Title: "Salvation Mountain"
Directed by: Ernest Dickerson
Written by: Tom Bernardo
Air Date: April 19, 2019
Previous: The Wisdom of the Desert
Next: Hold Back the Night
Guest Starring: Chris Vance, C. Thomas Howell, Mimi Rogers
"The Wisdom of the Desert" is the 8th episode of the fifth season of Bosch.
Jerry Edgar arrives in Tehachapi. Liz Clayton can only tell him that the camp is somewhere around a lake. Eventually she is able to remember a colorfully painted hill bearing the words "GOD IS LOVE" and with a big cross on the top. Together the two of them identify it as Salvation Mountain.
Out at the camp, Carter and Stones usher all the addicts into the van. However, they stop at the plane and tell "Dominic Reilly" that he's going home instead. Bosch obviously knows what this means. Sure enough, once the plane gets airborne and over the Salton Sea, Stones whips out a copy of the Los Angeles Times. There's a story about the Preston Borders case, with a big color picture of Harry on the front page.
The two thugs tell Harry they're going to throw him out of the plane. Harry's Sword Cane pays off as he whips it out and kills Carter by stabbing him in the neck. A wild fight between Stones and Bosch ensues which ends with Bosch stabbing Stones in the eye with his thumb and flipping him out of the plane. Harry then takes Carter's gun, points it at the pilot, and demands a return to Whiteman Airport. He also radios the authorities.
Billets is hugely relieved on hearing that Harry made it out of the desert alive. Maddie is also relieved when Harry calls her after two days missing, but her relief is soon followed by anger over the risk he took. Harry debriefs Charlie Hovan, who tells him that Walsh was a former pilot for the CIA in Central America before he went rogue and became a smuggler.
Honey Chandler also manages to finally reach Bosch. Harry is pretty pissed about the newspaper story, which almost got him killed, but Chandler points out that the story now gives Harry standing in the Borders case, so he can prove the frame. Later, after Maddie makes it back home, she asks Harry how many people he's killed, and points out that every time Harry's had to kill somebody, she's almost lost him.
Walsh, Vardy, and Sheriff got a heads-up from Whiteman Airport and just barely made it out of their camp ahead of the cops. They had to leave most of their stock of pills behind, thanks to Harry Bosch.
Harry calls the prison guard who was there when a dying Olmer signed his confession. The prison guard provides the method by which Cronyn got Olmer's DNA; he wiped Olmer's hands with his handkerchief.
The next day Bosch and Edgar go looking for Elizabeth. They circle back to Louis, who is horrified to find out that "Reilly" is a cop. Louis tells them that he took Liz to see Dr. Rohat, an extremely unethical doctor who has earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" and apparently accepts sexual favors in return for opiates. They go there and sure enough they find Liz whacked out on dope on Dr. Rohat's table, clad only in her underwear. They take her to Charlie Company with the hope that she can get clean.
Tropes:
- Answer Cut: Maddie, frustrated at being unable to reach her father, says "Dad, where are you?" Cut to the plane carrying Bosch out over the Salton Sea.
- Dr. Feelgood: Dr. Rohat dispenses opiates in return for sex.
- Eye Scream: Bosch wins his fight by Stones when he plunges a thumb straight into Stones' eye.
- Oh, Crap!: Billets reacts this way when she is told that Bosch is missing, having never come back from his undercover mission.
- The Place: Salvation Mountain is a real landmark
out in the Imperial Valley desert. - Sword Cane: Bosch's sword cane pays off in a big way as he uses it to kill one of the two thugs on the plane.
- Vanity License Plate: Dr. Rohat has a particularly obnoxious one: "DOCYOX".
