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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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Season 1 – The Tourist

Where to watch, the tourist — season 1.

Watch The Tourist — Season 1 with a subscription on Netflix.

What to Know

Jamie Dornan makes for a compelling guide through The Tourist , a beguiling drama that deepens its mystery with solid shocks and welcome moments of levity.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Jamie Dornan

Danielle Macdonald

Helen Chambers

Shalom Brune-Franklin

Luci Miller

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Billy Nixon

Geneviève Lemon

Danny Adcock

More Like This

Season info.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, the tourist returns for tumultuous second season on netflix.

The first season of “The Tourist” was a clever little thriller over on Max, but that company continued its cavalcade of confusing choices and dumped the second outing, allowing the show to travel to Netflix, where it has been consistently in the top ten for the entirety of February as audiences caught up with year one. That fun season is now followed by a very twisted second one, a 6-episode outing that moves the action from Australia to Ireland—switching the title character if you think about it from one protagonist to the other—and upping the surreal, unpredictable sense of dark humor. It’s a bit of a rockier road in terms of quality, but there’s an admirable lunacy to the storytelling here that holds it together, throwing in new twists and memorable characters in a manner that’s reminiscent of prime Coen brothers, wherein one never knew what was going to happen next, and it was all darkly humorous at the same time. While Danielle Macdonald gets a little lost in the late-season emotion of this year, Jamie Dornan really holds it all together with a deceptively natural, engaging performance. It’s insane Max ever let him go.

The first season of “The Tourist” has a beautiful simplicity in its story of a man who wakes up after a car accident in the Outback with no idea of who he is or how he got there, only to discover that he may not like the guy he used to be. With so many questions answered in what could have been a self-contained season, one might wonder how they could do it again—amnesia a second time? The writers smartly move the action back to Elliot’s (Dornan) homeland in season two as he and Helen (Macdonald) travel there to learn more details about his dark past after receiving a mysterious photo. Before they even really get a pint in them, Elliot is kidnapped and thrown into the middle of a generation-spanning turf war between the families of the Cassidys and the McDonnells. The latter is led by the vicious Frank ( Francis Magee ) and the former by none other than our hero’s mother, Niamh (the excellent Olwen Fouéré ).

A season that opens by separating its heroes and sending one to a remote island where he’s kept prisoner has about a dozen other twists up its sleeve that I wouldn't dare spoil here, as that's the joy of watching the show. Everyone on “The Tourist” hides an odd secret or two, even the seemingly ordinary detective ( Conor MacNeill ), who has something insane going on in his basement. When Helen sees her potential mother-in-law commit murder in the premiere it’s just the beginning of a series of narrative turns that stress that classic suspension of disbelief. “The Tourist” is like those page-turning novels you read on a beach, wherein each chapter ends with an insane new revelation that forces you to read the next before you question if it actually makes any sense at all. It’s really the show’s strength: A sense of breakneck plotting in an era when everyone feels like every show is a few episodes too long for its threadbare plot.

If the plotting is the strength, the emotions of the second season feel a bit like a weakness at times. The love story between Helen and Elliot takes center stage in rather intense ways, and it leads to a number of heartwrenching scenes, especially in the back half, that feel overly melodramatic. “The Tourist” is at its best when it’s not taking itself very seriously, having fun with its characters. Every time it diverts to really define Helen and Elliot’s eternal love, the seams in the writing start to show, and Macdonald gets lost a few times this season in overwrought melodrama that feels unearned. Luckily, she’s balanced by a truly great Dornan performance, one that seems to be honestly responding to every loony twist thrown his way. It’s more subdued that season one, allowing him to be the center as the chaotic world spins around him.

No one really understands what the heck is going on over at Max that they keep canceling movies and dropping content—an underreported recent head scratcher was allowing “Band of Brothers” to be on Netflix while “ Masters of the Air ” was dropping on Apple, which surely reignited interest in the original Playtone production in a manner that one would think would have sent people back to Max, but whatever. Letting “The Tourist” slide over to Netflix may be low on the list of their insane decisions of late, but it’s been funny to watch it slay for the competition, and it's hard to believe that the second season won’t do exactly the same. It’s funny to consider the executives who made the decision to let “The Tourist” go watching this effective second season on Netflix themselves, probably wondering why there aren’t more shows like it on Max.

Whole season screened for review. On Netflix February 29th.

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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Jamie dornan in hbo max’s ‘the tourist’: tv review.

The actor plays an amnesiac in a deadly race to figure out his identity in this six-hour slice of Australian pulp fiction.

By Daniel Fienberg

Daniel Fienberg

Chief Television Critic

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Content bloat on cable and streaming is such an apparently incurable epidemic that even shows that play as lean and mean genre exercises are stuck oozing outside of their deserved boundaries — as if once there’s no marketplace for an idea to be conveyed at 90 minutes, might as well just go forever.

