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The Tourist review – Jamie Dornan is intense in explosively entertaining outback thriller

An Irishman wakes up in Australia with amnesia in this pulse-pounding series packed with humour and philosophical questions

F anging it down an outback road when he is rammed by a truck driver from hell, Jamie Dornan experiences a terrible accident that gives him amnesia – making him forget about all that bondage paraphernalia from Fifty Shades of Grey .

In the explosively entertaining six-part series The Tourist, created and written by Harry and Jack Williams, the Irish actor and former Hugo Boss and Calvin Klein studmuffin plays a louche loner who can’t remember who is he, what he is doing in Australia or why he appears to have “kill me” stamped figuratively speaking across his forehead.

Dornan joins a coterie of famous foreign actors who have been plonked in the thick of arid, unforgiving Australian land and left to fry in the sun for our dramatic amusement. See also: Gary Bond in Wake in Fright , who drank a lot of beer and went mad; Dennis Hopper in Mad Dog Morgan , who drank a lot of moonshine and went mad; Johnathon Schaech in Welcome to Woop Woop , who spent a lot of time with the locals and went mad; and soon to be Zac Efron in Gold, who, the trailer suggests, finds gold in them thar desert and then goes mad.

Come to think of it, Dornan’s character in The Tourist – billed as “The Man” – is pretty sane compared with these rather rabid fellows. He’s like Guy Pearce in Memento in that he’s determined but displaced (in this instance geographically as well as mentally) and constantly banging against the walls of his own mind. If the whole being rammed into near-oblivion wasn’t enough, “The Man” is also a mite concerned when, after meeting the friendly and charming Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin) at a diner, there appears to be another (rather spectacular) attempt on his life.

The show’s central mystery has something to do with a man who has been buried alive and calls “The Man” from inside a barrel, begging to be found post-haste. Director Chris Sweeney (who helmed episodes one to three, with Daniel Nettheim steering the others) shoves a camera inside a tight coffin-esque space, evoking memories of Ryan Reynolds in Buried.

A big, beefy, cowboy shirt-wearing villain emerges in Billy (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), who whistles cheerfully but with absolute menace, his merry tune a harbinger of impending doom. In the series’ second half, Alex Dimitriades emerges as another prominent bad guy, hamming it up in super-villain style.

Certain characters aren’t who they say they are, though that does not apply to Helen Chambers – a fair dinkum what-you-see-is-what-you-get probationary constable battling with low self-esteem. She is superbly portrayed by Danielle Macdonald (who played the gossip columnist Lillian Roxon in I am Woman ), bringing loads of colour and detail to what could have been the simple sweet hick. Macdonald’s performance vividly contrasts with the rough and tough Dornan – also perfect in a high-intensity role as a man who is something of a blank slate, frightened by who he is or who he may be. There are philosophical questions about identity to ponder – if viewers pause for a breather and stop chewing their nails – including to what extent each of us are defined by our past actions.

There’s also an oddly good performance from the ever-reliable Damon Herriman, offsetting his recent menacing work by playing a detective inspector in a way that’s both funny weird and funny ha-ha, suiting the show’s quite dry approach to comedy. Many scenes are humorous in a cagey way, sans explicit signposting: at one point for instance we discover a traffic pile-up has been created by two turtles rooting in the middle of the road. Elsewhere, in the aftermath of an intense confrontation, in a shot one could imagine belonging to a Coen brothers movie, the show cuts to a framed picture on a wall bearing the following message: “LIFE IS MADE OF CHOICES. WIPE YOUR FEET OR SCRUB THE FLOOR.”

The Tourist is very well shot by Ben Wheeler and Geoffrey Hall (who was also the cinematographer for Chopper , Red Dog: True Blue and Eden ), with colour grading that’s a little off, a little sickly, as if the blues and greens (hard to find in arid outback) in particular have been poisoned from the inside. This is a clever way of visualising the feeling that something isn’t quite right. Sweeney and Nettheim (whose directorial work includes episodes of Halifax: Retribution , Tidelands and Line of Duty) establish a cracker pace that creeps, creeps, creeps up on you, then explodes with a great big thunderclap of action then creeps, creeps, creeps up again.

The “bugger me dead, it’s hot!” action-thriller, as it shall henceforth be known, is by now very familiar, but The Tourist is different: a pulse-pounder that feels fresh despite many genre elements, particularly of the neo-noir variety. The show has a great forwards and backwards momentum, contrasting cliffhanger moments with questions about the past and the ambiguities therein. It’s a vision of Australiana that’s less “ where the bloody hell are you? ” than who the bloody hell are you, and what the bloody hell will happen next? And – summarising my personal response – bloody hell, this is good.

• Australian television
• Jamie Dornan

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• Why <i>The Tourist</i> Should Be Your Next Netflix Binge–And What to Know Before Watching

Why The Tourist Should Be Your Next Netflix Binge–And What to Know Before Watching

T ake a break from endlessly scrolling through Netflix searching for something new to watch and just press play on The Tourist, the BBC series which stars Jamie Dornan as a mysterious Irishman who wakes up in an Australian hospital with amnesia.

