Left-to-right: Protagonist Detective Floris Wolfs, Detective Eva van Dongen, Captain Frieda Mechels, Officer Marion Dreessen, Officer Romeo Sanders
Flikken Maastricht ("flikken" meaning "cops" and Maastricht being the city it takes place) is a Dutch live-action tv series based on the Belgian format Flikken. It follows the adventures of a police corps in the eponymous city of Maastricht (which is in the deep south of The Netherlands, right at the Dutch-Belgian-German tri-country border), with a particular focus on those of the four protagonists Floris Wolfs note , Eva van Dongen, Romeo Sanders and Marion Dreessen.It is notorious for being there for quite a while; it started in 2007 and shows no sign of stopping.
The format was so successfull that it was copied and used for another police drama series, Flikken Rotterdam, which ran from 2016 to end 2021 and used the same basic premise but took place in the city of Rotterdam.
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Eva's father abused her in her childhood. When she wants to stop using heroin cold turkey, she gets flashbacks to this.
- Her uncle wasn't much better as he abused her brother when she was at the academy. Surely, it seems to run in the family.
- Action Girl: The police requires this. Special props to Eva, who manages to survive being poisoned, kidnapped at least three times, and an overdosis of heroin.
- Acquainted with Emergency Services: A variation. Wolfs and Eva are on first-name basis with the coroner (Timo) due to how often they encounter a dead body.
- A Mother To Her Men: Pretty much every leader the corps has had, save for (maybe) Marlies, who is more of a Defrosting Ice Queen.
- Angst? What Angst?: In-Universe, this is deconstructed hard. Marion gets into a traumatic series of events that won't leave her alone, eventually leading Romeo and Thea to urge her to get to a therapist despite her trying to keep up the Stepford Smiler act.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Most villains will be this. A prime example is Daan de Vos, who actually joined the police corps to get close to Wolfs.
- Broken Ace: Eva and Wolfs are both this. They're known as a stellar pair who have arrested a lot of criminals by far, but they both have personal demons. Eva had an abusive father, and Wolfs has had a divorce. Both things come back to bite them incidentically.
- By-the-Book Cop: Romeo. He's really eager to fulfill his duty. It leads to him suing the mayor for crossing the street with a red light. (Who, luckily, could laugh about the entire ordeal.)
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: While it definitely doesn't try to hide its dark nature as a police series, it has several Breather Episodes at the start and the middle of a normal season.
- Character Development: Initially, Eva was doing everything to avoid getting involved with Wolfs too much (see Establishing Character Moment below). Now, he's the first person she calls for when she's in danger.
- Cowboy Cop: Wolfs, definitely, to contrast with Romeo. He's built up some sort of reputation with this. He even wears cowboy boots at some point.
- Cunning Like a Fox: Downplayed, but the infiltrator and dangerous criminal Daan de Vos' last name translates to 'fox'.
- Death Seeker: Eddy is hinted to be one as he begs Eva to shoot him when she finally confronts him.
- Descent into Addiction: Eva gets addicted to heroin for a while, though not caused by herself as she was forced. She decides to quit cold turkey.
- Establishing Character Moment: The very first thing Eva says when she sees Wolfs and is told that he'd be her partner, is 'I haven't been told anything' and continues investigating the corpse at the crime scene she's at, much to Wolfs' dismay. Meanwhile, Marion is a lot more social, shaking his hand and meeting Wolfs all on her own initiative. In contrast, the very first thing Romeo is seen doing, is fining Wolfs for driving too fast.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The Season finale of the season that aired Winter 2021 (a two-parter) spans the events of a single day. To recount: a criminal is arrested for attempting to bomb the government and is interrogated for hours, Nick performs suicide, Romeo wants to avenge the boy but is stopped by Marion, they discover that a daughter of a prosecutor is kidnapped, she is saved while Wolfs drives a car full of explosives and survives all on the same day. This contrasts other episodes, where you can see day and night switching very prominently, yet it never does here.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Jens Bols is often framed this way, even when in broad daylight he still manages to have his face partially covered in shadow.
- Family Theme Naming: Floris and his daughter Fleur. Both names derive from the same word for 'flower', both as in the plant as in the verb.
- Flyover Country: Many non-Dutch people (and even many Dutch people living in the West of the Netherlands) don't seem to be aware that there's a big part of the country outside of the conglomeration in the west between Amsterdam and Rotterdam (known as the "Randstad"); virtually all media taking place in the Netherlands is situated in Amsterdam or at least somewhere in the Randstad—but this series makes a big exception by taking place in a city in the deep south of the Netherlands, and Maastricht is actually a big city, but it isn't often portrayed in fiction.