Something like Netflix’s True Story , which would have been an arthouse hit as a brisk John Dahl-directed theatrical thriller, instead became an instantly forgotten Netflix series, because that’s how it could get produced. Significantly better on every level, but still in need of a robust trim, is HBO Max ‘s The Tourist . Ideally, this would have been an Outback-set B-movie probably helmed by somebody like Phillip Noyce. Instead, it arrives on streaming as a six-hour drama replete with illogical misdirects, a second half that’s far less engaging than the first and a disappointing assortment of false conclusions.

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Airdate: Thursday, March 3 (HBO Max)

Cast: Jamie Dornan, Danielle Macdonald, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

Creators: Harry and Jack Williams

A story like this should be told without an ounce of fat. Yet even with its occasional excesses, The Tourist is a mostly taut, pretension-lite mystery with a vivid setting, a few surprises and a great trio of lead performances from Jamie Dornan , Danielle Macdonald and Shalom Brune-Franklin.

Created by Harry and Jack Williams and directed half by Chris Sweeney and half by Daniel Nettheim, The Tourist begins with what will prove to be its best set-piece, which isn’t always a great idea but in this case serves to get viewers well and truly hooked.

In a remote corner of rural Australia, a man (Dornan) with an Irish accent and no name stops for gas and a bathroom before resuming his drive. Before you can say “Hey, that’s the plot of Duel !” a truck emerges on the horizon, approaches the man’s car and tries to run it off the road. An intense pursuit ensues, all within the first 10 minutes, climaxing in the man waking up in a hospital with complete amnesia. Shot with acrid, epic scope by Ben Wheeler and edited without relief by Emma Oxley, it’s a sequence that is unique despite its familiar elements — one that’s so good that you probably won’t be offended by how little sense it makes once the show puts all of its cards on the table.

The Man doesn’t remember his name, his profession or why he was driving alone in a beat-up car on a stretch of road connecting nowhere to nowhere else, but his presence draws immediate attention. Offering benign curiosity is Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Macdonald), trying to make a transition to legitimate policing after tiring of menial duties as a traffic cop. Offering more menacing curiosity is Billy Nixon (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a hulking figure with a bushy beard, a rumbling voice, a questionable American accent and a blood-red cowboy hat. And it’s hard to read the intentions of diner waitress Luci (Brune-Franklin), who may be attracted to The Man because of his resemblance to Jamie Dornan, or else she has ulterior motives.

For the first few episodes, The Tourist is wonderfully spare. A couple of secondary characters pass in and out, but the story is mostly The Man, Helen, Luci and Billy, any one of whom could be a threat to the others. As the Williams brothers open the story up, it invariably becomes less interesting and more reliant on heaping doses of exposition. We meet characters including an odd detective played by Damon Herriman and some unsavory Greek gangsters. All of the characters are in the middle of their own identity crises, and while The Man is the only one who literally doesn’t know who he is, each person here is pondering existential questions about whether people can change; whether that change is a matter of personal choice; and whether it’s as simple as forging a passport or moving to a new country or making up different origin stories involving your mother or father.

From the too-clever-by-half backwards storytelling of Rellik to the structural mendacity of Liar , the Williams brothers are good at high-concept thrillers driven by tricky plot mechanics, and this fits that category more than other Two Brothers Pictures creations like the tormented The Missing . The more gaps in The Man’s story they expose, the more interesting The Tourist is; the more those gaps get filled in, the less interesting the resulting shape of the puzzle feels.

None of the answers is exactly infuriating and some of them play very well in the moment — the fifth episode is a straight-up backstory dump, but the creators find a way to make it amusing — but the more distance you get from the full story, the more you may find that very little holds together. It’s possible to concentrate on the occasional shootouts, a flimsy-but-taut storyline lifted from the Ryan Reynolds movie Buried and one stunning outback vista after another, and still be limitedly bothered by lapses in common sense.

It helps that this is probably the funniest of the Williams brothers thrillers, a reminder that as producers their credits also include the very fine Back to Life and the spectacular Fleabag . If you think the plot strains credulity, so do many of the characters, and there are crackling exchanges of dialogue, silly pieces of flirtation and enough quirky and outsized figures to make it clear that if Duel was the series’ table-setting inspiration, most of what follows is basically Fargo with a greater risk of kangaroos.

Dornan is probably too hunky to be inherently ideal as the Hitchcockian Everyman, but The Man is a savvy encapsulation of Dornan’s varied skills, especially those he’s been showcasing in his projects from the past year-ish. He has compelling chemistry with both Macdonald and Brune-Franklin, he’s generally convincing as a sturdy action lead and he has an underlying menace that lets you wonder if the man that The Man used to be might not be so virtuous. Best of all — and this will not shock the Barb and Star hive — Dornan is an adroit comic performer, whether it’s expressing Irish-accented confusion about a fluffy stuffed koala or any of the bickering that characterizes The Man’s relationships with Helen and Luci. He weathers all of the reveals about his character, up to the finale’s conclusive twists. It’s just a darned good performance in a show that hinges on its lead.

