Title: Dark Sacred Night
Directed by: Tara Nicole Weyr
Written by: Daniel Pyne and Osokwe Vasquez
Air Date: April 17, 2020
Previous: Copy Cat
Next: Some Measure of Justice
Guest Starring: Mimi Rogers, Linda Park
"Dark Sacred Night" is the 9th episode of the sixth season of Bosch.
The Daisy Clayton investigation is coming to a head. Bosch goes to Elizabeth Clayton's apartment to fill her in, but finds her drunk and partying, having suffered a relapse. The cops raid Roger Dillon's business and find what appears to be a murder van, complete with a mattress and shackles, and a woman's fingernail wedged in the floor of the van. As the team searches the place, Harry finds a hidden cache of teenage girls' ID cards—including Daisy Clayton's.
Roger Dillon gets called to a crime scene cleanup. Instead he finds Harry Bosch, who arrests him. Back at Hollywood station, Harry shows Dillon photocopies of the eight IDs, and Dillon makes a startling claim. According to Dillon, the girls are all alive, except for Daisy Clayton, whom Dillon says he killed in self-defense. It seems that Dillon was kidnapping girls for a human trafficking ring, or so he says. He is offered a plea deal for a reduced sentence if he agrees to testify against the others in the ring and gives the police information on where the missing girls are located. Bosch tells all this to Elizabeth, who is further rattled to learn that for his cooperation, Dillon won't have to serve more than 11 years.
Edgar is still investigating Jacques Avril. He plays Hovan the recording in which Avril pretends to snitch on Hovan while also identifying Winston and Marvel as the murderers. Hovan is not happy to find out that his cover is blown and his own CI was one of the cop killers. Edgar isn't happy, either, as all the ironclad evidence is against Avril's men, and none against Avril proper. Avril agrees to wear a wire and get Winston and Marvel on tape admitting to the murders. Gary Wise's father Dwight is extremely upset when Edgar tells him that Avril is probably going to get away with everything.
The Avril sting goes down. Avril, wearing his wire, goads Winston and Marvel into explicitly saying that they killed Marcos and Arias. As Winston and Marvel are leaving, the LAPD arrests them. However, before Avril can be questioned further, a State Department flack arrives, addresses Avril as "Mr. Avril", and whisks him away. Edgar is incensed. Harry speculates that the State Department is protecting Avril because they don't want him spilling secrets about wet work he did for them in Haiti.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Internal Affairs arrives to investigate Captain Cooper's petty sexual harassment complaint against Billets. Pierce backtracks somewhat from his statement. Vega says the whole thing was blown out of proportion, and Billets says sure, sometimes she'll put a hand on someone's shoulder. Sgt. Alvarez is surprisingly reasonable about the whole thing, telling Cooper to his face that there's nothing to his complaint and it seems "punitive".
The other shoe drops in the matter of the Irving tape recording. Scott Anderson, having failed to blackmail Irving into hiring him, has gone to Irving's opponent Jack Killoran. Killoran demands a meeting with Irving and, while wearing a mask of smarmy politeness, threatens to release the tape if Irving doesn't quit the race and endorse him.
Madeline Bosch tells her father that she'll be going to law school.
While Jacques Avril is helping the cops get the two Jamaicans, his right-hand Remi Toussaint garrotes Dwight Wise to death in the backseat of his car. Edgar is furious when he finds out about it, realizing that Avril was behind this murder and he's going to get away with another one.
Tropes:
- Attack of the Political Ad: A cranky Irving watches Killoran's ad, which dismisses Irving's homeless program as a stunt.
- Blackmail: Killoran is the second person to blackmail Irving over the tape, demanding that Irving drop out of the race. Irving says that he could arrest Killoran for extortion.
- Creepy Souvenir: Roger Dillon has the IDs of eight teenage girls hidden in a fake dictionary.
- Danger Takes a Backseat: Dwight Wise sits down in the driver's seat of his car. Remi pops up from the back seat and garrotes him to death.
- Internal Affairs: Surprisingly, IA does the right thing, dismissing Cooper's complaint against Billets as penny-ante nonsense.
- It's Personal: To Harry Bosch, every case is personal. A little mild sniping between Harry and Honey Chandler about some guilty people she defended eventually has her say to Bosch that "It's not personal with me like it is with you." Harry's reply: "Maybe that's the problem."
- Serial Killer: Maybe? Roger Dillon has what looks like a murder van and a collection of ID cards for young girls. But Dillon insists that all those girls except for Daisy Clayton are alive, and that he actually delivered them to human traffickers.
- Take That!: More jokes from Crate and Barrel, The Movie Buffs. They see Pierce and Vega on opposite sides of the squad room, Crate asks how things are going between them, and Barrel snarks "Ice Station Zebra". Crate shoots back with "That was not a good movie."
