This article contains spoilers for Expats episode 4, "Mainland". 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).
The fourth episode finds all three of our main characters being trapped in different places, with emotions running high: Margaret and Clarke arrive at the morgue, waiting to find out whether Gus is the little boy who has been found, Hilary ends up arguing with her mother whilst trapped in an elevator, and Mercy makes a big discovery that threatens to change her life.
Here's our recap of what happened in Expats episode 4.
A trip to the mainland
Margaret and Clarke wake up in the car, having slept overnight outside the morgue. She wakes up and spots someone heading inside and proceeds to try every door until she finds a way in, with Clarke close behind. They eventually find the janitor they saw enter the facility; the worker doesn't speak any English, but as the couple is determined to get her to help, she leads them to a waiting room, locking them inside so she can get back to work.
Whilst waiting, the couple opens up to one another about the issues in their family. Margaret has a dig at him for not having returned back home. In response, Clarke blows up at her about not being involved in the decision to hire Mercy and for Margaret not just taking Essie on the trip to the night market to help watch the kids but swiftly apologizes. Margaret laments being the kind of mother who loses their child, but he is quick to assign blame not to her, but to whoever took Gus.
Eventually, another mortuary worker comes by and takes them into another waiting room. The language barrier continues to cause issues, so they end up waiting for a translator to arrive. In the new room, Clarke tells Margaret that she's not seeing all the issues the family is going through. He says the kids aren't coping, and want to be back around family and friends, but they can't say that to Margaret because they feel like it's a betrayal to their mother, and to Gus.
Margaret, point-blank refuses to leave Hong Kong, as that would constitute abandoning their missing son, but she borrows Clarke's phone to call Daisy, telling her daughter she can talk to her about anything (and telling her to pass that sentiment over to Philip).
A translator arrives. He helps the couple fill out the necessary forms, and they're taken to identify the body. The bodybag is unzipped, and Clarke breaks down into tears; Margaret tells the worker that the boy isn't their son. The episode closes with the couple in the back of a car, with Margaret holding Clarke in her arms and comforting him.
Family reunion
Hilary's ordeal sees her reunited with her mother, who's traveled from LA to visit her. She wakes up and tries to send Puri on an errand; Puri is busying herself with other tasks and reminds Hilary that Sam is out picking her mother up from the airport. Hilary, confused, realizes she's mixed up her dates and rushes to get ready. When her mother arrives later that day, she invites her up to her apartment at the Peak. The pair enter an elevator alongside Tilda, (another resident whom Brinder continues to mock throughout their ordeal), and quickly get into an argument. Then the power goes out in the elevator, and they're all trapped together.
During their ordeal, there's a frosty atmosphere between Hilary and Brinder. She tries to instil the importance of having a family on Hilary and hassles her about her relationship with David. She also tells Hilary she has to return home, as her father is sick. Hilary rebuffs her arguments, saying having a baby just isn't what she wants. She also asks why Brinder refuses to confront her father about having slept with another woman.
We return to the trio in the elevator throughout the episode. Eventually, Hilary lets slip that David has left her: Brinder isn't surprised, given he changed his mind and started to want kids.
Tilda is the only person in the elevator who can speak Cantonese with the elevator repairman, so she provides updates for them. Eventually, Tilda lets slip that she's supposed to be meeting her husband. Brinder makes another mean-spirited comment about the woman's appearance, prompting Hilary to accuse her of being cruel.
Then, she promptly tells Tilda a story from her childhood; aged just four years old, she heard her parents arguing for hours and found her mother "black and blue". Shortly thereafter, the elevator is fixed, and the three women are finally able to leave.
In the corridor, Brinder tells Hilary she's going to check into a hotel since her daughter sees her as a burden. However, we see her later cozied up on Hilary's sofa, fresh out of the shower.
Mercy's discovery
Mercy spends this entire episode at her apartment. She wakes up and makes coffee for David, who is still hungover from his last bar trip, but he rejects it, preferring to get up and make some for himself.
The pair start play-arguing, mocking one another's life circumstances. This argument goes south when he brings up how Mercy lost Gus. Horrified, she goes into the bathroom and shuts the door.
Later in the episode, David opens the door. He tells Mercy about his identical twin brother, Danny, and how he an accident whilst they were rough-housing as kids (you might recognize this story from Mercy's opening narration at the start of the series) left him paraplegic. David says he can't face his brother as he's always reminded of how he caused it, even though Danny has come to terms with it. Mercy takes this as his approach to making an apology, and she hugs him.
David gets ready to leave the apartment, but comes back when he hears Mercy throwing up on his way out. She says she pukes when she's anxious, but he posits that Mercy could have been pregnant, if he wasn't infertile. When Mercy doesn't correct him, he starts to panic and ask about her last period, or if she's slept with anyone else. Annoyed, Mercy asks whether he's ever been tested, or he's just been relying on the fact that Hilary hasn't fallen pregnant as proof of his infertility. He walks out the front door.
David returns from a store with three pregnancy tests and says he's not leaving until they find out the result. Whilst she takes one, he talks out loud about the fact that Hilary's been tested regularly and was able to have a child, so he just assumed he was the problem, and that's why he wasn't using protection whilst he and Mercy were sleeping together.
When we return to the apartment, we don't find out the result, though it certainly seems like the test was positive. The pair share an awkward exchange as David leaves wherein she tells him to 'be a good guy', they agree they both need time to process what they've found out, and he asks Mercy to update him on what she decides to do next before he leaves.
Expats is now streaming on Prime Video.
