-an OD of Toughts-

There is a new show on Netflix called The Amsterdam Empire , and it is so brilliantly Dutch that halfway through the first episode you start checking your passport to make sure you have not accidentally joined it. When I first saw the title, I expected something involving clogs, cheese, and a few people on bicycles politely arguing about tulips. But no. This is not a quaint travel documentary. It is a razor-sharp, slow-burn drama about power, money, and the sort of people who could buy your entire town while pretending they are just there for the coffee. The series opens with that familiar Amsterdam calm, canals glistening, trams humming, and a city that looks like it has been painted by someone with an unhealthy obsession with symmetry. But under that polite surface something darker stirs. There is a family empire, old money and older secrets, that has been quietly pulling the strings of global trade for decades. It is Succession with bicycles, Peaky Blinders with better lighting,...