Macdonald is, at some points, nearly a co-lead and the Patti Cake$ star brings nervous humor and the real emotional hook to the story, maintaining the character’s integrity in the face of a sometimes sweet, mostly unappealing engagement to Greg Larsen’s brutally passive-aggressive Ethan. I wish somebody had written more actual traits for Brune-Franklin’s Luci, but the simmering interactions with Dornan keep the show going through its slower parts. Herriman’s guessing-game strangeness and Ólafsson’s garrulous intimidation are responsible for the show’s most Coen Brothers-y elements.

At six hours, The Tourist ‘s focus wavers, but its momentum remains solid; in a spring of self-important ripped-from-headlines TV storytelling, I appreciated its pulpy drive. And that “Shouldn’t this be a couple of hours shorter?” sensation? Well, I guess that’s just a permanent condition.

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'The Tourist' Cast and Character Guide: A Recap of Who's Who Before Season 2

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A thought-provoking mystery akin to the likes of Christopher Nolan's Memento , The Tourist hit the BBC back in January 2022, with its critical and public acclaim across the pond soon translating into praise in the US following its debut on HBO Max. A whirlwind adventure that also showcases its gorgeous Australian backdrop, it came as no surprise to many when the series was picked up for a second outing . However, Max shockingly dropped the show from their catalog, with Netflix swooping in and saving the day, providing the upcoming second season with a rightful home. With that in mind, here is a look at some of the incredible cast of characters The Tourist has to offer.

The Tourist

When a man wakes up in the Australian outback with no memory, he must use the few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him.

• Jamie Dornan

The Man/Elliot Stanley

Known initially only as The Man, The Tourist begins with this mysterious stranger ominously waking up in an Australian hospital with a severe case of amnesia. Although it soon becomes clear his real name is Elliot Stanley, the gripping puzzle surrounding his identity creates the backbone of the show as Stanley's troubled Irish past swiftly begins to catch up with him. As the series continues, Dornan becomes a pensive, steadfast action hero, although, unlike a series such as Reacher , this masculine lead is allowed the time to be vulnerable, thrusting the classic male hero into a progressive 2024 role model. In Season 2, The Man has traveled back to his home country with filming in Dublin beginning in 2023 .

With a screen career that dates back to Sofia Coppola 's Marie Antoinette in 2006, Jamie Dornan 's rise to the top has been swift, with his portrayal of Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades franchise solidifying him as a household name. Among his high-profile career to date, Dornan has starred alongside Cillian Murphy in the World War Two spy thriller Anthropoid , portrayed the spiritual precursor to Ryan Gosling's Ken in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar , and acted opposite Gillian Anderson in the tense crime thriller The Fall . A captivating performer with an eye-catching range, Dornan is merely at the beginning of what looks to be an incredible career with many an iconic role still to come. Dornan discussed his time on the series and more in an interview with Collider's Christina Radish back in 2022.

Danielle McDonald

Helen chambers.

Helen's face is the first The Man sees following his sudden awakening, with that moment cementing her as a crucial component to the enigma's journey. At the bottom of the professional ladder, Helen Chambers will stop at nothing to prove she is an expert law enforcement officer, although sometimes her dedication to her job, and specifically the case involving The Man, puts her livelihood and her marriage in jeopardy, which eventually leads to a surprising and show-stealing romance with The Man.

With a career that has only spanned just over a decade to date, Danielle McDonald has already made a name for herself, with both the public and critics alike regularly praising her impressive range of performances. From her beginning on Glee in 2011 through to American Horror Story , McDonald has delighted on the small screen, but perhaps her film work in the likes of Bird Box and Patti Cake$ showcases the best of her talents. To find out more about the actress and her thoughts on playing Helen Chambers in The Tourist , check out her interview with Collider's Christina Radish .

Victoria Haralabidou

Lena pascal.

Lena's journey in The Tourist 's first season is as unique as they come, first appearing as a vision in the dreams (or nightmares) of The Man. As time goes by, these visions become stronger and more detailed, with the puzzle of Lena's identity slowly being pieced together. By season's end, it becomes clear that Lena marks the darkest secret from The Man's past, with Season 2 likely to involve The Man's attempts at redemption.

A star of both stage and screen, the Russian-born Victoria Haralabidou has impressed immensely across a 25-year-long acting career, with highlights including the likes of Brides , The Secrets She Keeps , and The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart . In the near future, Haralabidou will be playing Jacinta Brightface in two episodes of Zombie Therapy .

Shalom Brune-Franklin

Luci miller.