- Ironic Name: Virtus et Justitia (Virtue and Justice). Sounds like something on the right side of the law, right? But it's a criminal organisation akin to the maffia. note
- Impersonating an Officer: Daan de Vos did this, just because he had some beef with Wolfs.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Marlies Kamphuis enters the main cast when Mechels is found dead. She's immediately portrayed as a strict and harsh leader and denies several things that Mechels would agreed to, such as placing a wiretap or a house searching decree. However, she ultimately wants the best for the people she leads.
- Last-Name Basis: Nobody, not even Eva, calls Wolfs 'Floris'. Except when things get really, really rough.
- Love Makes You Evil: The reason why Jens Bols kidnapped Eva at some point, is that his own wife disappeared and he renders their pasts similar enough to count as a substitute.
- New Transfer Student: Or in this case, New Transfer Cop.—the series start with the plot device of Wolfs coming over from Amsterdam to work in Maastricht for then yet unknown reasons (he did it because he divorced from his wife in Amsterdam).
- One Degree of Separation: A particularly mind-bending example takes place in one of the episodes of season 14. The girl who was caught causing a ruckus in a wine shop by Romeo and Marion had a ballet teacher who was found dead by Eva and Wolfs. Her boyfriend tried to dine 'n' dash while his father was murdered, and so, they provided alibis for eachother while the boyfriend murdered the teacher and the girl murdered the father.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Wolfs' daughter sadly gets murdered, so he outlives her.
- Papa Wolf: Do not harm Fleur when her father Wolfs knows it. In one of the earlier seasons, she was kidnapped and held hostage in an old factory. Ellis Flamand especially said that Wolfs was kept in the dark at all times, but this fails and he almost gets shot by a sniper. As a matter of fact, his name may as well be a reference to this trope.
- Polyglot: Eva is fluent in German, French and English. Comes in handy since Maastricht is so close to Belgium (parts of which speak French) and Germany.
- Real-Place Background: The series is shot almost in its entirity in the streets of Maastricht. One can see the St. Servaas bridge, the different districts, and even the park play background roles. There is even a walking route provided by the city itself for tourists and fans that will take them to some of these places.
- Red Herring: Donna Martina played a large role in the last two episodes of the fifteenth season and she becomes the new chief in the next season, even being Promoted to Opening Titles. She's killed in the first episode of said season.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: In pairs. Wolfs and Marion are both outgoing and risk-taking Red Onis who get worked up easily, while Eva and Romeo are the more calm and collected Blue Onis. Usually.
- Sadist: Jens Bols.
- Secret Circle of Secrets: Virtus et Justitia consists of multiple high-up people, either politicians, prosecutors or officers. Almost no one knows of it (something Schalkwijk would like to keep it like that) but the few things that are known about them, have... less than legal implications.
- Ship Tease: Wolfs and Eva big time. As of later seasons, there are implications Wolfs actually wants to marry her.
- Shown Their Work: One of the episodes in season 14 is titled 'Who takes the sword...' note . Immediately when Eva discovers the body and hears that the victim was a weapon trader, she recalls the entire title with its follow-up ('Who takes the sword, will perish by the sword') and even recites the correct Bible verse (Matthew 26:52).
- Turn in Your Badge: Eva and Wolfs do this voluntarily at the end of season 13.
- Vetenari Job Security: Both Eva and Wolfs come very close to crossing the legal line several times, with their intendant regularly showing disapproval or disappointment at their actions, but they will never truly be kicked out because they're simply such a good team.
- Wham Episode: The later episodes in a season tend to be this.
- The first episode in the sixteenth season, despite not being a two-parter, mainly because it has so much Bait-and-Switch in it. As a first, Eddy is still alive, he's revealed to have faked his death - but no one believes it because he's already been declared dead. He immediately kills the pathologist, who we're led to think will play a large role since he's from the higher ups. Then, as we settle into a groove with Donna as the new chief, he promptly kills her (for real, as we see her die) and the episode ends with Eva being elected chief.
- Wham Shot: When the youth judge meets Mechels, you see a quick shot of him wearing the plague doctor mask as the person you saw at the beginning, implying that he is too a member of Virtus et Justitia.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Bea Middelkoop returns in season 12, and she leaves the scene to go get the money she and Jens prepared. It's unknown if she got away with this or if she was arrested at an airport.
