They tend to believe that Shawn has been a bad influence on their little boy. Gosh, if they only knew what we knew.

Honestly, Gus' friendship with Shawn has made him a much stronger person. Okay, Shawn having Gus smoke a whole pack of cigarettes when they were younger so he wouldn't smoke again probably wasn't one of those things that made him stronger. But, he has definitely grown as a person since he and Shawn started the Psych Detective Agency. I think that was displayed best when Gus pretty much told his parents off on the way they were treating him and his friendship with Shawn. in the end, despite this declaration from their son, Bill and Winnie still didn't think their son was quite ready yet to enter the grown-up world.

Continuing the theme of family in this week's holiday episode we have the continuing battle between Shawn Spencer and father Henry. Really, those two do love each other in a competitive, winner-take-all type of way. I see Henry's way of thinking as 'You did good before, but can you do better now' when it comes to Shawn and his abilities. That's why they have the gift-guessing contest every year. But, now that the younger Spencer is using his special gift on a regular basis I feel that the advantage is more on him then it is on Henry. Hence, the reason why Shawn was able to know ahead of time that he was going to get 'Psych'-printed golf balls for Christmas (which I am sure will be sold at the USA Network site any moment now).

Over to Carlton. Poor Lassie, alone for Christmas and deathly afraid of snow globes (Psych snow globe shown on this episode should be on the website right...about...now). Luckily, Juliet is nice enough to have him over. As usual, big mistake to put Lassiter into a position dealing with social interaction. Nothing that kids want to hear more at Christmas than the Danish version of Santa has the jolly ol' St. Nick using slaves to deliver toys. I think we now know why Carlton's wife divorced him. By the way, having Lassie beat those kids at Wii boxing was a total falsehood -- my 7-year-old daughter whips my butt all of the time at that game.

This week's murder mystery was interesting. I knew who the murderer was once I saw the picture of that man and his lover. I just didn't know how Shawn and Gus were going to piece it all together. Awkward moment of the night --Gus sniffing all of those women at the estate sale to see who smelled like a certain type of perfume.

Save for a early reference to A Christmas Story and brief mentions of The Tell-Tale Heart and Psycho this special episode of Psych was pretty retro-reference free. That's fine, because the story itself was solid enough that it didn't need to be peppered with a ton of 80's and 90's references that are normally used. Actually, I thought the scene where Gus and Shawn showed their fears about the Edgar Allen Poe story and Alfred Hitchcock movie, respectively, was telling about their two personalities. Gus is definitely the more bookish of the two, while Shawn is more pop culture in nature. But, we all knew that already, didn't we?

The bad news is this is the only new episode of Psych for December. The good news is we won't have to wait too long for new episodes of Psych since January 11th is the return date. Until then, have a great holiday.