Luci Miller's part in the plot of The Tourist 's first season is critical, with the waitress helping The Man piece together his past in the hope of protecting his future. However, Luci is hiding secrets of her own, with her growing bond with The Man soon seeming to have an ulterior motive. Sadly, Luci's involvement in the story is limited to just the first season, but her influence on the second season's plot shouldn't be underestimated.

A young actress with the world at her feet, Shalom Brune-Franklin , although she has a cameo role in Thor: Ragnarok , is best known for her work on television. Whether it's The Tourist , Doctor Doctor , Bad Mothers , or Line of Duty , Shalom never looks out of place alongside actors twice her age, with her future certainly looking bright.

Greg Larsen

Ethan Krum is the fiancée of Helen Chambers and symbolizes the familial cost of the young policewoman's dedication to her profession. A patient and kind man at heart, and never far from a moment of absurdist comic relief, watching Ethan slowly lose faith in the woman he loves is heartbreaking, with The Tourist 's dedication to showcasing both the mystery at its center and the ripple effects of such a tough task one of its best features. Interestingly, despite Helen and The Man now being a romantic item, Ethan is confirmed to appear in Season 2.

Perhaps the most experienced actor in The Tourist 's talented cast, Greg Larsen is a legendary Australian performer with a back catalog that includes the likes of Hug the Sun , How Not to Behave , and Young Rock .

The second season of The Tourist will officially premiere on February 29 on Netflix , with the trailer available to watch above. All episodes of The Tourist Season 1 are available to stream right now on Netflix.

Watch on Netflix

The Tourist Cast and Character Guide

• The Tourist Season 2 is a thrilling journey set in Ireland with new characters and gripping storylines unfolding.
• Jamie Dornan stars as The Man/Elliot Stanley, unraveling his past as an Irish man with a troubled history.
• Portrayed by top talents like Danielle Macdonald and Shalom Brune-Franklin, each character adds depth and intrigue.

Created by Harry and Jack Williams, The Tourist is a critically acclaimed crime series that debuted on BBC One in March 2022. Nominated for a BAFTA the following year, the series follows The Man (Jamie Dornan), an Irish stranger who suddenly awakes in the Australian outback with no memory of who he is or why he's in the hospital. As The Man gathers clues and hints relating to his sordid past, he encounters a slew of colorful characters that keep viewers on the edge of their seats.

With Season 2 of The Tourist changing locations from Australia to Ireland, a few new characters have been introduced. However, many mainstays from Season 1 also return to the British Isle to keep an eye on The Man and his mysterious exploits. To prepare viewers for The Tourist Season 2, here is the official cast and character guide for this outstanding crime drama .

Jamie Dornan Is The Man/Elliot Stanley

The tourist.

Release Date March 3, 2022

Creator Harry Williams, Jack Williams

Cast Conor MacNeill, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Danielle Macdonald, Olwen Four, Jamie Dornan

Genres Drama, Mystery, Action

Rating TV-MA

Jamie Dornan portrays The Man in The Tourist . When the series begins, The Man is a complete cipher. He wakes up in a hospital in the Australian outback with amnesia and must figure out who he is and where he came from. As the story unfolds, The Man's cryptic past becomes more apparent, and he is revealed to be a person named Elliot Stanley, an Irish man with a troubled history. When Elliot flees to his native Ireland in Season 2, more about his family life is revealed.

A talented Irish actor who made his screen debut in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette in 2006, Dornan's celebrity increased dramatically after starring as Christian Grey in the controversial Fifty Shades series. With The Tourist and the TV show The Fall, Dornan has distanced himself from the stigma of Christian Grey to remind viewers what a solid actor he can be. With excellent performances in Belfast, Synchronic, and Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar, Dornan's finally getting the credit he deserves.

Danielle Macdonald Is Helen Chambers

Played by Danielle Macdonald , Helen Chambers is the Probationary Constable Helen Chambers. When The Man wakes up in the hospital, he is greeted by Helen, who is eager and determined to prove her skills as a new law officer. Helen helps The Man retrace his steps and figure out who he is and why he came to Australia , although her nonstop dedication to the case puts a strain on her impending marriage.

Macdonald is a splendid Australian actor who made her TV debut in Glee in 2011. While she might always be synonymous with her unforgettable character Patti in Patti Cake$, Macdonald has appeared in everything from American Horror Story and Bird Box to Ladybird, Skin, Poker Face, and more. The Tourist marks Macdonald's first recurring TV character since Unbelievable in 2019.

Greg Larsen Is Ethan Krum

Greg Larsen plays Ethan Krum in The Tourist . Ethan is the put-upon fianceé of Helen Chambers. Once Helen takes The Man's case and begins helping the stranger find clues about his past, Ethan becomes resentful of the time his wife is spending with someone else. Awkward, adorable, and very easy to root for, Ethan often finds himself in absurd situations and provides the noirish crime show 's comic relief.

