Title: "The Wisdom of the Desert"
Directed by: Aaron Lipstadt
Written by: Jeffrey Alan Fiskin
Air Date: April 19, 2019
Previous: The Space Between the Stars
Next: Salvation Mountain
Guest Starring: Yani Gellman, Chris Vance, Mimi Rogers
"The Wisdom of the Desert" is the 7th episode of the fifth season of Bosch.
The pill shill plane whisks Harry away, as Jerry Edgar watches impotently from outside Whiteman Airport.
Madeline Bosch gets increasingly nervous as her dad doesn't answer his phone that night or the next morning. Eventually she gets hold of Lt. Billets, who herself is surprised that Harry hasn't checked in. She wants to call command and summon everyone but Edgar convinces her to wait.
And thus, we are back at the beginning of the season premiere, with Walsh playing Russian roulette with Harry. The audience now knows that the firing pin on that gun has been filed down, so it's less of a surprise when Walsh pulls the trigger and the gun only clicks.
The next morning Bosch approaches Elizabeth Clayton and asks her some questions. She has no idea where they are but knows that Walsh and his goons killed at least one addict who tried to escape. She also tells him about her daughter, the teenaged runaway who was murdered. The murder was never solved.
The goons take the addicts out for another day of pill shopping. At a pharmacy, Harry plants some stuff on Elizabeth and tells the security guard that she shoplifted. Elizabeth is arrested and the rest of the addicts including Harry are hustled back onto the van.
Jose Esquivela Jr.'s cousin Oscar is found dead behind the auto shop where he works. It's clear to Pierce and Vega that he was tortured into giving up his cousin's hiding place, and then shot once the killers got what they wanted, and head off for Bakersfield.
Back in the drug camp Harry stops one of the goons from shooting the dog that lurks around the camp. He gets hauled in to see Walsh again. It seems Trey has figured out that Harry plant the stolen goods in Liz's backpack. Walsh and his men become increasingly suspicious of "Dominic".
Back in Los Angeles, Jerry Edgar meets with Marcos and Arias again, and sees someone leaving their table as he arrives. Edgar tells them that he suspects Bo Jonas was the one who killed Gary, then asks who Marcos and Arias were meeting before. The two detectives tell him that it was a "street source" named Jacques Avril, who is from Haiti. Edgar looks up Avril and finds that he's no street hood, he's a former Haitian militia commander who is now a successful businessman in Los Angeles.
In Bakersfield, Pierce and Vega are watching outside the house where Jose Esquivela Jr. is believed to be hiding. They arrest Hart (one of the two gunmen who killed Jose Sr., and who also killed Oscar) when he shows up at the door with a gun. Jose Jr. runs from the house but is rescued by the local police.
Out in the desert, Tehachapi cops find a note in Liz's backpack, with a "Call Jerry Edgar" message and the words "Hold fast." It's a signal from Bosch. Edgar heads out to the desert.
Tropes:
- Call-Back: To the How We Got Here opening to the season. Harry survives the Russian roulette.
- Evil Brit: Walsh, the head of the pill-smuggling operation, has a British accent.
- Kick the Dog: Well, literally Shoot the Dog...but Vardy the goon is about to shoot the dog that is lurking around the camp, when Harry rather foolishly jumps in the way and saves the dog.
- Mythology Gag: Pierce tells Vega that his old partner Robertson used to recommend carrying around a milk crate so you could sit on it and contemplate a crime scene. That's something that in the novels, Frankie Sheehan told Harry Bosch.
- Polyamory: In a completely random moment Vega tells Pierce that she is polyamorous. She has a husband and a boyfriend, and her husband...also has a boyfriend.
- Russian Roulette: Luckily for Harry, the gun has a filed-down firing pin.
