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!