Larsen is a veteran TV actor and writer from Australia who has amassed over 20 credits thus far in his career. Notable credits include Hug the Sun, At Home Alone Together, The Edge of the Bush, How Not to Behave, and Young Rock . Fans of The Tourist Season 1 should rest easy knowing that Larsen will appear as Krum in Season 2 when the action moves to Ireland.

Victoria Haralabidou Is Lena Pascal

Victoria Haralabidou plays Lena Pascal in The Tourist . Lena is a mysterious woman who first appears on the show in one of The Man's dreams. Haunted by the vision, The Man learns in the Season 1 finale that he committed a heinous atrocity against Lena and grapples with his sense of guilt. Lena is also poised to return for Season 2, possibly giving Elliot a chance to redeem himself.

The 10 Best Crime TV Shows of the 21st Century, Ranked

Born in Leningrad, Haralabidou has mounted an impressive 25-year acting resume. While perhaps best known for her work in Brides, Blessed, and The Secrets She Keeps, Haralabidou can also be seen in Prosper, Erotic Stories, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, The Tailings, Wakefield, The Code, The Leftovers, and more. Following The Tourist, Haralabidou can be seen in the TV series Zombie Therapy .

Shalom-Brune Franklin Is Luci Miller

Portrayed by Shalom-Brune Franklin , Luci Miller is an Australian waitress in The Tourist. When she meets The Man, she helps the drifter piece together his fleeting memory and cull clues about his life. Over time, Elliot and Luci become extremely close allies. However, Luci also has her own buried secrets and ulterior motives that come to light as the story progresses. Unfortunately, Luci will not be making the trip to Ireland for Season 2.

An English-born Australian actor, Franklin made her TV debut in 2018 and continues to raise her stock. Apart from making a brief cameo in Thor: Ragnarok, Franklin has spent the majority of her career on television, starring in such TV shows as Doctor Doctor, Bad Mothers, Cursed, Roadkill, Line of Duty, War of the Worlds, Love Me, and most recently, Great Expectations .

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson Is Billy Nixon

Billy Nixon is a character depicted by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson in The Tourist . Billy is a scary American man who arrives in Australia and begins to track and hunt The Man. Ruthlessly violent with zero scruples, Billy serves as the de facto antagonist in Season 1, who doggedly pursues Elliot at every turn and confronts the main characters with cruelty. Alas, Billy will not be returning for Season 2 in Ireland.

Ólafsson is a highly accomplished Icelandic actor with roughly 100 credits in his career. The superb character actor is known for his work in the killer shark movies The Meg, The BFG, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and more. Ólafsson's prominent TV credits include True Detective, NOS4A2, Trapped, Lady Dynamite, Entrapped, Vikings: Rise and Fall, The Minister, a nd Harry and Jack Williams' Boat Story .

Olwen Fouéré Is Niamh Cassidy

Olwen Fouéré plays Niamh Cassidy in The Tourist . Niamh appears in Season 2 of the popular crime drama after The Man relocates from Australia to Ireland. Another shocking revelation comes when The Man, aka Elliot Stanley, is revealed to be Eugene Cassidy. Niamh Cassidy is The Man/Elliot/Stanley's biological mother on the show, who goes to unbelievable lengths to protect her endangered son.

Fouéré is a talented Irish actor who fans will recognize from a bevy of popular movies and TV shows. Notable credits include Robbert Egger's The Northman, Panos Cosmatos' Mandy , and Sally Hardesty in the 2022 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fouéré can also be seen in the hit Netflix period drama The Crown , Derry Girls, Halo, and more.

Conor MacNeill Is Ruairi Slater

A new character introduced in Season 2, Detective Ruairi Slater, is played by Conor MacNeill . When something bad happens to Elliot upon his arrival in Ireland, Helen calls the police and begins working with Detective Slater to help her get Elliot out of trouble. Detective Slater also introduces Helen to Niamh, and the three work together to prevent a ruthless crime family called the Donnells from harming Elliot.

With 20 years of experience, MacNeill is an Irish actor who has appeared in several high-profile projects, including City of Ember, Artemis Fowl, 101 Dalmation Street, No Offence, The Sixth Commandment, and more. MacNeil also has experience acting opposite Dornan after starring in Belfast and The Fall . MacNeill can be seen next in an upcoming thriller opposite Barry Keoghan titled Bring Them Down .

Francis Magee Is Frank McDonnell

Played by Francis Magee , Frank McDonnell is a powerful crime lord who serves as the main antagonist in The Tourist Season 2. In the premiere, Frank has his family members, Orla and Donal, kidnap Elliot, which springboards the entire plot of the second season. At one point, Frank also reveals Elliot's real name as Eugene Cassidy, further shedding light on his cryptic past.

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With over 140 credits in his decorated career, Magee is a terrific Irish actor with a diverse filmography. Perhaps best known for playing the Ancient King of Men in the Justice League movies, Magee is also famous for starring in House of Anubis, The Bastard Executioner, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, White Lines, Kin, Desperate Measures, The You Run, Into the Badlands, and more.

