Henry Spencer (Psych character)
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| Henry Spencer | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Pilot |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 50s |
| Occupation | Retired Police Officer |
| Family | Divorced |
| Children | Shawn Spencer (son) |
| Portrayed by | Corbin Bernsen |
| Created by | Steve Franks & Andy Berman |
Henry Spencer is a character on the American television dramedy Psych played by American actor Corbin Bernsen. Henry is a retired police officer who raised his son, Shawn Spencer to utilize his gift of eidetic memory to hone his powers of observation. Henry disapproves of his son's choice to be a "Psychic Detective", but is secretly proud of his his son's investigational skills. He appears to be keeping a collection of newspaper articles concerning Shawn's exploits.
In 1985, Henry advised his son that "sometimes...all you gotta do is turn something upside down to make it rightside up."
In 1986, Henry pit the members of Scout Troop 101 — consisting entirely, it seems, of Shawn and Gus — against each other in a race to recover a solid-fuel model rocket he fired into a forest. The point of the lesson was, apparently, that winning is rewarded while losing is punished by forcing the loser to watch the winner enjoy his reward. After Shawn and Gus ran into the woods, Henry used a short-cut to retrieve the rocket, then relaunched it after Gus returned with the parachute.
Also in 1986, Henry made his son confront a bully in order to force Shawn to find a new way of dealing with the conflict; when Shawn offered to help the bully ace a test in exchange for immunity, Henry called the teacher giving the test to alert her that Shawn had memorized her answer pattern.
In 1989, Henry taught Shawn the fine art of the stake-out, catching their neighbor, Clark, in the process of stealing their morning newspaper. Also in 1989, Henry agreed to let Shawn have a dog if Shawn could first prove that he was mature enough to care for a dog by building a doghouse. When his son produced an initial result that failed to meet Henry's high standards, Shawn gave up on the project.
Henry participates in a weekly poker game, presumably with former colleagues from the police department, one of whom has access to the crime lab. In exchange for finishing the 17-year-old doghouse, Henry rewards Shawn by getting his friend to test a sample of Chinese food tested for contaminants; the sample winds up helping solve the murder of Elvin Cavanaugh.
For reasons yet unknown, he seems to greatly dislike dogs. Henry also dislikes Shawn's motorcycle (even tipping off the police about his son's illegal parking, leading to the motorcycle being impounded), at least partly due to an accident that Shawn had on a motorcycle.
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| Episode list | ||||
| Shawn Spencer • Burton "Gus" Guster • Henry Spencer Head Detective Carlton Lassiter • Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara • Interim Police Chief Karen Vick |
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