A distraught Nicole Kidman refuses to leave Hong Kong in first look at tense new Expats episode

Margaret and Clarke have an emotional standoff in EW’s exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming fourth episode of Expats, titled “Mainland.”

The Woos, played by Nicole Kidman and Brian Tee, have been called to the mainland to identify a body that may match the description of their youngest son, Gus (Connor James Gillman), who vanished at a crowded night market under the not-so-watchful eye of Mercy (Ji-young Yoo). In a poorly-lit waiting room, Clarke voices his concern about the wellbeing of their eldest children, Philip and Daisy, and proposes a return to the United States — but the proposition is too much for an unmoored Margaret to even consider.

“We’re drowning and you don’t see it,” Clarke tells his wife. “You don’t even want to talk about it.” Philip and Daisy aren’t coping, he says. “They want to go back to their friends and our families but they can’t say that to you because they feel like they’re betraying you, betraying Gus.” Exasperated, he later adds,  “You keep putting off the inevitable but at some point you’re going to have to admit that we can’t stay here.”

Margaret doesn't waiver: “The minute our feet leave Hong Kong soil we are abandoning our son in a foreign place, and I won’t do it. I will never, ever do it.” 

Gus' disappearance is the through-line of the limited series, adapted from Janice Y.K. Lee’s 2016 novel The Expatriates. It tells the story of Margaret, Mercy, and Hilary (Sarayu Blue), three American women residing in Hong Kong whose lives intersect following the disappearance. Series creator and director Lulu Wang, the filmmaker behind A24’s The Farewell, shifted the timeline to 2014 to capture the region’s Umbrella Movement, adding another layer to the women's stories.

“Our lives exist against the times that we're in — the cultural times, the political times,” Wang recently told EW. “I wanted the story of Hong Kong to mirror the journey that my characters were going through, which is one where they're facing tremendous change up ahead and so many things outside of their control. [2014] was when the city was on the precipice of tremendous change and there was so much hope. I wanted to capture that energy — the hope, the resilience — and remind people of that. It’s the same resilience that the characters have to fight for.”

Episode 4 of Expats releases Friday on Amazon Prime Video. 

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