The wry thriller isn’t necessarily new—it premiered on the BBC in 2022 and quickly became one of the U.K.’s most-watched dramas of that year—but it is a recent addition to Netflix, which acquired the exclusive rights to the series last year and started streaming it in February. (Season 1 of The Tourist was previously available to stream in the U.S. on Max.) 

At just six episodes, The Tourist is a low-risk, high-reward viewing experience full of twists and turns that are sure to keep you on your toes. Think Memento if directed by the Coen Brothers . Even better, if you like what you see, you can launch right into season 2, which is now streaming.

Here is what you need to know about your next great Netflix binge . 

What is The Tourist about?

The Tourist begins with an Irish guy (played by Dornan) making a pit stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Australia. Nothing seems too out of the ordinary; he fills up his car, questions the gas station attendant’s bathroom key policy, visits the absolutely filthy restroom, and is on his way. But things get weird once he gets back on the road. He finds himself being harassed by a tractor trailer that seems hellbent on mowing him down. Just when it appears that he’s in the clear, he’s T-boned by the truck and left for dead on the side of the dirt road. 

When he wakes up, he’s in the hospital and has no memory of the accident or who he is. He doesn’t have a wallet or ID or phone on him to help jog his memory. This nameless man is now a tourist in his own life, struggling to understand who he was and why someone wanted him dead so badly. With help from a few kind, but not necessarily trustworthy strangers including Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), local waitress Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin), and Detective Inspector Lachlan Rogers (Damon Herriman), he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leaves him with more questions than answers about his dark past. 

Why it’s worth your time

Let’s start with Jamie Dornan. He played the leading man in the Fifty Shades trilogy and the Academy Award-nominated 2021 drama Belfast , but The Tourist feels like the first time he’s been able to truly show his range as an actor. It’s hard to resist that Irish brogue, but it’s even harder to resist his “ get you a man that can do both ” charm. Fans of the superbly silly Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar already know how funny he can be—not to mention, what a great singer he is. But The Tourist lets him show off his dry, dark wit, while also letting him show off his romantic side. By the end of the series, you’ll be left wondering why he hasn’t yet been cast in a good rom-com. (Sorry, not sorry Wild Mountain Thyme .) In the show’s most gripping action sequences, he manages to channel another amnesiac with killer instincts, Jason Bourne. But thanks to his hangdog expression, Dornan is also able to pull off the existential dread his character feels after realizing he’s not the person he hoped he would be.

Obviously, it’s hard to take your eyes off Dornan, but the scenery in The Tourist isn’t too bad to look at either. The show, set in the Australian outback—like way, way out back—was filmed on location in South Australia around Adelaide, a city known for its coastline. (Adelaide's North Haven Beach serves as the show’s stand-in for Bali’s Kuta Beach.) It was also shot in the Flinders Ranges , the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, and in Peterborough, a small town in an area near Adelaide known as wheat country, which stood in for the sandy outback scenes. (Season 2 takes place in Ireland, so prepare yourself for greenery as far as the eye can see.) Despite all the drama onscreen, The Tourist makes Australia look like a nice place to visit.

What to remember before watching The Tourist season 2

Whether you’ve already finished the first season and need a bit of a refresher or you’re planning to skip straight to Season 2, this is what you need to know before watching the second season. 

Warning: major spoilers for The Tourist Season 1 ahead.

The Irish guy with amnesia is actually Elliot Stanley, and he’s done some really bad things in his life. 

While in the hospital, Elliot finds a note in his pants pocket with an address for a diner in a tiny town called Burnt Ridge. It’s there he meets Luci (Brune-Franklin), a waitress who is actually his ex-girlfriend. She only chooses to tell him his name and their relationship to one another after they discover a man’s dead body stashed in an oil drum that had been buried. The man was Marko (Damien Strouthos), who, like Elliot, worked for Kostas (Alex Dimitriades), an international drug lord and Luci’s fiancé.

Luci isn’t exactly who she claims to be. She’s a scammer who stole a rather sentimental bag of money from Kostas in order to run off with Elliot. Now the Greek gangster is back to collect. But Kostas isn’t all that interested in the cash; a million dollars is chump change to a guy like him. This is about ego. Kostas, a maniac who spikes his water with LSD to be able to speak with his dead brother, wants to punish Elliot for successfully stealing his girl.

Kostas decides to kidnap the wife of Detective Inspector Lachlan Rogers (Herriman) in hopes that it will scare the decorated officer into doing his bidding. It does; Lachlan apprehends Elliot and kills a young sergeant in the process, becoming one of the bad guys. But is Elliot also a bad guy? Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Macdonald), the ambitious cop-in-training assigned to his case, doesn’t think so. She believes the fact that he was willing to save her from being shot by Kostas’ henchman means there is good in there somewhere, even if he has done bad things. But Elliot isn’t convinced that someone can really change. 