Mark McKenna Is Fergal McDonnell

Mark McKenna plays Fergal McDonnell in The Tourist Season 2. Fergal is the son of Donal McDonnell and the grandson of Frank McDonnell, two high-ranking criminals in Ireland. Once Donal and Orla kidnap Elliot, Fergal betrays his family and begins helping Elliot escape captivity. Once Frank learns of his grandson's betrayal, rival factions among Elliot's enemies start to form.

McKenna is a talented actor, singer, and songwriter who famously broke out in his debut performance as Eamon in Sing Street. Since then, McKenna has continued to raise his profile by starring in war horror films like Overlord and other titles such as The Winter Lake , Daliland , and The Miracle Club . McKenna's small screen credits include The Most Dangerous Game, One of Us Is Lying, Redwater, and Wayne . The Tourist Season 2 is coming to Netflix in the US on Feb. 29

'The Tourist' is topping Netflix charts. Meet the cast and who they play

• "The Tourist," starring Jamie Dornan, is now available on Netflix in the United States.
• The second season of the show will premiere on Netflix on February 29.
• Here's the show's main cast and who they play.

"The Tourist" is an Australian-set thriller series starring Jamie Dornan — and as of this month, it's available on Netflix in the United States.

Dornan plays a man who, after a road accident, wakes up with amnesia in Australia. Without knowledge of his identity, he has to figure out who he is, why he's there, and how he ended up in the hospital. He's joined by Probationary Constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), who continues to investigate even as things become more dangerous.

The show premiered in 2022 on BBC One, Australian streaming service Stan, and Max in the United States. Netflix picked up the show after Max dropped it , and the second season is set to hit the platform on February 29 (season two already premiered on BBC One and Stan in January).

Here's the main cast of "The Tourist" and who they play.

Jamie Dornan plays the Man.

Dornan stars in "The Tourist" as a man who, after getting hit by a truck, wakes up with amnesia. From that point, he attempts to discover who he is — and why someone is trying to kill him.

Dornan is an Irish actor known for films like "Belfast" and the "Fifty Shades of Grey" franchise.

Danielle Macdonald plays Probationary Constable Helen Chambers.

Helen Chambers is an officer who meets the Man after he wakes up, and ends up investigating his case.

Macdonald is an Australian actor known for films like "Patti Cake$" and "Dumplin'."

Shalom Brune-Franklin plays Luci Miller.

Luci Miller is a waitress who the Man encounters after he loses his memory. She turns out to have information about his past.

Brune-Franklin is an Australian actor known for television series like "Our Girl" and "Doctor Doctor."

Greg Larsen plays Ethan Krum.

Ethan Krum is Helen's fiancé, who wants her to prioritize their relationship over her investigation.

Larsen is an Australian comedian who was a correspondent on the Australian comedy series "Tonightly with Tom Ballard."

Victoria Haralabidou plays Lena Pascal.

Lena Pascal is a woman who has information about the Man's past.

Haralabidou is a Greek-Australian actress who was born in the USSR. She has appeared in films including "The Drover's Wife" and TV series like "The Leftovers."

Ólafur Darri Ólafsson plays Billy Nixon.

Billy Nixon is another person who appears to have ties to the Man's past, attempting to visit him at the hospital after he loses his memory.

Ólafsson is an Icelandic actor known for films like "The Deep" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

Alex Dimitriades plays Kosta Panigiris.

Kosta Panigiris is a Greek man who is also seeking out the Man.

Dimitriades is an Australian actor known for "The Heartbreak Kid" and its spinoff series "Heartbreak High."

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

• Main content

The Tourist (2022– )

Full cast & crew.

Series Directed by 

Series writing credits  , series cast  , series produced by , series music by , series cinematography by , series editing by , series casting by , series production design by , series art direction by , series set decoration by , series costume design by , series makeup department , series production management , series second unit director or assistant director .

The Tourist season 3: everything we know

Jamie Dornan fans are desperate for The Tourist season 3 after the cliffhanger ending to series two

We're all hoping to see Jamie Dornan return as Eugene Cassidy in The Tourist season 3 after the second instalment of the BBC One drama ended on an explosive cliffhanger (spoilers ahead if you've not seen it yet)!

Written by Jack and Harry Williams, the hit show has been a big success on the BBC iPlayer since in debuted on New Year's Day 2024, with millions of viewers bingeing the entire series in just a few days. 

Audiences were on the edge of their sofas as "Elliot Stanley" returned home in The Tourist season 2 to Ireland to discover his roots, after his memory was wiped in an accident in Australia at the start of season one. 

He subsequently learned his real name was Eugene Cassidy and was part of a crime family who'd been at war with bitter rivals, the McDonnells, for decades. Yet the real bombshell came at the end of the sixth episode, when viewers learned he was also a Special Agent, deployed in deep cover! 

