Shawn and Gus have been using unconventional tactics to solve crimes since 2006, and Psych 3: This Is Gus finally introduces major consequences for their legally dubious schemes. While pretending to be a psychic isn’t a crime, Shawn has been falsely impersonating one since Psych’s premiere. To keep up the act and continue to solve crimes with his best friend, Shawn has used various illegal strategies to find clues and capture the suspect, though has never been held legally accountable until Peacock's Psych 3 movie.
Psych 3: This Is Gus picks up approximately nine months after Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, following Groomzilla Gus as he prepares for his wedding to Selene and the birth of his child. While Shawn worries about losing his spot as his best friend’s priority, he’s also facing the outcomes of the events of Psych 2 along with the other main characters. Lassiter is adjusting back to being chief of police at Santa Barbara PD after suffering a severe stroke in Psych 2, Karen is realizing she puts her work ahead of family, and Woody is awaiting trial. While Shawn and Gus are helping Lassie get back to normal, they seem to be avoiding helping Woody, who, in a quick Psych 3 character cameo is seen facing consequences for their plan.
At the beginning of Psych 3, Karen is shown FaceTiming Woody, with the coroner preparing to go to trial for impersonating a doctor in Psych 2. Wanting to investigate the suspicious Herschel House that Lassie was rehabilitated in, Shawn and Gus devised a plan for Woody to impersonate Dr. Catalon, a Cuban doctor who had yet to arrive at the facility. Woody had enjoyed pretending to be Catalon so much that he intended to continue the act after the case was solved, only for him to pass by the real Dr. Catalon entering Herschel House. Psych 2 never showed Woody being apprehended or getting into trouble, but, in a first for the series, Psych 3: This Is Gus reveals that Woody is facing major legal consequences for Shawn and Gus’s scheme.
While Woody never actually faced jail time, this is the first real occasion in which Shawn and Gus’s wildly unconventional tactics have faced legal actions. Of course, Shawn and Gus never went on the stand, but it proves that their illegal schemes can still warrant severe consequences. Shawn has been brought in by the police on numerous occasions either as a teenager rebelling against his policeman father, Henry, or being questioned for his odd psychic strategies, but he has never faced legal consequences. The only time in the original series when Shawn faced real consequences was when Juliet found out in Psych season 7 that he had been lying about his psychic ability, causing them to break up.
Shawn and Gus routinely get in trouble with Santa Barbara PD, or, now, the San Francisco PD, for failing to adhere to police protocol, but they are always back to their mischievous routine in the next episode or movie. Unsurprisingly, it was Woody that faced the consequences for Shawn and Gus’s scheme, leaving room for the two main Psych characters to continue their unorthodox crime solving without fear of repercussions. Psych 4 is inevitable after the success of Peacock’s sequel movies, which may finally see Shawn and Gus themselves facing legal consequences after their hijinks in Psych 3: This Is Gus.