After drinking from Kostas’ LSD-laced water bottle, he has visions that offer some insight into who he may have been. He sees his first meeting with Kostas, where he’s hired as his accountant. He is able to relive his meet-cute with Luci and sees how toxic their relationship was. He discovers where he buried the bag of money and dreams of laying in bed with Helen. He also speaks to a Russian woman named Lena Pascal, who he’s seen before in his dreams. She tells him she’s in Adelaide and claims that she can help him “fill in the colors” of his past. 

Elliot worries that what he has seen aren’t memories, but hallucinations. When he finds the bag of money in the same spot he had envisioned it though, he believes that Lena may be real, too. Unfortunately, he can’t go looking for her just yet. After Kostas and Luci are killed in a shootout over the million dollars, Lachlan lies to the police in hopes of saving himself. He claims that Elliot and Helen kidnapped him and went on a shooting rampage à la Bonnie and Clyde, killing the young sergeant. Luckily, Helen is able to access the CCTV footage that shows Lachlan transporting Elliot in handcuffs, catching him in his lie. It saves both her and Elliott from going to jail and allows Elliot a chance to speak with Lena, who was not a figment of his imagination—though after their chat he wishes she was.

When Lena comes to meet him at the jail, she reveals that he wasn’t just Kostas’ accountant as he had dreamt, but helped train the drug mules, mostly young immigrant women who swallowed bags of heroin to transport across the globe. Lena tells a story of two girls who died instantly after the bags Elliot gave them exploded in their stomachs. Lena lived, but not without literal scars. She shows him the long gash across her stomach where she was cut open to retrieve the drugs. She claims Elliot was the one who ordered her to be butchered, worried the heroin would go to waste. He apologizes for his cruelty, but she doesn’t absolve him of his guilt. “You have to live with yourself,” she tells him as she leaves.

Elliot doesn’t think he can and attempts to have himself arrested, but Lena won’t press charges. He then attempts to lose his memory again by getting into another car crash. He flips his car over, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work. He can’t forget what Lena told him and neither can Helen, who after learning the evil that Elliot was capable of decides she can no longer see him. But she can’t stop thinking about him and wondering whether he or anyone should be defined by their worst mistakes. 

Elliot wonders the same, but the guilt is just too much. He decides that he can no longer live with himself and attempts to take his life with vodka and pills. Laid out on his bed, waiting to die, he gets a text: a burrito emoji from Helen.

The burrito references a scene earlier in the show, when Elliot and Helen were eating together in a Mexican restaurant. Helen is his hostage, but the night plays out like a first date. Elliot can’t remember what kind of food he likes so she suggests they order everything on the menu so he can figure out his taste now. She encourages him to stop thinking about who he was and start becoming the person he is meant to be. He later tells her that he equates burritos with happiness and her text becomes a lifeline. He might not be able to forget what he’s done, but she believes he has the capacity to change. The joy on his face when he sees her message makes it seem as if Elliot finally believes he can change too. But fans will have to wait until Season 2 to see if he’s able to become a better person.

