A lot went on in The Tourist season 1 – here’s what you need to know ahead of season 2.
With the second season of The Tourist about to air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, starting exactly two years after the first, you may be struggling to recollect just what happened in that first run.
Season 2 will follow up on Jamie Dornan’s character from the first season, Elliot Stanley, as well as Danielle Macdonald’s Helen Chambers.
While it may take place in a whole new setting and feature a whole new cast of characters beyond the central duo, there are still some crucial elements of season 1 that you’ll want to remember. But don’t worry – we’ve got you covered.
Read on for a recap of everything you need to know about The Tourist season 1 ahead of season 2’s premier.
This article contains brief mentions of suicide and trafficking that some may find distressing.
What happened in The Tourist season 1?
At the start of The Tourist season 1, we were introduced to an Irish man (Jamie Dornan) who was seemingly on the run across Australia. In his first scene, a truck purposefully ran him off the road, and he ended up in hospital with severe amnesia – he didn’t remember anything about who he was, what he had done or what had happened to him.
There, he met Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), who was looking to prove herself within the police force and was also engaged to be married to the controlling and passive aggressive Ethan Krum (Greg Larsen).
As the man followed a trail of breadcrumbs to uncover his identity he found that, wherever he went, people were trying to kill him – someone was clearly out to get him.
With the help of a con-woman, Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin), who later turned out to be his ex-girlfriend, the man learned that his name was Elliot Stanley, and he was a former accountant for an international criminal and drug lord, Kostas (Alex Dimitriades).
He had gone on the run with Luci, Kostas’s fiancée, earlier that year, after they began an affair and escaped with $1 million of Kostas’ money. Since then, they had broken up multiple times until Kostas sent his underlings to find the pair and retrieve the money – hence why Elliot had been ran off the road.
As he tried to piece everything together and outrun Kostas’s men, Elliot ended up taking Helen hostage (sort of) but the pair bonded and ended up becoming close, even ending up in bed together (although they were unsure if anything happened between them).
They managed to win out in their battle with Kostas, who was fatally shot by a corrupt police officer, Lachlan (Damon Herriman), who he had blackmailed by taking his wife hostage. However, Luci ended up getting shot, and died as Elliot tried to take her to hospital.
Lachlan, who had killed another officer earlier in the series, blamed the murder on Elliot and Helen, but they managed to prove his deception and clear their own names. Lachlan was arrested.
Meanwhile, Helen ended her relationship with Ethan in spectacular fashion, finally seeing through his manipulations.
How did The Tourist season 1 end?
Before the end of the season Elliot learned a final, dreadful truth about himself and his past life. He had been having visions of a mysterious woman, Lena Pascal, and when he managed to track her down, he believed she could fill in the blanks in his memory.
When she visited him as he awaited bail from prison, she revealed that Elliot had, at one time, trafficked her and other women, who he coerced into smuggling bags of heroin into Australia in their stomach. The drugs were then cut out of them by one of Elliot’s colleagues.
She told him that he would make her smile at him in order to rehearse acting relaxed at the airport, and that he had caused the deaths of two other women smuggling heroin after the bags exploded in their stomachs.
Disgusted at learning the truth, Elliot tried to kill himself by crashing his car, but woke up in hospital once again. There, Helen told him she had read Lena’s admissions in his police report, and said she wanted nothing more to do with him.
Helen’s co-worker convinced her to give him a second chance, intimating that she loves him. Right at that moment, Elliot was drinking a bottle of vodka and swallowing a handful of pills, intending to end his life.
Then, as he lay on the floor waiting to die, Elliot received a text from Helen – an emoji of a burrito, which she had previously told him would mean everything was going to be alright. He smiled, and the season cut to black.
The Tourist season 2 will be available to stream in full on BBC iPlayer from 1st January 2024. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide or visit our Drama hub for more news, interviews and features.
Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.