The Big Picture
The Tourist
is an amnesia thriller that features a surprisingly tender romance between the leading character, Elliot, and Constable Helen Chambers.
Elliot’s relationship with Helen helps him uncover his past and inspires him to change for the better, contrasting with his fractured relationship with Luci.
The friendship-turned-romance between Helen and Elliot develops naturally and becomes one of the strongest aspects of the series, providing a contrast to the fast-paced plot.
Max’s amnesia thriller The Tourist is an unseen gem more people should know about. Co-produced by Australian service Stan, UK’s BBC One and Max, the thriller sees Fifty Shades of Grey’s Jamie Dornan in the leading role of an Irish man who winds up in rural Australia with no memory of who he is and how he got there. There’s plenty to love about the series, from its brisk pace to its tongue-in-cheek comedy and its modern interpretation of old school crime thrillers and their stoic leads. However, one of the most pleasant aspects of the series, which is set to return for Season 2 later this month, is the surprisingly tender romance between Dornan’s The Man/Elliot and Danielle Macdonald’s Constable Helen Chambers.
While initially the duo’s relationship seems more akin to the kind of buddy-cop crime duo we often see on network TV, the nature of their relationship changes the more The Man learns about himself. Helen thus becomes essential in his understanding of who his past self was as he uncovers facts about his identity as Elliot Stanley, and is instrumental in him realizing how he wants to change going forward. Action-packed shows in its vein would stick to the timeworn romantic subplots involving duplicitous femme fatales that are frequently found in such fare, The Tourist uses that by placing Elliot’s relationship with the character most resembling such a figure, Luci Miller (Shalom Brune-Franklin), under a microscope and examining how fractured it becomes the more The Man learns about his past mistakes and who he wants the new Elliot to be. This is in stark contrast with Helen, who is naturally a good person and makes Elliot more inclined to be so.
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.
Release Date March 3, 2022
Creator Harry Williams, Jack Williams
Seasons 2
Helen and Elliot Help Each Other Grow in ‘The Tourist’
Their friendship-turned-romance is one of the strongest aspects of the series because it develops naturally from a platonic relationship. It is also quite surprising because the series spends much of the time initially on Elliot’s past with Luci and gives little screen time to Helen and Elliot. However, as the series progresses, this choice makes more and more sense, because when the two finally connect emotionally, it rings more true with the developments their characters undergo in the first few episodes. Helen goes from being Elliot’s “only friend in the world” to someone he realizes he likes romantically. On the flip side, Helen goes from being a by-the-book cop to breaking the law to help Elliot when they are wrongly hunted down by the police.
The writers also do a great job of handling their arcs, with both Elliot and Helen being positive influences on each other. While Elliot is pushed to become a better man and leave behind his life of crime, Helen goes on her own journey of self-discovery, even if hers isn’t as literal as his is. Engaged to a man who constantly undermines her and whom she has no real affection for, Helen’s belief in herself and her relationship with fiancé Ethan (Greg Larsen) is challenged the more time she spends with Elliot and realizes how capable Elliot thinks she is.
Helen ultimately realizes Ethan, who gaslights her and hogs her attention, isn’t as good a person as she initially thinks. Ethan’s lack of faith in Helen and insistence that she not take her job seriously ultimately becomes a major stumbling block for their relationship, and she soon realizes that she’s better off with Elliot, who is far more supportive of her and helps her spread her wings even more.
Related Danielle Macdonald on ‘The Tourist,’ Getting to Do Stunts, and Reading the Last Script She also discussed her love for the character and how the role was adapted for her during filming.
’The Tourist’s Romance Contrasts the Gory Violence of the Show
The Tourist is careful not to be consumed by the angst and darkness of the world it creates, and uses the romance at its core to contrast with the fast-paced, kinetic energy of the plot. Elliot and Helen’s romance is birthed out of the need to be seen for whom they truly are and comes from an inherently pure place, even as their respective careers don’t allow for such innocence. Helen’s stubborn optimism that Elliot is a good man, even when the chips are stacked against him, eventually proves to be accurate and while the series builds an admirably gray world where characters make morally questionable decisions and aren’t just plain good guys and bad guys, Helen’s unrelenting faith and cheery outlook make her the perfect match for Elliot.
It’s worth noting that for the majority of the series, Elliot Stanley is confused and fearful of the exceedingly strange events that keep transpiring around him, and he isn’t really looking to be a Jack Reacher-esque alpha male character we read about. He’s the kind of guy who cares deeply about the people he interacts with and, in a way, he is able to find a kindred spirit in Helen.
Of course, you cannot have a discussion about their romance without including the events of the final episode where Helen had trouble reconciling Elliot with the man he used to be when she learned that he used to be the worst kind of gun for hire, not averse to killing people in a grotesque manner for money. This discovery briefly causes a strain in their relationship before she is able to come to terms with how Elliot is now a changed man. Their dynamic thus ends on a high, with Helen sending him a burrito emoji — their inside joke alluding to Elliot’s newfound love of Mexican food — as a way to let him know that she had moved past his former life.
Throughout the series, the romance between Helen and Elliot remains the most wholesome aspect of an otherwise gory and violent show. The final episode also makes us question Elliot’s status as a good man, considering what it reveals to us about Elliot’s work as Kosta’s (Alex Dimitriades) handyman. But it is in this cocktail of high-octane action, inhuman villains, and shady characters, that the series manages to craft a love story that works because of the sheer goodness its two characters possess. While the twists and turns of The Tourist are what will keep the fans at the edge of their seats, the romance between Helen and Elliot is going to be what makes them revisit the show in the years to come.
The Tourist is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
Watch on Netflix