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The Tourist

• Revolves around Frank, an American tourist visiting Italy to mend a broken heart. Elise is an extraordinary woman who deliberately crosses his path.
• Elise (Angelina Jolie) sits next to an American tourist, Frank (Johnny Depp), on a train going to Venice. She has chosen him as a decoy, making believe that he is her lover who is wanted by police. Not only will they need to evade the police, but also the mobster whose money her lover stole. — Douglas Young (the-movie-guy)
• A woman sitting in a Parisian café reads a letter telling her to take the train to Venice, pick a man of the sender's height and build, and chat him up. She's being watched: Scotland Yard and a mobster with a crew of Russian thugs are looking for a man she knows. On the train, she talks to an American, Frank, suggests they have dinner, and, once in Venice, invites him to her hotel. The bait is set: the Russians think Frank is the man they want: Alexander Pearce, who stole billions from the mobster. Scotland Yard realizes Frank is a just a tourist, but by now he's in danger, smitten by the mystery woman, and in their way. Can the Yard keep Frank from death and still catch Pearce? — <[email protected]>
• A woman named Elise (Angelina Jolie) is being trailed in Paris by French police working with Scotland Yard. At a cafe, she receives a letter from Alexander Pearce, a former lover, with explicit directions to board a train to Venice, Italy, pick out a man who resembles him, and make the police believe that this man is Alexander Pearce. A mysterious stranger, not involved with the police, also seems to be watching Elise. Elise burns the letter and boards a train. She takes a seat across from Frank (Johnny Depp), an American tourist reading a spy novel. Frank is instantly attracted to her. The train arrives in Venice, and she invites him to go with her on a boat to the Hotel Danieli. At dinner, much to Frank's dismay, Elise admits to having feelings for another man, presumably Alexander Pearce. Later, on her room's balcony they share a kiss, witnessed by the men following her. The next day, Frank awakens to find Elise gone. Men suddenly try to break into the hotel room. Frank barely escapes by running over several roofs in his pajamas, but is caught by the Italian police. A sympathetic detective listens to Frank's story that he does not know why these men are after him. He takes Frank from the jail and tells him that his story checks out and that the men after him were Belarusians, who have placed a price on his head and believe Frank to be someone else. The detective, however, then delivers Frank into the clutches of these same men, in order to collect the money they promised. Elise suddenly appears with a boat to rescue Frank, and they flee together. Elise finally tells Frank that all this is happening because she kissed him and made the police believe that he was Alexander Pearce. Frank learns that Pearce stole two billion dollars from a gangster named Shaw (Steven Berkoff) and is also wanted by the British Government for tax evasion. Stunned by the news, Frank says he still does not regret kissing Elise. Elise apologizes for getting him involved at all and tricks Frank off the boat. Frank says he loves her. Elise goes to a government building. She turns out to be a British secret agent. She sees her fellow British agent Acheson (Paul Bettany), who was among those following her in Paris. Elise was supposed to work undercover against Pearce but fell in love with him and had disappeared from her job until now. She tells Acheson that she is ready to help him find Pearce now because she wants to prevent anybody else from getting hurt. Elise goes to a ball Pearce has invited her to attend, wearing a wire. She is handed a letter by the same mysterious stranger from Paris. The letter is from Pearce, saying where to meet him. As Elise turns to leave, Frank appears and prevents her exit. They dance. Elise leaves to find Pearce, and agent Acheson's men apprehend Frank. They both watch on surveillance equipment as Elise walks into a trap set by the gangster Shaw. The gangster threatens to kill her unless she reveals the location of the safe holding the money Pearce stole from him. Agent Acheson doesn't intervene for his colleague Elise, confident that Pearce will show up to rescue her. Elise reveals the safe's location but does not know its code. Frank watches in horror as Elise is threatened yet again. Seeing that Acheson won't help Elise, Frank picks the lock to his handcuffs and escapes to help her. Frank pretends to be Pearce. Elise begs him to stop or he will be killed. Frank, acting as Pearce, tells Shaw that he will get his money, but only if Elise is first released and safe. As Frank pretends that he is about to open the safe, Elise mouths "I love you." All of a sudden, Chief Inspector Jones (Timothy Dalton) gives the order for the police snipers to shoot Shaw and his men. Frank and Elise are unharmed. As the police survey the scene, agent Acheson can't believe that Pearce did not save Elise, and Jones is furious with him for exposing her to danger. Jones then informs Elise that she has been terminated from the force. A police report informs them that Pearce has just been caught. As the room clears, Elise and Frank embrace. He asks her if she loves both him and Alexander Pearce. Elise answers yes. To spare her from this dilemma, Frank demonstrates that he is the real Alexander Pearce by entering the correct code for the safe. Pearce had gotten plastic surgery, so he could have a new life. Meanwhile, the arrested man believed to be Pearce explains to police that he was paid to pose as him but that he is really just a tourist. Elise and Frank/Pearce leave on a boat with the money, finally being able to be together. In the open safe, police find a bankers check for the 744 million pounds in back taxes Pearce owed the British government.

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Series / The Tourist

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The Tourist is a Mystery Thriller TV drama written by Harry and Jack Williams and produced in part by The BBC as well as several other international companies. The first series, consisting of six episodes, was broadcast in 2022.

Jamie Dornan plays a man, initially known only as "The Man", who is involved in a car crash in the Australian Outback , and subsequently wakes up in hospital with complete amnesia. Using what limited clues he has, and with the help of a friendly local police officer called Helen (Danielle Macdonald), he tries to find out who he is . As the plot develops and various unsavoury characters start to take in interest in The Man, it becomes increasingly clear that his past is much, much murkier than first assumed.

For a time, it was the most-watched show on the BBC's iPlayer streaming platform, with the first episode ending up as the third most-watched individual programme on iPlayer in 2022.

This led to an originally-unplanned second series, in which The Man and Helen travel to Ireland to find out more about the former's past. It was broadcast in 2024.

The Tourist tropes:

