Review: Psi Cops “Murder House”; “Undead Soldier”

A few weeks ago, the episode “Paperwork” detailed Kydd and Felixx’s attempt to avoid doing their jobs by getting all zonked out on so, so many pills. They managed to avoid witnessing an alien attack and fill out their enormous backlog of paperwork without having any memory of doing so. The two high guys were so effective while blacked out that they inadvertently completed paperwork for three full weeks into the future – an action that, in itself, has some pretty paranormal implications. One of the cases in that future pile details a terrifying trip to a ‘murder house’ in three weeks time. And now that time is up.

“Murder House” starts with a classic Psi Cops child death cold open, albeit a slightly more murdery death than normal. A normal woman who suddenly beats her daughter to death with a box full of meat chainsaws upon setting foot in their new home rightfully catches the attention of Chief Beef, especially because this has happened many times before. The origin of the potential murder curse seems to date back to 1990s era cult activity in the house, leading the team to an imprisoned maniac with a cool nickname who has a tendency to kill everybody around him in his quest for ascension.

The only thing standing in the way of a successful murder house investigation – Kydd starts his day in a noticeably bad mood. The bad mood quickly spreads to Felixx, and the boys find themselves facing a conundrum – how can you figure out if you’re in a psycho killy house if you’re already feeling murderous?

Kydd and Felixx have to fall back, yet again, on their intimate knowledge of each other’s likes and dislikes. The only way these two have survived so long is through having each other’s backs, no matter what. Hand massages and back tickling abound in this ep.

The complex relationship between outside influences and internal turmoil is exposed in this episode. The house has an almost certainly supernatural influence creates a intent to kill in all those who enter it, but Kydd is already primed for violence due to another, more banal outside influence, namely a barista who gave him a completely reasonable nickname (Coffee Guy – because he gets coffee there every day). But is his outsized anger originally inherent to his personality, or is it, too, a result of his vaguely alien-themed childhood trauma?

When Felixx enters the murder house, he is overtaken almost completely by a far more gleeful and unhinged impulse to kill than Kydd’s murderous rage. Dancing while singing about knifing and sawing Kydd until his blood goes woo woo woo may seem like extreme murder house influence, but we’ve seen this exact same smiling homicidal energy from Felixx in several other episodes, and it seems to come from absolutely nowhere. Rather than spend any more time trying to figure out why they feel all their feelings, the Psi Cops fill the murder house with murderers and watch them murder each other in a spectacular and gory fashion.

What’s not to love about the antepenultimate episode of the first season of Psi Cops? It’s got a nine hour road trip, an immortal murder soldier, a spreadsheet full of callbacks and a cliffhanger ending leading into next week’s two part finale.

While never shy about its love for its homeland, this episode is even more Canadian than the average episode of the Vancouver-based show. While the issue this week is ostensibly the immortal undead super soldier (I see crossover potential with Red Ketchup!), the real monster here is a two-headed Canadian classic – woefully underpaid civil servants paired with a lack of budgetary transparency. The boys make less than even a lowly teacher or nurse, but they burn through cash like a couple of RCMP officers kettling peaceful protestors while getting paid overtime.

The undead soldier is in Alberta, necessitating a road trip through the Rocky Mountains with such spotty cell service that Kydd and Felixx can’t even watch their YouTube playlist of people reacting to the realization that cell service is spotty in the Rocky Mountains. The content vacuum created by the lack of internet forces our boys to learn how to hack a radio (it’s pronounced RAD-io, and you just have to turn it on) to hear a new ‘thing’ from the Prime Minister about how all cops legally have to get paid at least $60,000 a year, which is double what they make.

When they finally regain cell service, seven hours since the moment they got really mad at Chief Beef, Kydd and Felixx declare they will only work half as hard until they receive double pay. The Psi Cops only load their guns halfway, don’t defend themselves in fights, and even Felixx’s excellent driving suffers. They also lackadaisically free the immortal undead soldier, who in the end is just looking for Marcus – a half-assed deadbeat that had sex with his wife.

The whole time that the team slogs along at 50% efficiency, Beef is scouring the budget in order to find money for them, eventually realizing that Kydd and Felixx’s outlandish expenses are the entire problem. Burned down murder houses, crashed cars and dinged up parking lot walls are not cheap. There’s an old episode of NewsRadio very much like this, and it ends and pretty much the same way – Bill NcNeil gets to keep his job and Jimmy James has to stop helicoptering home to feed his hounds, and the Psi Cops both get raises but need to start choosing between burgers and tacos instead of having both every day.

Just as a side note, this episode ends with Eric only budgeting the boys a half tank of helicopter fuel to get home from Alberta, knowing it it insufficient and that the helicopter will crash, which it does. Which is fully just attempted murder on Eric’s part. So, yikes to that.

See you all next week for the two part season finale!