HBOMax’s “Amsterdam” was the best show of the summer; then they deleted it
In which I share the joys of a ten-episode series that HBO will never let you see
(Note: Because this show doesn’t seem to currently exist, I refer to it using both the present and past tense. With apologies.)
On June 9th, a ten-episode series called Amsterdam debuted on HBOMax. Set in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, the Spanish-language show followed the lives of a musician, an actress, and the dog they adopt from the streets and name Amsterdam. In a rare moment of pinpoint accuracy, the HBOMax algorithm served it up to me as the main offering of the day and I dove straight in, watching all ten episodes over the weekend. I was enchanted. The cinematography took every advantage of the location, showcasing bright pops of color and Art-Deco architecture. The musician, Martin, performs in a cover band, which affords the opportunity for a great musical interlude in every episode, with more prominent Mexican singers joining in while the cast watches in delight from the audience. This show was the vacation I needed but couldn’t afford to take.
The too-cute premise is balanced with unexpected shades of everyday reality that don’t typically find a place in romantic comedy: cancer, infidelities, abortion, divorce and other inconveniences are always lingering on the edges of the plot, acknowledged pieces of the character histories, accepted as unwanted but essential parts of life. And the central couple uncouple about three episodes in, leaving the remaining episodes to explore their new relationships and career frustrations while they continue to share custody of the one thing in their lives that never waivers: the dog.
If you watch HBOMax, you probably know how unusual this mix was among their lineup, which seems to consist almost entirely of true life stories adapted ineffectively into fiction. In The Staircase, they replayed the notorious Peterson murder investigation, which is fascinating on its own, but added bizarre fictionalized twists in place of the factual ones. In Julia, they recreated the origin story of chef Julia Child, with increasingly unnecessary fictionalizations in every episode: about cooking, about publishing, about the early days of public television and about the feminist movement. In Minx, they created a mashup of early feminist publishing, from the point of view of the “wacky” repartee between the female editor of a Playgirl magazine stand-in and her creepy, overbearing male publisher. There are fascinating facts behind each of these stories but the producers at HBO felt they needed to be changed, and in doing so, made each of them significantly less interesting and and less relevant.
Alongside these “true” stories, the fictional world of Amsterdam was strikingly authentic. Every episode was a mix of joy and melancholy. It’s characters sat on toilets, smoked too much and often said what they didn’t mean. They were gloriously messy. One of its chief virtues was the lead performance of Naian Gonzalez Norvind as Nadia. She has one of those expressive faces that allows viewers to see, in every scene, what her character may be thinking but not saying; of course, that is called acting, but it seems a genuinely rare sort of acting in a romantic comedy, and it made me want to see more of her work. (If I didn’t already love her, she has an Instagram account devoted to reciting the work of great poets: Poetry Bar by Naian). She’s just one of a great, fresh cast, which includes Ximena Gonzalez-Rubio as her costumer best friend, Lola, Danae Reynaud as the Violeta, who has a crush on Lola, Hoze Melendez as the punkish lothario Cherny, Maria Evoli as the local vet and the Marcelo Subiotto as the landlord, a chef and stand-in for the show’s writer/director Gustavo Taretto. Of course, the writer/director sees himself as a chef, pairing cuisine, music and guests for all of us to enjoy, then standing back to watch the results. Amsterdam is a La Ronde, after all, and the dog himself is among the rotating romantic partners that keeps everything afloat.
After falling in love with the neighborhood, it’s fictional characters, and, of course, the dog, I needed to watch it again when I came down with COVID, round two, at the beginning of July. That’s when I discovered the show no longer exists. Had I dreamt the entire thing? No, it was real, but in the merger of HBO with Discovery, it was decided that shows like Amsterdam not only served no purpose in their future, but also no place in the present or past. It’s not uncommon for streamers to delete or rotate content, but Amsterdam was an HBO production, which means that after giving it three weeks of life in the US, and slightly longer in Spanish territories, it is not just gone from HBO; it is gone from the world. You will not be able to watch it anywhere. (Discovery also dropped nearly all of HBO’s international development and, at Food Network, abandoned a vegan cooking show when the host didn’t take well to notes about being “too black.”) Literally deleting its existence, without any subsidiary option, seems both impractical and cruel.
On his instagram page, Tarretto explained that he only knew the show was gone when various online forums erupted with viewers complaining that they hadn’t made it to the last episode. HBO didn’t contact him about the decision. Viewers who reached out to HBO were told that removing the show was part of a “redesign.” Of course, streamers rotate content as a matter of course. But it is incredibly sloppy to remove content that is exclusive and has just recently debuted. Adding to the confusion on the creators part: the production had survived years of development, even moving the setting from Palermo to Mexico City, the language from Italian to Spanish. And then have the entire project scrubbed.
Maybe it will show up again one day, on another streamer (although that seems unlikely) or in a bootleg edition, like a stray dog reappears at your door after seeming to have run away for good. Until then, it will just be a distant, happy memory for people like me who were lucky enough to see it.