Expats is a Prime Video drama that explores the intertwining lives of three female expatriates living in Hong Kong— Mercy (Ji-young Yoo), Margaret (Nicole Kidman), and Hilary (Sarayu Blue).
After a mood-setting first episode, the second installment (spoilers ahead) illustrates exactly what happened to pull their three lives together one year ago. After taking a liking to her during a boat party, Margaret recruited Mercy one evening to accompany her on an outing with Margaret's three kids. During that evening, her youngest son, Gus, disappeared... whilst under Mercy's care. Here's our full recap of the second episode.
Crossing paths
The episode opens with Gus racing around on board a boat. The young boy attempts to clamber over the railing, but Mercy steps in and stops him at the last second. She then sits down with Philena and some of her friends.
She explains she was a Columbia grad, but they aren't impressed by the fact she attended on a scholarship or the fact she regards herself to be "cursed". To try and impress them, she does something drastic: strips to her underwear, dives overboard, and begs them to dare her to swim underneath the boat. With their enthusiastic encouragement, she does so... only narrowly making it underneath.
Mercy makes it back onto the boat, where she crosses paths with Margaret. The latter offers to find her clothes and rushes to find Mercy a towel. Afterwards, the pair sit down and chat about life; during the conversation, Mercy offers to help Margaret out with the children, if she needs it. Margaret already has Essie around (and its clear her and Clarke's kids love her), but she welcomes the offer anyway.
During the day, Hilary had visited an orphanage. She met David for dinner that evening and their attempts to start a family are the order of the day. Hilary is worried she won't feel the wave of love parents do if they have kids, as she didn't feel too motherly during the visit; David tells her she will have that feeling if the kid is one of their own, so they should keep trying.
At the Peak in the evening. Gus causes a scene at dinner. He refuses to eat what Margaret's served up for dinner, and all three kids ask Essie to cook instead. When he throws his food around, Margaret puts him outside the door and tells him to stay put whilst she cleans up. Gus promptly forgets the instruction and wanders off down the corridor.
Hilary and David step out of the elevator just in time to catch Gus making his escape. Although he tries to hide in his Transformers costume, Hilary takes him by the hand and walks him back to Margaret's flat, telling David she'll be back very soon. At Margaret's, the two women have some wine whilst Essie serves up the chow fan the kids had all asked for.
Hilary tells Margaret she's confused as to why David now wants to have kids when they agreed they didn't want them when they got married. She admits that she's started taking the pill (but hasn't told David), and Margaret tells her she initially felt like she didn't want to have a third kid, but seeing Gus's face for the first time changed all that. Margaret also implies she doesn't think David would make a great father, and asks if he's started drinking again. Hilary believes Margaret's being unfair, and decides to head back to her apartment; when she walks through the door, it becomes clear she'd been gone for some time... much to David's annoyance.
Gus' disappearance
Back at their apartment, Margaret reveals she feels jealous that her kids have a strong bond with Essie. She decides she wants to set stronger boundaries between their family and their live-in helper; to unwind, the pair stand and smoke something in the kitchen. Margaret has apparently been gearing up to leave the country and go home, but Clarke springs the fact that he's been offered a contract extension.
Though the pair disagree; Margaret doesn't want to stay in Hong Kong, where, in her words, "the women are just wives", but he convinces her to at least think about it. The pair make plans to take a family trip to a night market the following day... but Clarke ends up having to bow out after getting stuck at work. Meanwhile, at the end of his day, David has his driver drop him off at a bar. Hilary tries to reach him whilst having trouble during a shoot, but she fails to reach him.
Margaret dismisses Essie for the evening and takes the kids out on her own, inviting Mercy to meet her and the kids out for dinner. Afterward, the group heads into the night market, taking the kids to a pet store and then looking through all kinds of stalls. Partway through their trip, Mercy ends up taking Philip and Gus to look at toys whilst Margaret's busy with Daisy.
At one toy stand, Gus pulls a bag of toy balls open and they spill out on the street. Mercy and the boys scramble to pick them up; Mercy has been texting Philena for advice throughout the excursion, and she finally gets a reply asking her about her new job. When she looks up from her phone at that point, Gus is nowhere to be found.
After Margaret returns and realizes her son is missing, Mercy's narration returns from the opening episode, explaining that she became the babysitter who lost the kid. She told the police she was holding Gus' hand when he disappeared, but that couldn't be possible.
Mercy also tells us that the detective suggested, in cases like these, that the person responsible is usually someone you know, be they a friend, a neighbor, or a relative. Back in the past, we see David chatting to police at the market. He'd apparently told the officers he was on his way home from work, but offered Mercy some comfort, asking if he could call someone for her.
Mercy walks over to Clarke and Margaret sitting on the street. Clarke stares her down, and David tells her he'll take her home. The police tell Margaret and Clarke to head home, noting they'll continue patrolling and searching for the kid.
We then cut back to Margaret standing in the street on the night of Clarke's 50th birthday party (as seen in the first episode), revisiting the ordeal. Hilary approaches from behind and tells her it's time to leave. The episode then ends with a series of clips showing the street at different times of day, bustling with activity.
Expats is now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.
