Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Marc Warren, Maimie McCoy, Darrell D’Silva, Emma Fielding, Azan Ahmed, Django Chan-Reeves, Rita Bernard-Shaw, Josh Bolt, Thoren Ferguson, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva, Patrick Aliev, Simone Giel, Erika Minderop, Loek Peters, Sieger Sloot, Chiem Vreeken, Loes Haverkort, Peter van Heeringen, Mike Libanon.
A detective’s team is a family, there may be the lone wolf who solves crimes with unnerving consistency, but they still require back up in today’s modern fight against the criminal underworld, they essentially need collaboration and reinforcement to bring the perpetrator to book, to see justice done; and yet there is the grey area which insists that if a detective has a family of sorts to help in their examinations of the crime, then the criminal themselves relies heavily on those they also have brought into their own fold.
The thin blue line is a division that suggests freedom can only be sought by exploiting the system so that you come out on top having broken the rules, and yet the same is true of those that defend it, for they will gain power, they will become the worst aspects of what is considered the family unit; one driven by toxicity and corruption.
The ideal place is in between the lines, and in Freedom in Amsterdam, the opening tale of the third series of the highly rated update of Van Der Valk, what transpires is that family is fluid, that some come and go, but the ethos of your direction must remain constant if you are to achieve your goal; no matter the side, you must remain persistent in the face of change.
Set against the world of free running, Freedom in Amsterdam offers a wide lens of perspective of how the dynamic of a family in the 21st Century is within a community of like-minded individuals, all playing the same game, but often by different rules and various avenues of control. You can tell a lot by those who play the game fairly, and those who seek advantage for their own end, and as Piet van der Valk and Lucienne Hassell, portrayed by the superb pairing of Marc Warren and Maimie McCoy adapt to a new team at their disposal, so they must also adapt to a breed of criminal that has more in common with Fagan’s team of pickpocketing boys in Victorian England than those who plan hi-scale heists from banks and jewellers.
Freedom in Amsterdam is a strong opener for its third series, a programme that does not show early signs of aging as others have done before it, and arguably it is down to the two leads, both righteous in their conviction and willing to see the grey area that others tread, that makes it compelling and convincing.
Ian D. Hall