• All Just a Dream : The first part of the fifth episode of the second series, in which Helen and Elliot return to Australia, only for Helen's insistence on finding out the story behind the missing plane to put a strain on their relationship, is revealed to have been the dream Helen is having while in a coma as a result of being shot in the stomach by Lena .
• Does Helen really think that St. Petersburg in Florida is the St. Petersburg where the Winter Palace is? See below under Global Ignorance for more.
• When Elliot and Helen wake up in bed together after getting drunk the previous night, it's unclear whether or not they had sex; Helen swears they went no further than kissing, although as she had consumed several dirty martinis after trying said cocktail for the first time, she may not remember everything .
• Did DS Slater murder his wife, or is he telling the truth about her dying of natural causes and him being too grief-stricken to report her death, leading him to conceal her body in the basement ?
• Amnesiac Dissonance : As Elliot learns more about his past, he becomes increasingly horrified and disgusted by the dubious and violent life he's led, which included being involved in organized crime. It comes to a head in the finale when he learns that not only was he an accountant for a drug-dealer, he was actively involved in coercing women into smuggling heroin across borders in their stomachs, and was thus responsible for the deaths of at least two of those women.
• Amnesia Loop : Played for laughs in the first episode. The first time the Man visits a gas station and is told by the attendant that he must sign the register to get the key to the outside toilet, he reacts with an incredulous "Why would you need to sign for it? It's not like you're trying to buy it". He says the same thing when he revisits the gas station after getting amnesia.
• Armour-Piercing Question : When Elliot has Frank McDonnell at gunpoint, he seems serious about killing him. Frank then asks why he would want to do this, given that he has no memory of the feud between their families and had stated that he does not care about said feud — meaning that if he did kill Frank, he would be doing so for no reason whatsoever. Elliot backs down as a result .
• Bait-and-Switch : Lena, who turns out to have been the one who lured Elliot back to Ireland , asks Donal if she can be the one to shoot Elliot after he and Helen are captured (again, in Elliot's case) by the McDonnells . Donal agrees, but instead of shooting Elliot as everyone expects, she shoots Helen , so Elliot can know the pain of watching a loved one die in front of him .
• Basement-Dweller : In the second series, Ruairi Slater provides a somewhat creepy example of this trope, given that the basement in question contains the decomposing body of his late wife and a mannequin dressed in her clothes .
• Big Bad : In the first series, combined with The Don in the case of Kosta — an international drug dealer who has one of Australia's best cops (Rogers) on his payroll. He's after The Man because he used to be a key man in Kosta's organisation before he ran off with $1,000,000 and Luci, who had previously been Kosta's girlfriend .
• Big Beautiful Woman : Helen. She's (adorkably) smart, too.
• In the aftermath of the diner blowing up, The Man necks a beer and follows it by remarking that he hopes he's not an alcoholic.
• When he gets kidnapped at the start of the second series, Elliot asks his kidnappers if this has anything to do with Kosta. They, having not heard of the Big Bad of the first series, are momentarily confused as to why them kidnapping someone would have anything to do with a coffee shop (Costa Coffee being a leading British chain of coffee shops, with over a hundred outlets in Ireland).
• Elliot's attempt to get away from his kidnappers in the first episode of the second series is accompanied by "Don't Get Me Wrong" by The Pretenders , which is playing on the radio of the kidnappers' van.
• Brick Joke : Everyone who goes to the gas station reacts with incredulity on learning that the proprietor makes visitors sign a register before allowing them to use the outside toilet.
• British Brevity : Two series, six episodes in each.
• Broken Ace : Detective Inspector Lachlan Rogers, although most Aussie cops just see him as The Ace as he does not appear to have told anyone about his terminal cancer diagnosis. Turns out, he's also a Dirty Cop who works for Kosta.
• Buried Alive : The fate of The Man's mystery caller at the end of the first episode. He and Luci rush to find him, but a sandstorm impedes their progress, and by the time they find him, he's dead.
• The Bus Came Back : As well as The Man and Helen, Ethan and Lena return for the second series. Billy also appears, but only in the coma dream Helen has after getting shot by Lena.
• Career Versus Man : Helen, who has recently become a police officer, is engaged to Ethan, who tries to convince her to give up on her new career. Given that he's a Gaslighting Jerkass , it comes as something of a relief when she finally dumps him . By the start of the second series, though, she is revealed to have quit the police in order to go travelling with Elliot, who's now her boyfriend .
• When Billy breaks a window, the camera focuses on a particular shard of glass. He is later killed as a result of being impaled on that very shard .
• Elliot's lighter, which offends the ticket inspector on the train, is later used to enable Elliot to make a Molotov cocktail in a bid to escape from the McDonnells .
• Ethan's rape whistle gets used to distract a heavy who's got Elliot at his mercy .
• Ethan again; although the fact that he has an app on his phone that tracks Helen's movements is rightly called out as stalking, it does help him and Elliot to try and find Helen when she goes missing .
• In the second series, Ruairi's next-door neighbour seems like a one-shot character but is actually this, as she's later revealed to be the widow of the real Elliot Stanley .
• Chekhov's Skill : Early on, it's mentioned that prior to interviewing The Man, Helen's police experience consists entirely of being a traffic cop. Ultimately, her speed camera spotting skills are what saves her and Elliot from being framed for murder.
• Cruel Mercy : In the final episode of the first series, Elliot finds out about the horrible things he did to Lena and her friends. He is willing to go to jail for it but Lena declines to talk to the cops. Having noticed that he has developed a conscience, she figures out that the guilt he will suffer for the rest of his life is the worst punishment she can offer him; prison would merely help him to assuage that guilt, and she wants him to have to live with it .
• DI Rogers has been diagnosed with cancer and is actually working for Kosta.
• Helen tried to kill herself after her father died. Ethan uses this as a means of convincing her that she should marry him because no other man would have her.
