'The Tourist's Second Outing Forges New Paths, Though With Diminishing Returns

When The Tourist Season 1 ended with the jaw-dropping revelation that Elliot Stanley (Jamie Dornan) was not just an accountant caught up in the mishaps of an unhinged gangster but a drug trafficker who smuggled product in the stomach of marginalized women, it wasn’t clear that the show intended to follow up this last minute twist. It seemed just like a continuation of Elliot’s disoriented recollection of his own amnesia’d past – there is no convenient chronology or order to the way one is reminded of their misdeeds. For all dramatic purposes, losing your memory means you’re an entirely new person, but your shaky understanding of who you are is constantly in flux.

It’s a touch surprising then that The Tourist Season 2 doesn’t commit most of its 6-hour runtime to Elliot’s history with trafficking narcotics inside human beings. But it is definitely interested in the blurred lines between who Elliot was and this newly formed person. Switching up our location from Australia to Ireland, showrunners and brothers Jack and Harry Williams (Baptiste) are less interested in repeating the structure of Season 1, even if The Tourist’s sophomore outing feels like a case of diminished returns on the first. Elliot is still searching for answers, but the closer he gets to an uncomfortable solution, the more he chooses to run away from it as well.

After deciding to forgive Elliot for the evil revelations that, in his defense, he didn’t know he was keeping secret, our loveable Aussie constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald) has joined Elliot for a whirlwind romantic tour of the world. Their globetrotting affair is soon cut short when Elliot is called back to his home country, Ireland, via a mysterious letter from “Tommy” – a person he allegedly knows from a country he’s allegedly from.