It’s easy to assume the Jamie Dornan-led British drama The Tourist, which debuted in January 2022, was a one-and-only season affair. Its tale of an amnesiac Irishman who finds himself hunted by a litany of strangers in the Australian outback had reached a pretty conclusive ending: Dornan’s Elliot was, much to the dismay of lover Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), an unapologetically shades-of-grey character. Dark grey, even. Charcoal, basically. The would-be hero was being hunted for stealing from a gangster for whom he commanded a drug trafficking ring that saw him slice and dice up human mules to stuff bags of heroin inside them. Great guy, that Elliot. A real prince.
Here’s the thing, though: His story isn’t over, nor is his relationship with Helen (who, bless her, can look past the aforementioned issues about the chronically forgetful man she fell for). Indeed, The Tourist returns on February 29, moving from Max to Netflix for season two. It begins with the couple on a train to Cambodia some 14 months later, and they’re still in the lovey-dovey stage of their romance. Go figure.
They’re in for a wild caper across Southeast Asia because it’s not long before they decide it’s time to find out more about Elliot’s incredibly twisted past. Where better to do that than the Emerald Isle? Cue epic drone shots of the Irish countryside, as Elliot and Helen gamely set out in search of answers until our unlucky lead is abducted, hurled into the back of a van, and forced to listen to The Pretenders on full volume. Thank goodness his capable lady love is on the case—when she can get her toxic ex off the phone, that is.
On paper, The Tourist season two sounds like it just doesn’t work. Yet somehow, it does. It’s a bit like one of those Magic Eye pictures; you have to actively ignore the finer details (the murderous divers, the ballet moves, that basement scene) to make it all make sense. Just as you have to pretend that there aren’t more plot twists than, y’know, plot. Still, the implausibility is a huge part of The Tourist’s charm. It helps raise the stakes to dizzyingly high levels, soften the sharp edges of the violence, and breathes bucketloads of dark humor into the story.
Dornan, as ever, proves himself to be an endlessly watchable leading man. It’s no small feat for the man who was once assumed to be forever burned into our brains as Christian Grey and Wild Mountain Thyme’s Antony (if you know, you know). He’s charismatic and easy to root for despite his past sins. His bemused reactions to all of the grisly horrors going on around him are perfection. Macdonald, too, is every bit as brilliant. She serves up everything from fever dreams to unparalleled investigation skills with aplomb. Their chemistry together is honestly electric, which goes some way towards explaining why she’s so impossibly cool with his many, many, many red flags.
Is it the teeniest bit frustrating that the series concludes with yet another tantalizing nugget of information, one that’s almost definitely been squirreled into the story to pave the way for a potential third season? Sure it is. Is it normal to have to watch a TV show with a notebook in hand, ready to jot down the details you desperately don’t want to lose track of? Possibly not. And is this the sort of lofty heirloom TV show that people will wax lyrical about for years to come? Maybe not. But, hey, sometimes a greasy cheeseburger is a hell of a lot more fun than a Michelin-starred cuisine.
All that being said, The Tourist season two is dazzlingly entertaining and impossible to switch off once you get started, despite the tension headaches it may spark among its more logically minded viewers. Prepare to binge the whole thing in one greedy gulp, and then be left utterly bereft over your lack of self-control: it’ll be over all too quickly. Fingers crossed, then, that that aforementioned and oh-so-obvious setup for season three comes good, eh?
The Tourist season 2 streams on Netflix on February 29