Overall I thought this was a prett solid episode. The case wasn’t great but not it wasn’t terrible either. I found it to be a little predictable. What I did like about the episode was the rivalry between Karen and her sister Barbara. This rivalry lead to most of the humor of the episode. I have a feeling Barbara might make an appearance on a future episode of the show and I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Let’s get to the recap for those of you who missed the episode.
It’s 1987. Shawn and Gus are digging a big hole in the backyard. They are trying to find oil (what kid wants to seriously look for oil by the way). Henry shows up and starts yelling at them for messing up the yard. They then hit the waterline and are denched with water and mud.
In the present day we head to an oil rig platform. A man named Butch is bossing his crew around in the rain trying to keep them away from danger. One worker doesn’t listen and actually goes into the area of the ship called “The No Man’s Land”. No one is supposed to go in this area while they are working. Butch gets the worker to leave the area. Butch is then killed when the crane swings and hits him. The next morning Karen takes Shawn and Gus out to investigate the case. Karen doesn’t have the authority to investigate since it is a Coast Guard issue but the police received a call from an unidentified person that there were safety concerns on the rig. As Karen approaches the rig she is stopped by the Coast Guard. Karen fights with the head of coast guard (Barbara). Barbara thinks the death was an accident and refuses to investigate the idea fo murder. They continue fighting and it turns out that Karen and Barbara are sisters and they have a sibling rivalry.
They take their fight back to the police station and Karen wants the case since she think sit is in her jurisdiction. Karen tells Barabara that she is going to use Shawn to find the unidentified caller. Barbara won’t let her do this and actually ends up hiring Shawn herself. She tells Shawn and Gus to meet her at the dock. Shawn and Gus head to the dock and determine that there is a security camera watching the phone where the tip came from. Shawn and Gus are ready to head to the rig when they are told by a coast guard member that they aren’t allowed near the rig (Barbara was just using them as part of the sibling rivalry). Shawn and Gus get on the rig when they hitch a ride with Billie Joe Bamford and his daughter Ashley. Billie Joe actually owns the rig. Billie Joe lets them on the boat because he wants to know if what happened was really an accident.
Meanwhile at the police station Lassiter is distracted since he wants to ask Barbara out. Juliet tells him that is not a good idea. They eventually get back to their case about a missing professor (Christopher).
Back on the rig Billie Joe shows Shawn and Gus around the rig. Shawn notices a geologist lab (that is locked) and Billie Joe tells them that her daughter convinced him to hire a geologist in order to help his success of finding oil. They look through Butch’s cabin and they quickly find that he was a stickler for the rules and wrote up complaints against all his former coworkers. Barbara catches them on the rig and forces them to leave. Before they leave they are able to ask the crew about Butch and almost all of them are happy that Butch is dead.
Shawn and Gus return to the police station and Shawn convinces Karen to let him investigate Butch’s house. Shawn and Gus hack into Butch’s computer and see several email messages from a man warning Butch about some safety hazard. The man warned Butch if he didn’t stop it that he would go to the authorities. While they are looking through the emails Gus smells something. He follows it to a closet and finds a dead body. It turns out to be Juliet and Lassiter’s missing professor (Christopher). Shawn and Gus call the police and they all determine that Christopher must have been the geologist that Billie Joe hired for the oil rig.
Shawn and Gus think Christopher and Butch must have been hiding something in the geology lab. They try to trick Henry into taking them to the rig but Henry doesn’t bite. Shawn and Gus eventually get a ride from another fisherman. Once on the rig they break into the geology lab and Shawn discovers a similar map that he saw earlier. They compare the map to another map and Shawn discovers that the rig is actually drilling into a fault line (highly dangerous since it could start an earthquake). Ashley (Bilie Joe’s daughter) shows up in the office and Shawn tries to tell her that her father is a criminal. Ashley pretend to buy into their story until she is able to lock them in a room (she is actually the one guilty).
Ashley tries to escape the boat when the police show up and try to arrest her (she was the only person on the boat that didn’t have an alibi when Butch was murdered). Ashley runs for it and hides in the engine room. Juliet and Lassiter save Shawn and Gus. The police and Coast Guard surround Ashley in the engine room. Shawn explains to Gus that Ashley did everything to try and get her father’s approval. Billie Joe made a mistake when he started drilling and Ashley tried to cover it up. She actually hired Christopher in order to forge some maps. When Christopher and Butch started talking though Ashley had to dispose of both of them. Shawn eventually gets Ashley to give herself up and she is arrested.
Back at the police station Karen and Barbara seem to have finally gotten over their sibling rivalry. Barbara then asks Karen if she can ask out Lassiter. Karen doesn’t want her to but Barbara takes it as Karen wanting him for herself. They start fighting again and Barbara ends up asking Lassiter out in order to spite Karen.
