Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ferry: The Series’ On Netflix, Where An Amsterdam Gangster Tries To Establish An Ecstasy Ring In Belgium

The 2021 movie Ferry was a well-regarded prequel to the series Undercover, showing how Belgian drug kingpin Ferry Bouman found himself in Brabent, Belgium after spending his life in the Amsterdam mafia. The story of that movie, where Ferry meets Danielle, the love of his life, is expanded in a new series that shows how Ferry became the biggest drug dealer in Brabent.

FERRY: THE SERIES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man walks through an Ecstasy manufacturing lab in a yellow protective suit. After he makes a batch, he goes outside to smoke; that’s when he sees the drone, then the federal police. The entire lab is raided, as is the home of the boss, who’s sunning himself in a room filled with UV lights.

The Gist: Ferry Bouman (Frank Lammers) is trying to get his own small-scale Ecstasy business off the ground since he decided to stay in Brabant, Belgium to start a life with his girlfriend Danielle Van Marken (Elise Schaap). He just bought a house with the money he made in the Amsterdam mob, but it seems that people aren’t buying what he’s selling, and he’s out of money.

His biggest deal is with a kickboxer named Jurgen Van Kamp (Kevin Janssens), who takes 1500 pills and pays Ferry in one euro coins. Jurgen is thinking big, looking to see if Ferry can amp up production and put kangaroos on the pills. But when Jurgen sees cops stopping at a fast food joint, he panics and runs, attracting the police officers’ attention. Ferry runs, too, and bashes the cop chasing him with the bag of coins, losing them.

Ferry and Danielle are throwing a housewarming party; among the people there are Ferry’s crew, which includes Danielle’s brother Lars (Yannick van de Velde). They want to get paid, but when Ferry finally lumbers into the party on foot (his car got impounded), he tells them he has no money.

During the party, he proposes to Danielle, and she accepts, but immediately throws up, due to what she thinks are intense emotions. He ends up admitting to his brother-in-law John (Raymond Thiry), drunk and distraught over the somewhat recent death of his wife, that he’s out of money.

The next day, he learns that the busted Ecstasy ring, led by a man named Arie Tack (Steef Cuijpers), put kangaroos on their pills. He quickly puts the pieces together, chases down Jurgen in Danielle’s car, and threatens to bash his teeth in with a playground carousel. It seems that Tack supplied Pusaka, a massive biker gang, who sends them to Australia. With that operation shut down for now, there’s a void to be filled. Ferry tells Jurgen to get him in front of the Pusakas’ leader, but first he has to find the 30,000 pills he has stored next to the spare tire in his car.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ferry: The Series is a follow-up to the 2021 movie Ferry, itself a prequel to the series Undercover. The show has the somewhat less-than-serious gangster vibe of Tulsa King.

Our Take: If you liked Tulsa King and its somewhat throwback-y style, then Ferry: The Series is right up your alley. It’s essentially the story of how Ferry became the drug kingpin in Brabant that we saw in Undercover, using his smarts, his connections in Amsterdam and his ragtag crew that sometimes can’t get out of its own way.

The setup is pretty straightforward: He sees an opening to expand his business, then ends up having to go against the the bigwig who has that market cornered. Sound familiar? Heck, both this series and Tulsa King involve biker gangs in some form.

We liked the light comedy in Ferry: The Series, and the relationship between Ferry and Danielle seems to be a solid one that should anchor the series, especially now that Danielle is pregnant (that’s what the puking is all about, of course). Is it a show that’s going to make you think too hard? Not really. But between goofy chases between a subcompact and an e-bike, Ferry trying to get his crew to not act like a bunch of idiots, and even the idea that he can supplant the X-peddling bigwig in the region, it should be a fun show to watch.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Tack comes back to his mansion, under house arrest. When he’s told about Ferry, he says, “Who the fuck is Ferry Bouman?”

Sleeper Star: Dirk Roofthooft is Mick de Boer, the worldwide president of Pusaka; when he hears about Ferry’s reputation in Amsterdam, and sees the quality of his product, he orders Ferry to make one million more pills. Our guess is we’ll be seeing a lot more of him going forward.

Most Pilot-y Line: The scheme to get the pills out of the impound lot was funny in execution but definitely relied on a lot of things to happen, including some stupidity and inattentiveness by the guy working at the lot.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Ferry: The Series is a goofy and fun prequel to Undercover, that’s accomplishes its main task, which is to be entertaining.

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.