But will Eugene's story continue in a third series of The Tourist ? We take a closer look... 

The Tourist season 3 release date

The BBC have not yet confirmed if the show will return for a third season, yet the bombshell ending to the second series suggests the show's creators, Jack and Harry Williams, have plenty of ideas for a potential return. 

There was a two year gap between the first and second season, which means a third season could potentially be on our screens in January 2026 — if it was given the go-ahead. As soon as there's any news on that front, we'll be sure to let you know. 

The Tourist season 3 plot

The final scene of The Tourist season 2 gave the show's writers, Jack and Harry Williams, plenty of scope to bring the drama back.

We saw Eugene Cassidy (Jamie Dornan) and Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald) shacked up in the Netherlands, which is unsurprising, given what they were up to in the first scene of season 2. It's six months after the showdown at the Cassidy's pub and the couple receive a file on Eugene, sent by a mysterious person who read about his case in the paper.

Helen says she doesn’t need a file to know who her boyfriend is and so Eugene burns it, yet we can't help but notice the subtle pang of regret on Helen's face. We sense the ex-cop in her still has questions she'd like answered! 

Before the crucial documents are destroyed, the audience — but not Eugene or Helen _ see that Eugene was actually a Special Agent, deployed on a deep cover assignment in July 2005. Was he part of a Garda operation to infiltrate the Cassidy clan? Was he a special agent when he departed Ireland for Australia? Does this mean Helen was right all along and Eugene wasn't an evil drug dealer, but a Special Agent trying to infiltrate a drug cartel? We need answers. 

Yet that wasn't the only loose end left dangling at the end of the second season... 

When Helen, Ruari and Ethan visited Deirdre Stanley, in the hope of finding out more about her late husband, Elliot Stanley, they also asked about Eugene Cassidy. “He put it about a bit my Elliot,” Deirdre replied. So was Elliot, Eugene’s dad? Did Niamh Cassidy kill Eugene's father? 

The death of Eugene's brother was also a running theme throughout the series, with Donal McDonnell confessing to killing him in the fifth episode, explaining that he thought he was Eugene. Eugene wonders if he left Ireland due to the guilt of inadvertently causing his sibling's death, but is there more to the story?

Where could the Tourist season 3 be set? 

The show's writers, Jack and Harry Williams, had originally planned for the second series to be set in Canada. 

"We didn’t go to Ireland straight away," explained Jack at a press event in late 2023. "We wrote a whole draft set in Canada, similar elements. It was very similar. Detective Ruairi Slater would have still been in it as a Mountie, which would have been great. The same story, but with a Mountie." 

When the show's leading man, Jamie Dornan, was asked about the potential for a third season at the same event, he joked: "It will be set in Canada, the scripts are already written." 

However Dornan also explained that uprooting his family to shoot the first season in Australia was quite an ordeal and filming in Ireland was a big reason for saying yes to the sequel. As such, it seems unlikely that any potential third season would be filmed so far from the British Isles, making a return to Ireland the most likely scenario. 

However another possibility could be the Netherlands, which is where we left Eugene and Helen at the end of The Tourist season 2. The European country is a very short flight from the British Isles, meaning Dornan probably wouldn't need to uproot his family and could return home from set very easily. 

The Tourist season 3 cast

There's no way the show would return without Jamie Dornan and the Northern Irish star's involvement as Eugene Cassidy would be crucial if the show was to return. We'd also expect Danielle Macdonald, who plays Eugene's girlfriend Helen Chambers, to come back if there was a third season. 

The second season featured a host of new characters who could also reprise their roles, such as Olwen Fouéré who played Eugene's mother Niamh Cassidy, and Mark McKenna as his son Fergel. 

One man we'd definitely like to see more of is Greg Larsen, who plays Helen's ex-boyfriend, Ethan Krum. He might not have been our favourite character in the first season, but he was great fun in the second! 

Is there a trailer for The Tourist season 3?

The Tourist season 3 hasn't yet been commissioned, so there's no trailer unfortunately! 

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Sean is a Senior Feature writer for TV Times, What's On TV and TV & Satellite Week, who also writes for whattowatch.com. He's been covering the world of TV for over 15 years and in that time he's been lucky enough to interview stars like Ian McKellen, Tom Hardy and Kate Winslet. His favourite shows are  I'm Alan Partridge, The Wire, People Just Do Nothing  and  Succession  and in his spare time he enjoys drinking tea, doing crosswords and watching football. 

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Tourist’ On Netflix, Where Jamie Dornan Plays A Man Without His Memory Trying To Outrun His Past

Where to stream:.

• The Tourist

What would you do if you lost your memory? Not just what you had for breakfast, but all sense of who you are and who is in your life? Then you find out that someone really, really wants to see you dead? That’s the idea behind the new Netflix series, which originally ran on HBO Max back in 2022.