• And as for The Man ... Elliot was not just an accountant for Kosta's drug-smuggling operation, he was a key figure in that operation , coercing Lena and at least two other women to have their stomachs cut open in order to smuggle bags of heroin into Australia; the other two died after the bags exploded. When he learns of this, he's so disgusted that he tries to kill himself. Twice . In the second series, he finds out that he was a member of one of the two Feuding Families , and left Ireland after getting the wife of a member of the other family pregnant .
• The Determinator : Helen, especially in the second series.
• Didn't Think This Through : In his attempt to make amends with Helen (and, he hopes, win her back with his idea of a Grand Romantic Gesture ) in the second series, Ethan does not seem to have considered the notion that she has moved on. Unlike her, he hires a car when he gets to Ireland (she, by contrast, has to rely on taxis) but does not consider the prospect that it may need to be refuelled at some point.
• Driven to Suicide : On learning of the extent of his criminality, Elliot tries to kill himself, first by trying to crash his car, and when that doesn't work, he tries overdosing on what is presumably paracetamol .
• A Family Affair : An accidental example. When The Man had an affair with (and impregnated) Donal's wife Claire, he did not know that he and Donal were cousins .
• Feuding Families : The Cassidys and the McDonnells have been feuding for many years and the situation has been made worse by the fact that they both run extensive criminal networks competing for control of the local criminal underworld. They have been at an uneasy peace since Joe Cassidy was killed but Elliot's return to Ireland starts the violence up again. It turns out that the heads of the two families are actually brother and sister .
• Fighting Irish : In the second series, we have the Cassidys and the McDonnells , two feuding Irish criminal families. The Man is shown to be more than capable of handling himself in a Bar Brawl .
• Fish out of Water : The Man is an Irishman who (initially) has no idea who he is, or why he's in Australia. In the second series, Helen takes on this role as an Aussie visiting Ireland and trying to find Elliot, who's been kidnapped .
• Foreshadowing : In the final episode, Helen spots a speed limit sign and slows down to obey it. This foreshadows her use of her speed camera knowledge to prove that DI Rogers is lying.
• Gaslighting : Ethan constantly belittles Helen, makes her think that no other man would want her and mocks her for thinking she can make a success of being a police officer.
• Global Ignorance : When her conversation with The Man shifts from her and Ethan's intended honeymoon plans to travel in general, Helen remarks that she'd love to see the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg; given that she had just mentioned that they were going to go to Florida (which has a city of that name, named after the Russian original), it seems that she may have fallen victim to this trope. It's an ambiguous case , though, since she specifically mentioned where Ethan wanted to go when she mentioned Florida, and it's never confirmed whether or not she knows that the St. Petersburg where the Winter Palace is is actually the Russian one note  this omission in detail may be partially justified as a possible hint that her personal wishes normally take a backseat to Ethan's in their rather one-sided relationship, and thus she rarely has a chance to actually express them in discussion since they'd be irrelevant (to him); given how switched-on she turns out to be, it does seem unlikely that she would fall victim to this trope . It's possible that she simply assumes that The Man (with whom she shares the conversation) already understands the geographical distinction.
• Gruesome Grandparent : Niamh intended to kill her biological grandson, Fergal, because he was raised by and aligned with the McDonnells .
• Heel Realization : By the second series, Ethan seems to have realised how his behaviour affected Helen (to the point of joining a self-help group and correcting both himself and others over causal remarks that could be seen as misogynistic) and tries to make amends — although this is played for laughs to an extend, given that he quickly becomes The Load .
• Hidden Depths : Elliot is said to have been an accomplished ballet dancer as a younger man. He remembers nothing of this, but is shown to be a very good dancer in the final scene when Helen insists on hiring out a theatre to see what he can do .
• I Have Many Names : The Man finds out that his name is Elliot Stanley . It is, however, revealed in the second series that this was an alias, and his real name is Eugene Cassidy .
• Imaginary Friend : A somewhat sinister version. Kosta's brother Dimitri turns out to be an hallucination of the man Kostas thought he'd grow up to become; he thinks he died years ago, but in reality he's living in an ashram in India.
• Incest Is Relative : The second series ends with it being revealed that the Cassidys and the McDonnells are related due to the adultery of at least one earlier generation. Ethan makes a remark about incest, following which he quickly leaves the pub before someone beats him up for pointing this out .
• Insistent Terminology : Probationary Constable Helen Chambers.
• I Reject Your Reality : After The Reveal at the end of the second series, Niamh angrily refuses to accept that she is a half-sister of her sworn enemy .
• Jerkass : Ethan (Helen's fiancé), who constantly belittles her over he weight and tries to convince her that she's not good enough to be a police officer. She eventually calls him out on this, and dumps him.
• Kissing Cousins : Albeit unknowingly. Before leaving Ireland, Eugene Cassidy (a.k.a. Elliot Stanley, a.k.a. The Man) had an affair with Frank McDonnell 's daughter-in-law and fathered a child with her. Turns out, Frank is Eugene's biological uncle.
• Land Down Under : In the first series, the action takes place in the Australian Outback.
• Loss of Identity : Jamie Dornan's character can't remember his name or where he comes from or why he was in the Australian Outback to begin with. For the majority of the first episode he doesn't even get a temporary name, instead just continuing on nameless. In the credits, he is simply "The Man".
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe : Elliot is revealed, via DNA evidence from the kidnapping scene, to be the biological father of Fergal McDonnell . Later, it is revealed that Niamh was likely fathered by Frank McDonnell 's dad, making them half-siblings. Evidently, sleeping with the wives of enemy family members was an ongoing thing in the Cassidy- McDonnell feud .
• Mistaken for Murderer : When Ruairi goes to a hardware store and buys a shovel, some duct tape and a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves, the cashier jokingly asks if he's murdered someone and is trying to dispose of the body. Ruairi's laughing response seems a little too forced, given that the second part of the question is, in fact, true .
