Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nemesis’ On Hulu, Where A Prosecutor And A Detective Pursue Financial Crimes In The Netherlands

In a new Dutch thriller streaming on Hulu , a team of investigators pursue a man who has laundered money into offshore shell corporations in order to evade taxes. Doesn’t really sound all that fascinating, does it? Well, at least the first episode has some threats and other interesting twists and turns, right? Well…

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Opening Shot: A podcaster, Nina Jacobs (Jade Olieberg), rehearses her explanation of the financial crimes that often take place in The Netherlands and elsewhere.

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The Gist: In The Hague, Lars van Deumen (Romana Vrede), a detective for the Dutch Revenue Service FIOD, is discussing the raid of an online gambling company, in a case that was set up by public prosecutor Sylvia van Maele (Lies Visschedijk). As the team goes to the offices of the gambling company, which is also the headquarters of 125 other shell corporations, Lars executes the warrant that allows her to search for electronic documentation and drill through the safe in the director’s office.

Suddenly, two attorneys drive up, one of whom, Sabine de Wolff (Mara van Vlijmen), seems to know Sylvia. They said that Sylvia has the “wrong address.” She soon gets a call from Ed Koppers (Peter Blok), who is her boss, to call off the raid.

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Right after she meets her new assistant, Daniel de Leuuw (Celion Kerk), they meet with Ed, and he tells Sylvia that the company is owned by “good guys,” which he means higher-ups in the government. Oh, and there’s a position in another division that he thinks she’d be perfect for. When Daniel asks her what happened at the meeting, she says, “I think I just got fired.”

Sabine meets with Sylvia to give her invoices that the FIOD incurred during the aborted raid. But she then inserts another invoice that Sylvia later sees involves huge payments to a shell corporation controlled by a man named Martin Heezinik (Chris Peters). Later that night, Sabine drunkenly calls Sylvia and says that she hates working for who she works for, and she has more info where that came from. Unfortunately, Sabine is found dead the next day; either she jumped off her balcony — where she called Sylvia from — or was pushed.

The information, though, is enough to go after Heezinik and the law firm Sabine worked for. With the help of Nina, the podcast host who seems to know more about Heezinik than even they do, they recruit Faber Metekohij (Mustafa Duygulu), who is under house arrest for financial crimes, to see if she can get the law firm to set up an illegal shell corporation. Behind Ed’s back, Sylvia gets the warrant to have Faber wear a wire. It not only complicates things because Ed’s her boss, but he’s also her ex-husband and the father of their son Julius (Florian Regtien).

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Golden Hour and Van Der Valk , other Dutch detective series, except this one has financial crimes.

Our Take: The details of the crimes that are being investigated on Nemesis , created by Willem Bosch based on the book by Simon de Waal, are murky at best. As Nina says at the end of every episode of her podcast, “If you’re confused by anything we’ve discussed, that’s precisely the point of it.” So if a podcast that’s dedicated to sorting out the web of financial malfeasance in The Netherlands and elsewhere acknowledges that what they’re talking about is confusing, then we’re not sure how clear a crime series about it would be.

There’s an interesting dynamic between Sylvia and Lars, who go back and forth more like they’re work partners — and at times, life partners — than a cop executing raids orchestrated by a prosecutor. And, of course, a lot of this case gets intertwined in Sylvia’s personal life, as it seems that Ed is involved in the cover-up of whatever malfeasance is going on.

We keep saying “malfeasance” because, let’s face it: Financial crimes may seem like they’d make for interesting drama, but they really don’t. Bosch ups the ante by having bodies pop up here and there, but the main thrust of this investigation is about shell companies, Cayman Island accounts, possible organized crime ties, and other shady financial stuff. It’s all serious, but not interesting enough to sustain an entire season of investigative activity.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Sylvia swears there is someone in the house in the middle of the night; she finds Julius and huddles with him in his room.

Sleeper Star: Soumaya Ahouaoui plays Ellen van Raat, a young lawyer at the firm Sylvia is targeting, who has enough savvy to avoid implicating her firm in financial shenanigans. When Sylvia notes that her firm handled Heezinik’s accounts before 2016, Ellen shoots back, “I was 17 in 2016.”

Most Pilot-y Line: Sylvia’s potential replacement, Markus Frederiks (Bram Suijker), tells Daniel to keep an eye on Sylvia. “She could be the smartest person in this whole place, but… I’m not saying it. But you get it, right? You get me, yeah?” What is he supposed to get?

Our Call: SKIP IT. Nemesis is well acted, and we did like the interactions between the characters. But the crimes and case the main characters are pursuing is murkily written and doesn’t really make us care much if they bring down the nominal “bad guys” or not.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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