THE TOURIST : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of the arid environment in the Australian Outback. A tiny car drives down an empty road.

The Gist: A man (Jamie Dornan) stops for gas; he’s wearing a generic “AUSTRALIA” tourist t-shirt. He has no idea why the attendant at the station makes him sign out for the bathroom key. We see him come out the back door of the bathroom, next to the Dumpsters.

As he’s driving on the seemingly empty road in his tiny Mazda, a massive tractor trailer bears down on him. When the tractor trailer rams the man’s car, he realizes it’s not just an aggressive driver. After a long chase over some rough terrain, the man thinks he’s gotten away from the truck, when the truck slams into him, causing the tiny car to roll over a few times.

The man wakes up in the local hospital, surprisingly not severely injured. However, he has no idea who he is or what he was doing. He doesn’t even remember his own name. He can recall a song title when he’s in an MRI machine, but that’s about it.

A friendly local cop, Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), goes to his room to take a statement. She is a bit uncomfortable with the man’s lack of memory, but ends up being reassuring to an extent. The only thing he finds in his possessions is a note to meet someone the next day at a diner in a nearby town. Helen says she’ll look into that.

We follow Helen home and see that, like most of us, she has issues with her weight, not the least of which is exacerbated by her fiancé Ethan (Greg Larsen) and their upcoming wedding.

Another thing we see is someone buried underground. Desperate to get out of whatever box he’s been put in, he tries to call someone on his phone, but no one is answering.

The man goes outside to get air, but gets lost inside the hospital, scaring him senseless. He decides to check himself out of the hospital the next day, against medical advice, because he needs to go to that diner and find out just who wanted to meet him there. Helen understands why he wants to do it, and gives him a bus ticket to get there.

At the diner, he meets a waitress named Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin), who seems to be fascinated by his amnesia. When she spills lemonade on him, she takes him out to where there are bathrooms. Just then, there’s an explosion, right in the booth where he was sitting. He wonders aloud why in the world someone is trying to kill him.

Pictures from a disposable camera found at the crash site help him retrace his steps, as well as video from the gift shop he visited. It brings him back to the gas station and its bathroom. He doesn’t find out his name though, as he signed the key sign-out sheet as “Crocodile Dundee.” But he finds something else; a stuffed koala that he hid next to the Dumpster. Much to his surprise, it starts ringing.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take the movie  Memento and cross it with the quirkiness of the first season of the  Fargo series, and you’ve got the vibe of  The Tourist.

Our Take: The Tourist , written by Harry Williams and Jack Williams ( The Missing, Fleabag ) looks like it’s a complex show with a twisty plot, but when you really take a close look, it’s pretty straightforward. Dornan’s character has no idea who he is; all he knows is that someone wants to kill him. With the help of Helen and others, he’ll try to piece things together before those that are after him, including Billy (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), the whistling man who almost squashed him in the tractor trailer, catch up to him.

In the first episode,  The Tourist  evolves from what seems like a thriller to a more personal narrative. It’s why we get involved in Helen’s life when she’s off-duty. In a Weight Watchers-style meeting, she claims she doesn’t like her body, even though everyone is yelling about body acceptance. But it also feels like she’s more there because of her fiancé than anything else. So even though Helen knows her name, who’s in her life and what she does, she also hasn’t found herself. Plus, she seems to be made to feel guilty about just about everything.

Perhaps as she gets more involved in the life of Dornan’s character, the more she will figure out who she is. At least that’s what we hope, because Macdonald is utterly charming as Helen, who is very much in the vein of Allison Tolman’s portrayal of Molly Solverson in the aforementioned  Fargo. She’s good at her job, even if she’s a bit green, but also is a friendly and helpful sort who needs to help herself most of all.

There is definitely a bit of a sense of humor running the first episode, but the Williamses aren’t trying to make the show quippy. The humor is there when people seem to be fascinated with Dornan’s character’s amnesia, though he assures them it’s no picnic. The humor creeps in along the edges of the show, but it does just enough to ease what is a pretty serious and grim performance by Dornan.

There is one twist near the end of the episode that we won’t spoil here, but it does make us wonder if, as things get more complicated for Dornan’s character (notice we haven’t named him yet, because the character has none as yet), the plot will become more convoluted. We hope not, as it seems the straightforward manner in which this story is being told suits  The Tourist just fine.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: When the stuffed koala starts ringing, the man digs out a burner phone and answers it. When the man who’s buried starts yelling in relief that he answered, the man says, “Uh, who’s this?”

Sleeper Star: Shalom Brune-Franklin does some compelling work as Luci, and we know that she’s much more involved in this story than most of the first episode lets on.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing we could find.

Our Call:  STREAM IT.  The Tourist  hooked us in with its story, plus the performances by Dornan, Macdonald and Brune-Franklin. Let’s hope the story continues to be interesting as the season goes on.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

• Jamie Dornan
• Stream It Or Skip It

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