The Tourist season 1 ending explained: Who was Jamie Dornan's character?

An action-packed trailer was unveiled earlier this month, showing Jamie Dornan’s Elliot now dating Danielle Macdonald’s Helen – and on the run in Ireland.

Despite the change in setting, season 2 will still explore Elliot’s mysterious backstory, of which he has no memory - and was actually the main reason that more episodes will arrive on BBC One and iPlayer.

Lead star Dornan explained to RadioTimes.com about signing on for more of the story: "My thinking was, ‘Where are we going? Like, if we’re doing this, where are we going?’ Because it was a bit of an upheaval to go to Australia.

"But luckily, Jack and Harry [Williams, creators] had plans to make it something closer to home, and I probably approved those plans pretty quickly."

So, with season 1 having premiered back in January 2022, and with a fresh location and fresh characters set to arrive in season 2, fans may be in need of a recap of the original run before diving in.

The creators of the show, Jack and Harry Williams, teased "emotion, jeopardy, tension and narrative surprise" from the six-parter ahead of its release.

And they weren’t kidding! The offbeat, tense mystery thriller, which revolves around an enigmatic figure in the Australian outback who suffers amnesia, kept fans guessing right up until the show’s epic ending.

So, just who is The Man? Well, an emotional and breathtaking climax in the dramatic final episode answered this question – but it also raised a few more. And if you have been struggling to follow the twists and turns, never fear. We have you covered.

RadioTimes.com has examined all you need to know about The Tourist season 1's shocking ending, including unravelling the mystery of The Man and the final fate of Jamie Dornan's character.

**Warning: major spoilers for The Tourist ahead.**

The Tourist season 1 ending explained

Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin) gets Kostas's (Alex Dimitriades) brother – who he thought had died decades ago – on the phone, who tells him to lead a different life. Kostas decides to listen to the hallucination of his brother instead and tries to kill Luci. Elliott (Jamie Dornan) grabs Lachlan's (Damon Herriman) gun but there's a struggle.

Kostas is fatally shot and Lachlan drives off in search of his wife, while Luci takes a shot to the stomach. Elliott puts her in his car with the bag of money and drives her to a hospital, but she dies before he can get there.

Elliott calls Helen (Danielle Macdonald) for help, however Ethan answers and tells him to leave her alone. Helen tells her fiancée that she wants to go to Elliott's aid before Ethan (Greg Larsen) threatens to break up with her if she calls him back. She tells Ethan that if he really loved her, then he wouldn't keep making ultimatums and ends their engagement before calling Elliott.

Meanwhile, Lachlan tracks down his wife, kills Kostas' men and sets her free. He then goes to the police and blames Helen for Rodney Lammon's (Kamil Ellis) death, showing officers footage of her enjoying Elliott's company in a Mexican restaurant and telling them she was in cahoots with Elliott.

Just before Helen sets off to find Elliott, she sees new reports revealing they're both wanted for murder, with Lachlan leading the investigation, and the pair decide to go on the run together. When they're chased down by police, they take customers of a restaurant hostage as Helen asks a friend of hers to find evidence of Lachlan's corruption.

To buy time, Elliott asks the hostage negotiator to bring him Lena Pascal – a woman he keeps seeing in the fragmented memories that return to him, claiming she can fill in the missing gaps in his memory. Just as the police begin to swarm, Helen receives a photo, taken by a speed camera, of Lachlan driving away after killing Lammon with Elliott hand-cuffed in the passenger seat – contradicting his version of events.

The police arrest Lachlan, Helen is set free and Elliott is at the police station awaiting bail when Elena Pascal visits him, having been brought there from Adelaide. She reveals that she was a trafficking victim of Elliott's, having been coerced into smuggling bags of heroin into Australia in her stomach which were then cut out of her by one of Elliott's colleagues.

She tells him that he would make her smile at him to rehearse acting relaxed at the airport, which explains why his memories show her looking happy, and that he had caused the deaths of two other women smuggling heroin after the bags exploded in their stomachs.

Disgusted with who he really is, Elliott leaves the bag of Kostas' money to Sue (whose husband was killed by Billy) and tries to kill himself by crashing his car. He wakes up in the hospital, this time remembering who he is, and Helen visits him to say that she wants nothing to do with him after reading his police report.

After his release from the hospital, Elliott drinks a bottle of vodka and swallows a handful of pills, while Helen speaks to her coworker, who tells her that while she can't forgive Elliott for what he did in his previous life, everyone deserves a second chance. Just as Elliott has resigned himself to death, he receives a text from Helen, an emoji of a burrito that represents a private joke between them, and he smiles.

Who is The Man in The Tourist, played by Jamie Dornan?

Over the course of the series, we learn that The Man (Jamie Dornan) is actually Elliot Stanley – the former accountant for international criminal and drug lord Kostas (Alex Dimitriades).

He met Luci Miller (Shalom Brune-Franklin), a con-woman who went by multiple aliases and was Kostas' fiancée, in Bali earlier in the year and began an affair with her. They decided to escape with $1 million of Kostas' money and fled to Australia together, but broke up multiple times due to their tumultuous relationship.

Kostas sent his employee Marco and henchman Billy to find Elliot and Luci and retrieve the money, however, friendly Marco tipped Elliott off. Elliott hid the money at a place in the Outback, hid his phone in a koala at a petrol station with the location of the money on for Marco to find and then drove away. This was when Billy ran him off the road and he lost his memory.

We later learn that Billy found out about Marco tipping Elliot off and subsequently buried him in a barrel underground – and so it was Marco who had been calling Elliot, asking him to rescue him.

As for who blew up the diner, Luci had planted the explosives as Marco had asked to meet up with her there and she didn't know if she could trust him.

Does Elliot survive in The Tourist season 1?

The ending of The Tourist does not confirm that Elliot died after swallowing the pills and vodka.

Helen was ready to offer Elliot a second chance and messaged him with a burrito emoji – representing what Elliott had previously had described as happiness.

The last we see of Elliot is him smiling at Helen's message – a final shot of hope and the possibility of redemption.

However, the series ends here meaning we don't know if Elliot somehow strives to survive the possible overdose or if he remains resigned to death.

However, with The Tourist season 2 on its way, and Dornan set to return, it seems Elliot has survived, after all.

• Read More: Best Jamie Dornan films and TV series

The Tourist viewers react to the ending of season 1

In terms of how The Tourist season 1 ended, fans of the show have taken to social media to share their reactions.

While some were pleased with how it wound up its storylines, others were keen for more closure, showing a divisive reaction to the ambiguous final scenes.

One Twitter viewer penned: "Good grief, that ending of #bbc's #TheTourist. It's going to haunt me in a good way for a long time; a mark of a great show in my books. #JamieDornan mesmerises. And #DanielleMacdonald is a revelation."

Elsewhere, another person wanted further closer for The Tourist, tweeting: "#TheTourist watched all 6 episodes, brilliant, but that ending, they had to end it like that. Helen as to get her happy ending."

A different fan of The Tourist commented on Twitter: "#TheTourist might just be the most perfect television I’ve seen in a very long time. That ending, so understated and beautiful".

Meanwhile, another viewer tweeted: "Another drama where the ending left me completely WTF?! Not sure whether I enjoyed it or not. Definitely the first few episodes were better than the last #TheTourist".

Finally, one viewer of The Tourist concluded on Twitter: "Wow that ending for #thetourist was such a downer".

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The Tourist season 2 starts on Monday 1st January on BBC One and iPlayer. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guideto find out what's on.

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