Directed by Jonas Govaerts and Max Porcelijn, Amsterdam Empire tells the story of Jack Van Doorn, the owner of a coffee shop franchise (which was really more of a weed store), whose life was turned upside down when he decided to separate from his partner, Betty. Betty was hurt by his actions, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t let go of him. She wanted to hit him where it would hurt the most, and so she decided to take his prized possession from him: his coffee shop. So, let’s find out if Jack is able to save his business or if Betty gets the better of him.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Jack kill Guido?
Jack Van Doorn was the owner of one of the most famous coffee shop franchises (weed retail stores) in the Netherlands, called the Jackal. That coffee shop was his pride, and he had a plan of expanding his business in the future. The cannabis laws in the Netherlands were rather absurd: a shopkeeper was allowed to keep less than 500 grams in their possession at any point in time. It was obvious that no shop owner would be able to abide by that law. Every retail owner had secret bases where they kept their stashes. Everybody knew about it, but nobody raised any major objections, mainly because a chunk of important people benefited from it. Generally, it was like how everybody knows that in a dry state (alcohol-prohibited states in India), alcohol is readily available, yet for policy purposes and for the sake of image, a political party imposes certain rules and norms. Jack’s supplier was a man named Guido, and they shared a long-standing relationship. Guido had a secret underground weed farm, and everything was going pretty well for him too, until that fateful day when the police turned up at his place and raided his farm.
The police were informed that he was secretly growing weed by none other than Jack’s wife, Betty, who happened to be a model and songstress in the past. Things were not going great between her and Jack, and then one day, she came to know about Jack’s affair. Jack was secretly seeing a TV show host named Marjolein Hofman, and he had plans of marrying her in the future. He didn’t want Betty to find out about his relationship the way she did. A friend of Betty’s sent her a picture of Jack and Marjolein, and after that she lost her temper. Jack told her upfront that he wanted a divorce, as he believed that they were done for good. Jack didn’t want any sort of trouble, and so he offered to pay Betty a hefty alimony, and he said in front of the lawyers that he would take care of her. But Betty had other plans. She told Jack that she wanted his franchise, his pride, the Jackal, and she would settle for nothing less. Betty was adamant to prove in the court of law that she was the one who had been handling the business, and so she was entitled to have it in her name. When Jack stopped answering her calls, she called the police and told them about Guido’s secret farm. The police arrived at this farm, and as a result, Guido had to go into hiding, and Jack had to make sure that they couldn’t link him to Guido. There came a time when Guido decided that he was done hiding and that he was going to confess his crimes. Jack didn’t want him to do that, because it meant that his actions too would come to light. Jack had a heated argument with Guido and ended up losing his temper. He killed him in a fit of rage and then later disposed of his body in a river. Angela, Guido’s wife, who was suffering from a terminal illness, asked Jack multiple times if he knew anything about her husband, but Jack didn’t tell her the truth. Jack told her that he would support her, but let her believe that Guido had committed suicide. Guido was a very good friend of Jack’s, and generally anybody stuck in that kind of situation would have blurted out the truth. But Jack did no such thing, he didn’t want to let Betty take his franchise away from him. That’s how much he loved The Jackal, and he made it pretty clear that he was not going to let anybody persuade him to give up ownership.
How did Jack discredit Betty’s witnesses?
Betty needed to prove in court that she was the one who was running the business, and in order to do so, she needed certain witnesses who could testify to the same. Betty got in touch with Erik, who worked for Jack, and manipulated him into telling her Jack’s secrets. Betty wanted to be at an advantage, and she didn’t care if she had to resort to unfair means. Jack had been married to a woman named Shanti before he met Betty. He had 2 kids with Shanti, Patrick and Katja. While Katja helped her father out in managing the stores, Patrick had a small cannabis retail shop of his own. Betty got in touch with Patrick, and through him, she met Shanti too. She convinced them to testify in court for her, and Shanti agreed that she would do so if she transferred the ownership of the franchise to her kids’ names. Betty didn’t want to do so, but she had no other option, and obviously she couldn’t afford to let Shanti testify against her. We realized that Betty had a good reputation in the family, and that was because she was a good person at heart. We saw how guilty she felt when she was told by Jack that Guido had taken his own life because of her. She actually went to meet Angela in person, and that’s when she realized that Jack was lying to her (a fact that we will discuss in detail later in this article). Betty and Jack both contacted Bolle, a man who held a 10 percent stake in the franchise. There was a time when Bolle, who ran a chain of successful sex clubs in the city, was head over heels for Betty, but unfortunately for him, she wasn’t interested in him. When Jack wanted to open the first Jackal store, it was Bolle who lent him the seed money. It was important for both Jack and Betty that Bolle was on their side. They knew that his testimony could decide who won. The trial commenced, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was a mess. Katja, after promising to side with her father, turned against him at the very last moment. Jack deposited a sum of $5 million in Shanti’s account, and so she vouched for him and left Betty in a state of paranoia. Jack drugged Bolle, and so he too wasn’t able to say anything substantial that could turn the case in favor of either of the parties. So at the end, the judge was not able to come to a conclusion, which I believe Jack took as a victory.
