Karen Vick

Karen Vick
Psych character
First appearance	Pilot
Created by	Steve Franks and Andy Berman
Portrayed by	Kirsten Nelson
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Santa Barbara Police Chief
Family	Mr. Vick, husband Commander Barbara Dunlap, USCG (Jane Lynch), sister
Children	Iris Vick, daughter, born (2006-08-25) August 25, 2006

Chief Karen C. Vick (née Dunlap) is a character on the American comedy detective drama Psych played by Kirsten Nelson.

Fictional biography

According to Head Detective Carlton Lassiter's weblog, Vick replaced Police Chief John Fenich upon his retirement about a month prior to Shawn's arrival at the SBPD. However, in Poker? I Barely Know Her, she references an event known as "The Secret Santa Debacle of 2005", suggesting that she has been involved in the Santa Barbara Police Department in some capacity at least since December of that year. Vick's relationship with Lassiter seems strained by the fact that she is "an outsider" who was chosen by "the powers that be in City Hall" to take the position over "someone from within our own ranks." Vick's decision to allow a self-proclaimed psychic so far into official police investigations has done little to assuage Lassiter's misgivings. Eventually, Lassiter's attitude towards both Shawn and Vick soothed.

On her way to non-lethal weapons training with Lassiter, Vick's water broke and Lassiter rushed her to a hospital where she gave birth to a daughter.

Since Nelson was pregnant during the filming of the pilot episode and gave birth shortly thereafter, for continuity she had to wear a fake pregnancy prosthesis for several of the following episodes.

For Seasons 1 and 2, her position as Police Chief was described as 'Interim.' At the very end of Season 2, Vick announced that she would step down because her position as Chief was not solidified by the mayor, but she received a call from the mayor soon after, effectively giving her the position. This was mainly because her replacement had been exposed as an adulterer by Shawn.

She does not appear in the show's seventh episode "Who Ya Gonna Call?" [1]

Characterization

She was impressed by Shawn Spencer's display of psychic-like insight into her police officer's lives after she tried to arrest him for being an accomplice in a series of crimes which were solved with Shawn's tips. She is suspicious of his psychic abilities, but is not above using any tool at her disposal to solve tough cases. In the episode "There Might Be Blood", Shawn starts to have a "vision" about her relationship with her sister, but she quickly tells him not to do it. Either she didn't want to deal with his charade, or she simply didn't want to talk about the situation. She did talk to him about the situation though.