Remembrance Of Things Past:The Tourist S2.

We rejoin Elliot (Jamie Dornan) and Helen (Danielle MacDonald) on a sleeper train in South East Asia, they're now boyfriend and girlfriend and they're (accused of) smoking marijuana on their way to Cambodia. But instead of Cambodia, they go to Ireland. Helen wants to find out who Elliot really is - and Elliot's curious too.

Series two of The Tourist (BBC1/iPlayer, written by Harry and Jack Williams, directed by Chris Sweeney) picks up fourteen months on from the end of the first series and it's not just the location that has changed, it's the bulk of the cast as well. Other than Elliot and Helen, only a very small number of characters return from the first series and you get the suspicion they're only there because they were simply too good to leave out.

In a toilet near a beauty spot, Elliot is attacked by men in balaclavas, put in the back of a van, and taken to a house where he hears a voice telling him "I'm the last voice you'll ever hear". Even though it is very much not the last voice he'll ever hear. Soon he hears the voices of various members of the McDonnell family who, it seems, have unfinished business with them.

He can't remember them (of course) but they can certainly remember him and they have scores to settle. The family elder, Frank (Francis Magee), is a mean bastard and his son, Donal (Diarmaid Murtagh), a chip off the old block - with added booze issues. Then there's Donal's wife, Claire (Siobhan O'Kelly), Donal's sister Orla (Nessa Matthews), and Donal's son Fergal (Mark McKenna).

Fergal's none too bright but, unlike many in his family, he doesn't appear to relish violence. In his own words, he'd rather be lying on a couch, pleasuring himself to Salma Hayek! Which, of course, means he ends up being played and used by those with more mendacious intentions. Then there's Detective Ruairi Slater (Conor MacNeill) whom Helen calls on to investigate Elliot's disappearance.

Ruairi's got his own issues. When we first meet him he's sitting in a toilet crying and his home life is more than a little complicated. He lives with his, initially taciturn, mother whom he seems to delight in buying apples for but there's something far more sinister going on in his basement. Something he doesn't want made public. He'd rather be known for his love of pork'n'beans and Billy Joel's Piano Man.

It's not just Helen, and now Ruairi, who are looking for Elliot. His mother, Niamh (Olwen Fouere), turns up at the Garda station looking for him, having been sent a photo of him looking to be in some kind of trouble. Then there's Ethan Ignatius Krum (Greg Larsen), Helen's ex. Ethan is still hassling Helen. He sees her leaving him for Elliot as an event that's changed him and now delivers NEDS (sic) talks about toxic masculinity.

But he's not changed that much, and he's not come to terms with the fact that it's over between him and Helen - or Shortbread as he still insists on calling her. That's how he finds himself on a flight out to Ireland to attempt to win her back. Lena (Victoria Haralabidou), one of Elliot's former drug mules, just happens to be sat next to Ethan on the plane. She's looking for Elliot too. She's got her own plans for him.

In trying to resolve this clearly very complicated situation, we're introduced to feuding families, drug runners, hostage taking, hacking, codebreaking, a faulty oven, a wedding ring down the bowl of a toilet, overuse of the word 'friendo' (thanks Ethan), some familiar if not friendly faces from the past, and a Mk.IV Cortina driving taxi firm owner in Monsieur Tiote (Reginald-Roland Kudiwu).

It's violent (a man is stabbed in the eye and a woman is shot in the stomach, there's a LOT of guns, and there's a demand that Elliot hack off both his legs) but it's also off the wall. There's a dead pig with OPEN ME written on its carcass, a lame joke about Costa Coffee, a man who can't talk, some actual troglodytes, a 'Vietnamese and gay' lighter, and the surprise news that one of the main characters once danced ballet to concert standard. Music wise, the makers of The Tourist aren't worried about being cool. The Pretenders are, of course, critically acclaimed but you can't really say that for Roxette and it's good to hear the yodelling classic Hocus Pocus by Focus as well as, of course, Billy Joel's Piano Man. If not all five minutes and thirty-seven seconds of it.

It's never particularly realistic but it's never (or hardly ever) boring and some of the big shocks are ones that I certainly didn't see coming. Most of the episodes end on cliffhangers meaning you can't wait to get stuck into the next one. Even if, at times - towards the end, it can get a bit too much. Some of the scenarios are just too contrived and sometimes attempts to shock and/or titillate get in the way of narrative development.

It's a minor gripe about a very enjoyable show. Ireland looks very green and beautiful, Elliot even dons a gypsy neckerchief as soon as he gets there, and, of course, the country is dotted with dry stone walls, dimly lit pubs full of Guinness and whiskey, and traveller encampments. More than anything, the Ireland of  The Tourist is a place of deeply held secrets, generation spanning resentments, and shocking revelations.

There is an arc of redemption in there somewhere but it's a very buckled one. The overriding message seems to be that even if you can't remember your past, you can't escape it. You have to - eventually and painfully - face up to it. Luckily, the pain that all involved are put through translates as tension and entertainment for us viewers.