‘Van der Valk' Season 3's Final Case Brings “Magic in Amsterdam”

Van der Valk's final case of the season begins in an ancient castle outside of the city, where a magic ritual takes place. Psychiatrist Nik Delacorte (Joris Smit) and brain surgeon Isaak Engelhart (Steven Pacey) set spells to summon a demon. Downstairs, their followers link hands in a protective circle and wait. But Isaak’s granddaughter Katya Alsteen (Olivia D’Lima) becomes concerned at the cries for help coming from upstairs. Hans Lansing (Poal Cairo) the leader of the group, reminds her that the door must be locked until daylight, otherwise terrible things will happen. Another participant, Valentijn Meijer (James Atherton), is concerned enough that he goes outside to his car and calls the police.

That’s how the team becomes involved with the supernatural, giving Van der Valk the opportunity to utter cryptic comments about evil amongst us and practice magic coin tricks. Van der Valk and Lucienne open the locked door to find Nik dead, stabbed, his eyes gouged out, and Isaak completely out of his mind. The rest of the team finds disturbing evidence, as you’d expect. Hendrik cheerfully announces Isaak, who’s been taken away for medical care, couldn’t have been responsible for the eye-gouging because it’s a messy business and his hands were clean. In case things weren’t weird enough, there are cloven-hoof footprints in the heaps of sand that hold candles in place on the floor.

Katya is angry and upset that she’d agreed to accompany her grandfather to the ritual. He wasn’t even an official member of the group, the Order of the Blood Moon. Valentijn assures Lucienne it’s mostly harmless fun, although the true believers mutter about breaking protective circles. Van der Valk isn’t having any of it, and the first job assigned to Eddie back at the office is to find plans of the castle, suspecting there is another way into the murder scene.