'Van der Valk' Season 3 Introduces The New Recruits

Van Der Valk Season 3 began filming before the show broadcast Season 2 on PBS and considering the pandemic-enforced delay between Seasons 1 and 2, that was understandable. However, fans were shocked when the first image was released two months after Season 2’s conclusion, revealing substantial cast turnover. Fan favorite Elliot Barnes-Worrell as Job Cloovers, along with his pretty but slow partner, Luke Allen-Gale, as Brigadier Brad de Vries, was gone. In their place, two new recruits were marching down the streets of Amsterdam: Django Chan-Reeves (Industry) as Sergeant Citra Li and Azan Ahmed (Mood) as Sergeant Eddie Suleman.

Part of the surprise was that Cloovers was one of the characters reimagined from the original series along with Inspecteur Hassell, changed from stogy white dudes into more diverse characters. Cloovers’ character was also markedly improved from the original bumbling idiot whose existence was to make Van der Valk look smarter to something of a hyper genius, albeit one in need of people skills, making him the one to root for when his boss got tiresome. While Barnes-Worrell and Allen-Gale’s departure hasn’t yet been explained, lead actor Marc Warren has been talking up the new arrivals ahead of the show’s June 2023 debut on ITV.

Warren said in an interview with The RadioTimes, “There is friction. Van der Valk is a little bit wary of Django Chan-Reeves’ character [Sgt Li] at first. She’s incredibly smart and mindful of information, which he’s slightly wary of. And Azan Ahmed’s character [Eddie Suleman] sort of reminds him of his younger self, and I think Eddie’s a bit of a loose cannon. So that makes me slightly wary of him.”