• Police Are Useless : In season 2, the local Irish police turn out to be useless because they refuse to investigate any crime that might involve the Cassidys or the McDonnells .
• Quest for Identity : The whole basis of the plot is The Man trying to find out who he is, and where he was going before the crash.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending : The first series ends with Elliot, having just washed a load of pills down with vodka in a second attempt to kill himself, receiving a text from Helen, who had previously told him she wanted nothing more to do with him after learning of his criminal past. He smiles as the scene cuts to black for the closing credits.
• Relationship Upgrade : By the start of the second series, Elliot and Helen are in a relationship .
• At the end of the third episode, Luci tells The Man that his name is Elliot Stanley .
• Season 2 reveals that he is Eugene Cassidy and Elliot Stanley was just an alias.
• The climax of season 2 reveals that the heads of the the Cassidy and McDonnell families are half-siblings .
• The final scene of season 2 reveals that The Man/Elliot/Eugene might have actually been an undercover police officer .
• Revenge by Proxy : Lena shoots Helen in the stomach so The Man will have to live with the pain of watching a loved one die, just like she did. Fortunately Helen survives the ordeal .
• Everyone reacts with bewilderment because the owner of the gas station insists on people signing a register before he will give them the key to the outside toilet.
• The question "What shoots but doesn't kill?" is asked several times throughout the series and every time is responded to with the same incorrect, if logical, answer.
• The crux of the first season is revealed to link to a drug empire that runs throughout the Australian outback, where the drugs are smuggled into the country in the stomachs of trafficked drug mules, and then distributed under the supervision of "Big" Billy Nixon (a stereotypical Texan who dresses like a cowboy), who uses his long-distance trucking company to secretly smuggle the drugs. Likewise whilst it implied the ring leader, the international Greek crime boss Kosta is based and regularly operates in more urban surroundings, he has several traits in common with the country setting, such as being introduced out boar hunting in the woods which he'd done since boyhood.
• Season two introduces the Cassady's (for whom the Man happens to be a member , an Irish Mob crime family who, whilst their territory extends into the nearby towns, are based within a small village in largely rural Ireland. Niamh Cassidy 's men dress like labourers and she possesses massive amounts of sway and support in the local community, partially due to her reinvesting her profits within it. This stands in contrast to their rivals the McDonnel's who use a whiskey distillery in town they own as their base and have a more urban and sophisticated presentation (something Niamh even mocks when rallying her troops whilst holding a meeting at her base of operations, her families pub).
• Saved by Canon : Viewers watching the first series from mid-to-late 2023 onwards must surely have been aware that The Man and Helen would survive, given that it was widely reported that Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald were filming the second series.
• Serial Homewrecker : In season 1, The Man learns that he had previously run off with Kosta's girlfriend, Luci . Then in season 2 he discovers that he had an affair with Donal McDonnell 's wife and is the biological father of Fergal McDonnell . Both of these revelations have massive consequences for the plot.
• When The Man is revisits the gas station he was at just before the crash, he's revealed to have signed his name as " "Crocodile" Dundee " on the toilet register.
• When they go on the run, The Man and Helen are compared to Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma & Louise .
• When trying to explain the Cassidy- McDonnell feud to Helen, Ruairi asks her if she has heard of Hatfields & McCoys .
• Although it's not mentioned outright, Ruairi himself exhibits behaviour similar to that of Norman Bates .
• Stuff Blowing Up : The diner in the first episode, which The Man visits because there was a note in the pocket of his jeans telling him to be there at a certain time. Luci (who is later revealed to have written the note) ushers him out just before the explosion.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal : DI Lachlan Rogers, formerly an exemplary detective , upon discovering he had six months left to live from terminal stomach cancer, turned to moonlighting as an enforcer for Kosta so that he could acquire enough money to ensure his wife was looked after for the rest of her life.
• There Is Only One Bed : The Man sleeps on the floor of the honeymoon suite after he and Helen enjoy a drunken meal while on the run. Becomes a case of What Did I Do Last Night? when they both wake up in the bed the following morning, although Helen swears they just kissed.
• Time Skip : The second series begins some 14 months after the first series ends.
• Token Good Teammate : Fergal is by far the least evil of the McDonnells , and really isn't cut out for the life of crime he was born into.
• The Unreveal : We never learn Luci's real name. Even Victoria, the name Elliot knew her by pre-amnesia, was another alias.
• What Did I Do Last Night? : Elliot and Helen wake up in bed together after getting drunk while on the run. She swears they just kissed, although she may not remember everything from the night before .
• What Happened to the Mouse? : After Elliot escapes from the island , we hear no more of Orla McDonnell .
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"? : The Man queries why Donal's parents named him thusly, given that their surname was McDonnell . Lena later expresses surprise at there being so many Donal McDonnells listed in the Irish phonebooks.
• Would Hit a Girl : Donal McDonnell was a wife-beater even before he found out that his wife Claire had slept with Elliot .
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! : When Helen goes to the airport, she's shocked to encounter Ethan and Ruairi, who are planning to visit Budapest together.
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HBO Max continues stealth drops of some of the best drama mini-series on television. Last year highlights included “The Head” and “ Station Eleven ,” and they start 2022 strongly with the fantastic “The Tourist,” a twisty tale that plays like an Aussie version of “ Fargo .” With sharp dialogue, clever plotting, and career-best work from Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald , this is a great little thriller, a show that constantly keeps you guessing and entertained in equal measure.

