The Tourist: Different location, same dark laughs
Almost exactly two years after first capturing the world’s attention, the misadventures of Elliot Stanley (Jamie Dornan) and Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald) continue in the second season of The Tourist.
Picking up the action 14 months since the mysterious Irishman and the probationary constable were thrown together after a car crash in the Australian Outback left him with amnesia, the seemingly unlikely couple are now loved-up and travelling through Southeast Asia.
Despite enjoying “the here and now” (if not Elliot’s rather lengthy beard), Helen knows her beau’s seemingly violent past will eventually catch up with him so she reluctantly shares the letter she’s been keeping from him since it was mailed to her police station when he was in hospital.
As he reads the note from “Tommy”, she knows there’s only one destination they can be heading to next – Ireland.
However, having set up a rendezvous at a lakeside cafe, after an hour’s wait, the pair believe they have been stood up. But when Elliot uses the bathroom facilities, he’s attacked and bundled into the back of a van.
The abduction isn’t exactly smooth though. Elliot manages to temporarily escape, hot-footing it across the countryside and taking advantage of the ageing van’s inability to navigate some of the steeper inclines. Eventually though, his luck runs out, clipped by a door, knocked to the ground and regathered by his assailants.
Meanwhile, confused and concerned by Elliot’s disappearance, Helen seeks out the local garda in the form of Detective Ruairi Slater (Conor MacNeill). He’s eager to help, but an added, unwanted distraction comes in the form of a phone call from Helen’s former fiance Ethan (Greg Larsen).
Attempting to atone for his gaslighting, marginalising past, he’s seeking forgiveness. Her response? Simply hanging up. That though simply makes him even more convinced that he needs to “not only apologise for the man he was, but show her the one he is now”.
One of the delights of brothers’ Harry and Jack Williams (The Missing, Baptiste) original six-part series was their Coen-esque ability to switch between serious action and dark comedy. Dornan (Fifty
Shades of Grey, The Fall), in particular, seemed to revel in the freedom afforded by his character’s lack of self-knowledge and identity.
Here, if anything, the hilarity goes up a notch, even as Dornan’s Elliot finds himself stuck in a Saw-like scenario and confused as to who exactly his new captors are.
“Do you work for Costas?” he queries. “Why would a coffee shop want you dead?” comes the incredulous reply.
As well as the breathless but mirth-filled cross-country chase, the opening episode also offers up hints at an artistic past for Elliot, a moniker which makes one of the “bad guys” a little difficult to take seriously and the extended use of The Pretenders’ Don’t Get Me Wrong, which means you’ll never be able to hear that 1986 hit in quite the same way again.
So, while Ireland’s lush greenery may offer a very different backdrop to the dust-filled first season, this sophomore six-part run of The Tourist still offers the same well-acted, crisply written, expertly executed action and laughs that made it such a hit back at the start of 2022.
Season two of The Tourist begins streaming on TVNZ+ tomorrow, New Year’s Day.