'Van der Valk' Episode 3 Review: Last case does nothing to compliment the show in investigative crime genre
Spoilers for 'Van der Valk' Episode 3 'Death in Amsterdam'
In the final episode of PBS' investigative crime series 'Van der Valk,' there is the death of an eco-fashion vlogger live-streamed, a fashion designer dies on a catwalk, and past grudges between cops and criminals were added in for comic effort. While last week we reported that the themes used in the second episode titled 'Only In Amsterdam' were used as bait to make the series more desirable, this episode did no better in proving us wrong. Frankly, we're tired of Inspector Piet Van der Valk's (Marc Warren) draining attitude, and there is abysmal character development. The retired police dog, Trojan, however, still takes the cake as the best character of the series. The faint allure of the episode you ask? It was probably the increase in the body count.
There was a little bit of online politics as a fashion house is accused of falsely marking ethical fashion when in fact, they were far from it. Not to mention, it didn't take long for Lucienne Hassell (Maimie McCoy) to start prodding Van der Valk about what he's being elusive about. We said we were drained by how Piet seems to be as a character, and that's a shame considering we feel that Warren is able to do better. He doesn't seem to fit the role quite well, and while he's trying to be all mysterious and aloof, he's mostly coming off as quite annoying. We're over his attitude towards Job Cloovers (Elliot Barnes-Worrell), that's for sure. We want to stay that this case was a rather interesting one, but all we can say is that if we had to choose an episode for the top, it would be the finale episode. While the increase in body count was promising, the oddities of the case such as one of the victim eyes being sewn closed with care, seemed to bring the thrill of psychotic crimes back in the picture. So that's one revealing thing about this episode, it does have a bit of a shock factor.
Although, we don't know how much that's worth considering it's the last episode. There's no way up now.
There are two stories in this episode, the obvious case at hand when a vlogger shows up dead on live stream, and then there is the case that Piet and his boss Julia Dahlman (Emma Fielding) are trying to get through. Apparently, they have to deal with the son of a corrupt cop that they are put behind bars earlier. You would think that with the double the opportunity to make the plotline seemingly interesting enough for someone to sit through 90-minutes of it, the series barely were able to deal with them as two separate stories. Neither case got the deserved ending. While it was an exciting curve when Piet's life is in danger, we feel that the original case deserved a pedestal of its own as there was so much more the narrative could have detailed.
Already dramatic and fictional in nature, the series is hard to take seriously simply because we feel it's trying too hard. It has a cliche intelligent detective whose personality is rough around the edges and lives off dismissing others when he's shaken - this character profile isn't new. While the series tries to bring about psychological factors of sinister murders, it mixed too much into each case - from politics and art to eco-friendly fashion murders and exaggerated shootouts. Their goal for a target audience seemed to be 'everyone' and that's not a good cocktail for an investigative crime series.