The “ Belfast ” and “ Fifty Shades of Grey ” star plays an unnamed man (at least for a while) who is driving through the very remote Australian outback. He stops at a station to use the bathroom, banters with the guy behind the counter, and hits the road again. Looking in the rearview mirror, he sees a truck gaining on him with remarkable speed. The Man twists off the road to avoid it and the trucker follows, revealing through a POV from his cab that this is very intentional—he’s trying to kill this tourist. They race through the desert until The Man’s car crashes. He wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who he is or how he got there.

Enter a small-town officer named Helen Chambers (Macdonald), engaged to an awful man named Ethan ( Greg Larsen ) and thrust into a mystery about who this handsome Irishman is in a hospital bed. When The Man finds a note with a time and a location in his pocket, he heads to a small town called Burnt Ridge, where he meets a woman named Luci ( Shalom Brune-Franklin ) who might know about his past, ends up crossing paths with a sociopath ( Ólafur Darri Ólafsson ) who clearly wants him dead, and gets a phone call from a man who’s been buried underground. And then things get even weirder.

Created by the people behind the excellent “ The Missing ” (which aired stateside on Starz), the writing on “The Tourist” is a metronomic back and forth between reveals and how those reveals propel the narrative in a new direction. Pushing their way through all the chaos are Dornan and Macdonald, both phenomenal. Dornan finds a quirky, unsettled way to play a man who doesn’t know who he is without resorting to the cliché of the lost soul. If anything, he leans into more of a blank slate interpretation of amnesia, playing a guy who’s more open to what comes next because he can’t remember what came before. And Macdonald is charming and so incredibly likable that she becomes the heart of a show that can be cold at times.

Echoes of “ Memento ” and “Fargo” aside, “The Tourist” also has its own quirky personality. Some of those quirks get a bit extreme in late-season episodes in ways I can’t spoil, but the show is never boring. It’s a reminder that the Dornan who was so great in “ The Fall ” is still out there, and I hope it leads him to more bizarre, challenging roles like this one. There’s an argument to be made that there’s an even-better 100-minute movie in this six-episode mini-series, but that’s not the world we’re in right now. A story like this has a better chance to be told in the TV system than the mid-budget film one, and the writers don’t drag their feet or spin their wheels like so many streaming thrillers. They’re constantly moving our hero forward, keeping us uncertain about his past and even his moral center.

Some will argue that “The Tourist” gets too convoluted and I’ll admit that I enjoyed the playful uncertainty of the first half of the season more than the intensity of the second half. Although the show does get deeper in how it unpacks lies we tell ourselves and those we listen to from other people. It turns out that everyone on "The Tourist" has a secret or two, and almost all of them could use a car accident to reset the hole they've dug for themselves. 

I'm not sure how intentional it is but the show never stopped reminding me of some of my favorite early Coen films—the noir danger of “ Blood Simple ,” the open roads of “ Raising Arizona ” (and a bearded hunter who seems unkillable), Macdonald’s very Marge Gunderson character—and yet these nods to greats are embedded in a breakneck plot that never slows down enough to distract from its own inspired storytelling. Take the trip.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

The Tourist (2022)

360 minutes

Jamie Dornan as The Man

Danielle Macdonald as Helen Chambers

Shalom Brune-Franklin as Luci

Damon Herriman as D.I. Lachlan Rogers

Alex Dimitriades as Kostas

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Billy

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The Tourist

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Watch The Tourist with a subscription on Netflix.

Cast & Crew

Jamie Dornan

Danielle Macdonald

Helen Chambers

Shalom Brune-Franklin

Luci Miller

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Billy Nixon

Geneviève Lemon

Danny Adcock

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