Screenshot from the episode.
"Scary Sherry: Bianca's Toast", is a Halloween-themed episode of the dramedy Psych. It was originally aired in the US in 2007, during Season 1. Despite being Halloween-themed, the episode actually aired on March 2, 2007.
Created by Steve Franks and broadcast on the USA Network, Psych is an American detective comedy-drama (also known as a "dramedy") which follows Shawn Spencer (played by Jame Roday), a young crime consultant who pretends to have psychic powers, when instead he is simply using a heightened sense of observational skills and detective instincts above the rest of the Santa Barbara Police Department. He chose to pretend to be a psychic after numerous tips he called in to the police department made them suspicious as to his overt knowledge of the crimes. Shawn is followed around by his best friend and reluctant partner, Burton "Gus" Guster (played by Dulé Hill), as well as his father, Henry Spencer (played by Corbin Bernsen) who is a retired member of the police force, who also taught Spencer to be a super sleuth.
Plot[]
The episode begins with a flashback to Halloween 1985. There, Shawn Spensor and Burton "Gus" Guster are in Shawn's father, Henry's, police car, coming back from trick-or-treating. Suddenly, a man stops the car and asks Henry for police assistance. He says there is a girl in a mental institution, called Wispy Sunny Pines, who is about to jump out of the fourth story window and kill herself. Henry runs to prevent this suicide and warns Shawn and Gus not to watch, as this could be a horrifying sight. However, Shawn disobeys his father and opens his eyes anyways. He notices that the girl is no longer standing on the window ledge and assumes that she jumped. He starts a legend, that every Halloween night, the anniversary of the night she died, her spirit comes back and haunts people.
In the present time, a girl named Doreen Harthan is in the mental institution and is being haunted by what appears to be the spirit of Scary Sherry, the girl who committed suicide that night. Suddenly, Doreen falls out the window, down four stories, and is killed by the fall. The police come, examine her corpse and determine her death to have been caused by suicide, similar to Sherry's several years earlier.
Juliet O'Hara, a detective, is not convinced that the death was a suicide. She goes under cover, as a sorority sister in the sorority of which Doreen was a member. She tries to investigate the other sisters, to figure out what happened, but none of them know anything about the real events. She then asks Shawn, who is working as a psychic detective (even though secretly, he is not really psychic, and is just hyper-observant). Shawn agrees to help her, and takes Gus along with him.
Shawn talks to the other sorority sisters, one of them, named Bianca, seems to be attracted to him. Suddenly, the lights flicker and a ghostface is seen on the window, and says "tsaot si acnaib". Shawn and Gus flee from the scene, but Shawn turns back, and using his hyper-observation, discovers that what happened was man-made, and was most likely a prank from one of the sisters. Shawn tells this to Juliet (pretending he discovered it was man-made in a vision), and Juliet says that it could be any of the sisters but, if she needed a lead suspect, she would say Alice Bundy, Doreen's best friend.
Shawn and Gus go back to the psych office, and try to figure out what happened with Doreen. Gus points out that Doreen had too much to live for to commit suicide but when he sees a picture of the crime scene, he notices the latch on her window has been broken. This causes him to believe that her death was an accidental murder. He suddenly thinks of the ghost's words, "tsaot si acnaib" and realizes that is the backwards spelling of "Bianca is toast". Shawn realizes that someone plans on killing Bianca. Shawn calls Juliet, to warn her to protect Bianca, but by the time they get to the sorority house, it is too late. Bianca has been murdered.
Bianca's friend Betty, is taken into questioning at the police station. Betty confesses about what happened the night of Doreen's death. She and Bianca tricked Doreen into coming into the mental institution, where they played a prank on her, by pretending to be Scary Sherry. However, they did not intend for Doreen to die, by falling out the window out of fear, and were shocked with what their harmless prank had become.
Shawn is convinced that Alice killed Bianca out of revenge for her killing her best friend but he needs to find a way to prove it. He confronts Alice about this but Alice denies it. He discovers that Alice grew up in the same home as Doreen, and decides to sneak into her house to see if he can find any evidence.
Shawn sneaks into her house, and although he does not discover any proof, notices footprints in the sewer, which shows him how Alice escaped without her parents knowledge. Shawn then gets a call from another sorority sister, who tells him that Alice invited Juliet to the mental institution, for a candlelight vigil for Doreen. Shawn realizes that Alice believes Juliet helped kill Doreen, and she is planning on killing Juliet.
Shawn's hunch in proven correct, when, at the asylum, Alice attempts to decapitate Juliet. However, Shawn and Gus arrive in time to save Juliet, and Alice is arrested.