This is the episode of The Tourist that broke me. Because never in my TV watching dreams did I think that I would ever get an episode like this one aka the big girl getting the tropey goodness with the hot fit guy. The Tourist 1×04 is the stuff that dreams are made of. And while yes everything that’s happening with Luci, the Greek guy, or the detective is important. But all I can think about is Elliot and Helen. So much so that I think that this review is just going to be about them and I do not feel an ounce of guilt because of that. And looking back on episodes one through three, I feel like this is a natural progression of what we know so far of the story but also how it was always meant to be.
Natural chemistry Between Elliot and Helen as actors aside, we’ll get back to that, everything that happened in The Tourist 1×04 feels earned. In the previous episode, we saw Elliot go through a microcosm of what his relationship with Luci was like. He got to experience the electricity of it, the ups and downs, and finally the separation between them. A separation that speaks that they can still be friends but that the romantic relationship of it all, it’s just something they’re not going to visit again. Like I said before, Luci represents Elliott’s past and Helen represents Elliott’s future. Helen is possibility at its finest and we saw by the end of 1×04 that he was looking at that possibility in the face and didn’t have so much fear as he previously did.
That’s not to say everything was butterflies and rainbows between Elliot and Helen. The latter left a note for the police to follow her. And the former abandoned her in the middle of the desert. His is definitely worse than hers because he kidnapped her and she absolutely has the right to take precautions to make sure that she gets out of this alive. But it becomes very apparent to Helen, Elliott, and the viewer that Elliot isn’t going to hurt Helen. And it doesn’t come from wishful thinking. It comes from the fact that Elliot can let his metaphorical hair down around Helen. And in doing so, he starts choosing to be the kind of person based on the now and not his past, something that he was doing with Luci.
Within 1×04 you could see Helen asking him or even just gently pushing him to make his own choices. She is not going to fix him because that is not her job. But she will encourage him to explore who he wants to be. Whether that be what kind of food he likes or if he’s a drinks kind of guy, she will encourage him to find his own happiness based on the person that he is now. And in a way that’s very liberating for a character like Elliot to have someone who believes in him while understanding that he’s got some ugly things in his past. Helen is not ignoring the ugly. She’s just giving him the benefit of the doubt that he can do better. And that is life-changing for most people and I can’t imagine how life-changing it must be for someone like Elliot.
I also think that Elliot is life-changing for Helen. When we think about the Ethan of it all, he caught her in a place where she was very very vulnerable. And she stayed with him because she thought that she owed him and that he in his own way loved her. But you could tell in the small moment with Elliot that she was more free than she had ever been in the first three episodes. Elliott kidnapped her. But somehow he believes in her more than her own fiance. The guy who is still basically a stranger encourages her more than that buffoon fiance. And Helen is starting to realize that. That’s why she opened up to Elliot at that Mexican restaurant and why she shared with him about her attempted suicide. She’s growing just as much as he is.
A big reason why this works between Elliot and Helen is the chemistry between these two actors. Chemistry can make or break a movie or TV show. And I’ve spent long enough watching film/TV where a great script falls prey to shitty acting. You don’t see that here in The Tourist. Both actors give it their everything and you can see in the way that they look at each other that their connection is instantaneous. And maybe it’s not as fire and brimstone as when the actors play Elliot and Luci. But that’s okay. They don’t have to be the same. The way that Elliot looks at Helen, it’s open and kind. And she gives him the same look back. It’s almost kind of like it carries more weight than what he had with Luci. Because we all want someone to see us for who we are and who we aspire to be as we continue growing for the rest of our lives. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone at our side who understands that and at the same time allows the actors who have that chemistry to continue exploring that on screen? I would say so.
By the end of The Tourist 1×04, I was kicking and screaming because I’ve never seen something like this between a man that looks like him and a woman that looks like her. Hollywood has absolutely destroyed my self- esteem and made me think that something like this wasn’t possible when we were liking episode 1 of The Tourist. But here we are in a place where the show is throwing us trope after trope, including the one where they wake up in bed together and don’t know if they slept with each other. And I want more. I need more. I need more of this chemistry that feels like it’s as easy as breathing. But I also need an understanding that we can do better in our lives if we choose to be with an understanding that our choices affect others.
Either way, The Tourist 1×04 is really knocking it out of the park and here’s hoping that 1×05 does the same thing!
The Tourist season 1 is now available on Netflix.
