At the time of writing this article, Amsterdam Empire hasn’t been renewed for a second season. Famke Janssen, who played the role of Betty, has said in an interview that it all comes down to the number of eyeballs that the show attracts in the first three weeks after its release. In that case, things are not looking too good. There are about 300 user ratings on IMDb, and the title hasn’t popped up on the Top 10 TV Shows list either. Make of that what you will. In the meantime, allow me to speculate about what might happen in a potential Season 2 of the series based on how the narrative came to a close.
Spoiler Alert
The Makings of Betty’s Twist
So, the big twist that came right at the end of the finale of Amsterdam Empire was Betty becoming the owner of the Jackal. It was a pretty lengthy process, and it began with Jack cheating on Betty with Marjolein. When Jack asked Betty for a divorce, she called the cops on the grow house that supplied all the weed that was sold through the Jackal and shut it down. Jack’s associate, Guido, used to manage that grow house. His wife, Angela, was fighting cancer. So, Guido not only needed money, but he also had to stay with his wife; running away with Jack wasn’t exactly an option. Hence, he decided to cut a deal with the cops, throw Jack under the bus, and stay by Angela’s side through this tumultuous phase. Jack, however, killed Guido and made it look like a suicide. When Angela heard about it, she was absolutely heartbroken. Jack didn’t care about what Angela was going through after learning about her husband’s death, but Betty did. Hence, while her primary mission was to get back at Jack, I guess her secondary mission was to atone for her sins. I mean, if you think about it, she shut down that grow house to hurt Jack, but the ones who actually got hurt were Guido and Angela.
Guido’s Lighter Helped Betty
Therefore, call it fate or destiny, but it was Guido’s lighter that helped Betty get the Jackal, not her complex politics of trying to use her ex-flame, Bolle; Jack’s allies-turned-enemies, the Tichelaars (headed by Gijs); or Jack’s family, Katja, Patrick, and Shanti. Yeah, when Jack was bludgeoning Guido to death in the front yard of his cabin, his lighter fell out of his pocket. Later on, when Betty, Katja, Shanti, Harry (an assassin hired by Shanti to kill the Tichelaars), and Harry’s henchmen came to that cabin to torture Noud, the guy who gunned down Jack on Gijs’ orders in a desperate bid to transfer the ownership of the Jackal to Betty, Betty found that lighter. After Harry, his henchmen, and the Tichelaars died, and Jack was discharged from the hospital, Betty sat down for a meeting with her ex-husband. That’s when she brought out Guido’s lighter and demanded that he hand over the rights to the Jackal to her if he wanted Guido’s death to remain a secret. Of course, Jack caved and signed the papers, thereby making Betty the new owner of the Jackal, because he preferred staying outside and fighting for his passion project over rotting away in a jail cell for murdering his friend.
Bolle Might Be A Key Player
Which finally brings us to the question: how will Jack get back the Jackal? What are his options? Well, Bolle is an option. You see, when Gijs was still an ally of Jack’s, and he almost killed Betty because she was being a source of annoyance for Jack, Betty blurted out that Bolle was the co-owner of the Jackal. Her plan was to get Bolle on her side, get him to testify in court against Jack, and then make him twist Jack’s arm until he sold his shares to Bolle. But that whole scheme went sideways when Erik and Marjolein teamed up to spike Bolle’s drink before entering the court, causing him to trip in front of the judge. After that incident, we didn’t see Bolle anymore, and, as far as I remember, we also didn’t see him sign over his shares to Betty, right? So, currently, Betty co-owns the Jackal with Bolle. Now, until and unless Bolle feels betrayed by Betty’s decision to abandon him all of a sudden, he’ll gladly stay on as the Jackal’s co-owner. That said, if he feels betrayed, and Jack arrives at the opportune moment to convince him to use his co-ownership to put some hurdles in Betty’s track, then that might end up being his first step towards getting back the Jackal.
Betty Can’t Rival Jack’s Business Acumen
Regardless of how you perceive Jack as a person (he’s undoubtedly horrible because he is a cheater and a murderer), you have to admit that he was instrumental in making the Jackal profitable. As for Betty, even though she is a relatively nice human being, she doesn’t know a lot about business. Therefore, she’s bound to run into a lot of trouble while running the Jackal. She can’t do it on her own, and her only confidants, for now, are Katja, Patrick, Shanti, and Erik. But if you think about it, even their allegiance is a big question mark. We saw Katja and Patrick being very sympathetic towards Jack after he came out of the hospital alive and well. Hence, there’s a good chance that they will side with Jack instead of Betty. That leaves her with Shanti and Erik. Both of them can be swayed with money. So, if Betty can woo Shanti and Erik with a sizable salary, they’ll definitely work for her. Both Shanti and Erik have a decent understanding of how the weed industry works, and their expertise will definitely help in masking Betty’s lack of knowledge in this field. With all that said, there’s still the issue of finding a supplier.
Jack Can Put Betty in Jail
With the Tichelaars dead, Betty can take over their grow houses. However, if Jack gets to the Tichelaars’ headquarters and hijacks it, then Betty will be chucked back to square one. Also, Jack definitely has contacts all over the weed industry, and he can tell all of them to not trust Betty with their product because she doesn’t know how to market and sell it. Betty can definitely try and counter such allegations by doing good business, but she still runs the risk of not being able to persuade those who have worked with a stalwart like Jack. With all that said, as long as Betty has Guido’s lighter, she can keep Jack on a leash. If that lighter “accidentally” gets misplaced or lost, then she’s going to be in a world of trouble. I mean, she can still get the police to check the CCTV cameras on the route to the cabin where Guido was murdered, which’d show both Guido and Jack heading in that direction but only Jack coming back, and commence a murder trial against him. However, since two more murders have happened at that cabin while Betty was there, telling the police to investigate that site might jeopardize her personal and professional lives. If Jack realizes that, I doubt Betty’s Guido trump card is going to work. All in all, yeah, Jack and Betty’s tug-of-war over the Jackal is going to be the focal point of the potential second season of Amsterdam Empire.
Marjolein Won’t Return
Where does that leave Marjolein? I think her story has come to an end. Once she learned that Jack was fraternizing with hardened criminals, she didn’t want to side with him anymore. In order to get the Jackal, Jack will definitely need to explore a lot of unsavory avenues, and I don’t see Marjolein putting up with all that in the name of love. I do have a feeling that Jack will try to rekindle his relationship with her, but it’s not going to work out. Will that stop Jack from commencing a fourth romantic relationship? Absolutely not. I’m pretty sure that with each season, Jack’s list of wives is going to keep increasing, and he’s going to become more and more insufferable, and I hope all the wives team up to kick him to death. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the future of the show. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
