In Celebration of Chaotic Black Characters in Pop Culture #3: Wally from "Psych"
Funniest bit part EVER, on a show full of funny bit parts.
Malcolm Barrett’s a big star now, but he was the most random bad guy in that he seemed too random to be a bad guy. Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com
Writer’s note: I’m celebrating these characters because they were allowed their chaos, their complexities and their messiness, in a way that Black characters aren’t always. I love them even when they suck.
Today’s chaos maker, Wally, is a familiar face - in that he shares his face with actor Malcolm Barrett, who you might know from TV’s “Better Off Ted” and “Timeless,” both series with cult fandom that ended way too early. But unless you’re a fan of a whole different series with a rabid cult following - USA’s silly fake psychic franchise “Psych,” you might never have heard of Wally. He’s onscreen for only a few minutes of the second-season episode “Zero To Murder In Sixty Seconds.” but I swear they’re some of the nuttiest, captivating, off-kilter funny moments of the whole series. He (SPOILER ALERT!) goes from being just a weird lackey to a possible mastermind, and he almost gets away with it not by hiding, but by calling way too much attention to himself. By being so weird no one gets the very calculating mind under it.
It’s chaotic brilliance.
The basic plot is that fake psychic Shawn Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez) is investigating a chop shop ring that keeps taking the cars of people he knows, like his police detective foil Det. Lassiter (the wonderfully deadpan Timothy Omundson) and his best friend/detective agency partner Gus (Dule Hill). It turns out that the chop shop is actually transporting drugs. Shawn comes across Wally, who appears to just be part of the operation and immediately gets arrested. Instead of being mad about it, he’s weirdly grateful and admits that he was just a flunky for real drug ring mastermind Johnny G. It’s hard to explain how odd and weird this is without being able to hear Barrett’s delivery, but check this out (Thanks to the PlanetClaire site for the quotes!)
Wally: Guess I ended up with a better sentence than Jonny G did. {he points at his head} Irony.
Shawn: We still have a few questions. What do you know about a shipment of custom cars on its way to Arizona?
Wally: We were partners but Jonny G was involved in a lot of stuff I didn’t know about. If I asked questions, he’d be like, “None of y’all” I’d be like, “Okay. Relegate.”
Also..
Wally: I was just a front man for the chop shop. And now I’m doing my time. But when I get out? Crime’s gonna be like, “Come out and play, Wally. Come on.” And I’ll be like, “No. Wally doesn’t live here anymore. Reassimilate.”
When (SPOILER ALERT) Wally does turn out to be the bad guy, it’s almost disappointing because whatever weirdly penitent person he was playing was super fun. He was a villain, but boy was it amusing figuring it out. Please watch the episode. It’s a scream.