Why did Betty go against Gijs Tichelaar?
Gijs Tichelaar was the leader of a group of weed farmers, and he was a rather dangerous man. He represented the interests of the farmers, who took a great deal of risk by growing banned substances, but in reality, I believe he just looked out for his and his family’s interests. Jack got in touch with him after he killed Guido because he needed a supplier. Jack didn’t want to take the risk of starting his own den, and so he reached out to Gijs, who was more than willing to help him out. Gijs gave him around 100 kgs to sell, an amount that Jack knew nobody else could provide him at such short notice. Gijs was a ruthless operator, and when he got to know that Betty was posing a threat to Jack’s business and it even put his interests at stake, he decided to take charge of the matter. He went to kill Betty, but the letter told him that she had a plan to take over the Jackal, and that she could give him a percentage of the ownership. That piqued Gijs’ interest, and he decided to leave Betty alive. But he warned her that if he didn’t see results and if she wasn’t able to give him what she had promised, then he would kill her. After Bolle’s testimony, Gijs realized that things were not going in Betty’s favor. He had found out that, in case of Jack’s death, the ownership of the franchise would be transferred to her by default. And so he sent one of his sons, Noud, to kill Jack. The moment Betty got to know about it, she escaped from his custody and went to warn Jack about it. Now, this is where I felt that Betty was a better human than Jack; I mean, she tarnished Marjolein’s reputation, she made Jack’s life a living hell, and at times it did feel that it was not fair to ask for the Jackal when Jack had actually built his Amsterdam Empire brick by brick. But then we saw Jack killing Guido, whereas Betty felt guilty for his death, and moreover, she went to save Jack when clearly she would have benefited from his death.
Jack was shot by Noud, but fortunately, he survived. That’s when Betty told Shanti about what had happened. Shanti had her contacts in the red light district, and she hired a man named Harry and asked him to go after the Tichelaa family. Shanti didn’t want her daughter, Katja to be involved in this mess, as she knew how dangerous it could turn out to be. But Katja didn’t give her mother an option. She had had enough of everybody, and she told Shanti upfront that she needed to be a part of the plan, as otherwise she was ready to go to the police and tell them what they were up to.
Noud was taken into custody, and Betty, Shanti, and Katja were able to access his phone. They texted Gijs from it pretending to be Noud, and asked him to come and meet at a specific point. Gijs knew that it could be a trap, but still he decided to meet them, as he had no plan of action to find and rescue his son. There was a shootout between Harry’s and Gijs’s men. All of them were killed except Gijs. Gijs found out about the hidden cabin, where Betty, Shanti, and Katja had held his son captive. There was a bloody clash between him and the ladies, and in the end, the ladies ended up overpowering him.
Did Jack transfer the Jackal’s ownership to Betty?
The threat to Jack, who was being kept in a state of induced coma, was eliminated. But that didn’t mean that Betty had a change in her plans. She still wanted the Jackal, and at the end of Amsterdam Empire, she found crucial evidence that gave her an advantage. She found Guido’s lighter in the cabin where they were keeping Noud. She realized that her theory about Jack killing Guido was not wrong. Obviously, the lighter in itself wasn’t solid evidence, but she knew that the CCTV camera in between the cabin and the bridge, from where Guido had apparently jumped, would have captured something. She told that to Jack, and the latter didn’t have any option other than to transfer the ownership of his franchise to Betty. But that didn’t mean that he had accepted defeat. Betty had saved his life, but on the professional front, she was still his rival. He told her upfront that he was not going to let her go so easily, and so if there is a season 2 of Amsterdam Empire, we might see Jack on a quest to get his most prized possession back. Marjolein, on the other hand, decided to take a break from her relationship. She led a simple life before a sandstorm came and blew everything apart. She needed time for herself to figure out what she wanted and if she wanted to be with a man like Jack, who lived life on the edge.
I believe that Katja, Patrick, Shanti, and even Erik will help Betty out in carrying out her business because they all, deep down, had faith in her abilities, and moreover, I felt that they trusted her more than Jack. Yeah, she was all capable of ruining the life of a person, like she did with Marjolein, but I thought she was still less treacherous than what Jack could be.
