Even after eight seasons and three movies, Psych still finds ways to surprise viewers everywhere with its zany storylines and incredible casting choices. Psych 3: This Is Gus, the latest film released on the Peacock streaming service, continues this trend with some of the franchise's most bizarre adventures and perfect guest casting from top to bottom.
The film introduced new memorable characters, like Selene's duplicitous husband Alan Decker, and also brought back franchise favorites like Father Westley and Curt Smith. Even though the film may have had a slimmer guest cast than previous films, likely due to filming protocols and restrictions, Psych 3: This Is Gus still delivers some of Psych's best guest actors to date.
Sage Brocklebank As Buzz McNab
Buzz McNab may not be one of the smartest characters in Psych, but every time he appears in the series and its sequel films, he's always a more than welcome sight, and so is his portrayer, series vet Sage Brocklebank. Buzz has come a long way from the beginning of the show when he was just a bumbling officer who was more often used to fetch coffee and run errands than investigate cases.
In Psych 3: This Is Gus, however, Buzz is now a lead detective in the Santa Barbara Police Department, taking on an important role in Chief Lassiter's absence. Although Buzz only appears in one brief scene in the film, Brocklebank's portrayal of a much more assured, confident Buzz speaks volumes about his development over the years, both as a character and an actor.
Katie Findlay As Bryn
Katie Findlay is perhaps best known to recent television viewing audiences for her work as the mysterious Lisbeth in The CW's Nancy Drew, or as the ill-fated Rebecca in the first season of ABC's How to Get Away with Murder. But Findlay is in fact a seasoned player in the Psych franchise, too, having appeared in the season 5 episode "Shawn 2.0."
But in Psych 3, Findlay takes on an entirely new character: Bryn, a new-age real estate worker who completely connects with Shawn and Gus while they're undercover. Findlay portrays Bryn as both wonderfully clueless and gullible, but also incredibly perceptive and insightful, making for a great comedic foil for Shawn (dressed as Rob Zombie) and Gus (dressed as ventriloquist Willie Tyler).
Allen Maldonado As Alan Decker
There have been many memorable criminals in Psych, but Allen Maldonado's Alan Decker is perhaps the first nemesis Gus has ever had. Alan Decker is an enigmatic figure, a character that keeps viewers guessing and briefly lulls them into trusting him before revealing his true duplicitous and murderous nature.
It's a testament to the strength of Maldonado's performance that the character never once feels unbelievable or cartoonish, even as he descends into villainy. It's also not the first time that Maldonado and Dulé Hill have played off one another as rivals, as the pair currently star as frenemies on ABC's The Wonder Years - a dynamic that will feel newly charged following Psych 3's release.
Sophia Reid-Gantzert As Lily Lassiter
When viewers last saw Lily Lassiter in Psych's final season back in 2014, she was just a newborn baby. Evidently, time has passed very differently in the Psych world than it has in the real world, because when Lily appears in Psych 3, she is now 11 years old and portrayed by Sophia Reid-Gantzert of The Baby-Sitters Club.
The casting of Reid-Gantzert in this role could not have been any better. Lily feels immediately like a character who has always been there, the all-knowing and understanding daughter that Lassie has always deserved, and one who shows tell-tale signs of taking after her quasi-uncles Shawn and Gus, too, much to her father's consternation. Lily is a great character already, but a great deal of that is owed to Reid-Gantzert's winning portrayal.
Kurt Fuller As Woody Strode
From the moment he arrived in the series' fourth season, Woody Strode has been one of Psych's weirdest characters. Woody's many hilarious quotes often provide the series with some of its most outlandish and unexpected moments of humor. In Psych 3, Woody returns in a sadly brief cameo to provide yet another example of his boundaries-pushing humor.
Following the events of Psych 2, in which Shawn and Gus roped Woody into posing as another doctor, Woody now finds himself facing criminal charges in the Woodiest way possible: defending himself, and arriving fashionably late to his hearing. Kurt Fuller makes the most of the brief cameo, half of which takes place via a FaceTime call, and delivers one of the film's funniest scenes, even if Woody's storyline is sadly unresolved by the film's conclusion.
Ray Wise As Father Peter Westley
Psych is known for its colorful cast of characters, including many bizarre recurring minor characters played by famous faces. Ray Wise, perhaps best known for his genre work in Twin Peaks, has appeared throughout the Psych franchise as Shawn and Gus's childhood religion teacher, Father Peter Westley, a character who is frequently roped into mysterious cases involving exorcisms.
Psych 3 finds Wise making a long-awaited return to the franchise as Father Westley, ostensibly for the purpose of marrying Gus and Selene in their in-person wedding. But when Selene goes into labor early, Father Westley is roped into officiating the ceremony over Zoom, though he comically lapses back into his exorcism habits on multiple occasions during the hectic, rushed affair.
Curt Smith As Himself
Of the many characters that fans wanted to return in Psych 3, Curt Smith is perhaps the biggest surprise and the most welcome one, too. The Tears for Fears frontman is one of the biggest stars to appear in the Psych franchise, and time and again, the series has found increasingly hilarious and outlandish circumstances for him to get caught up in.
Psych 3 may not have him attacked by a panther or turned into a zombie, but the film does deliver an exciting new venture for Smith: founding a new version of the band Wham!, called Wom UL, with their first single "Previous Holiday," a riff on the classic "Last Christmas." Along the way, Smith gamely shows his comedy chops as he is roped into performing at Gus and Selene's virtual wedding, before hamming it up in the hysterical music video for "Previous Holiday."