There’s a reason the fifth episode of Expats, titled “Central,” was chosen to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. At 96 minutes, it’s basically a feature-length movie, and its change in perspective imbues it with freshness, as though it were a whole new story cooked up from scratch. Of course, having seen the first four entries makes it all the richer, but “Central” is also the episode that may allay fears and criticisms of the series’ premise. While its production was rightly called out for skirting COVID mandates, descriptions of the show as only focusing on upper-class Western outsiders ignorant of Hong Kong’s ongoing political situation aren’t entirely accurate. While this is technically true of the expatriates themselves, the series has thus far seeded numerous hints about the wider tapestry of characters whose lives they ignore — lives that are more fully explored this week.
“Central” is also a stylistic departure from the show’s distinct Wong Kar-wai inspirations. Instead, it takes a page out of Paul Thomas Anderson’s ensemble pieces (Magnolia in particular, harking back to the series’ “urban legend” prologue), as it zips back and forth between energetic character introductions in a lengthy montage while a storm approaches. The Hong Kong that exists below Margaret and Hilary’s ivory tower is a vibrant place brimming with energy but also with personal and political strife. Their respective maids, Essie (Ruby Ruiz) and Puri (Amelyn Pardenilla), whom we’ve seen slowly emerge from the margins in previous episodes, take center stage here alongside other supporting characters we’ve met before, as well as ones we haven’t. Pastor Alan (Blessing Mokgohloa) pays Margaret and Clarke a visit but gets stranded at their home by the downpour. We get a peek behind the curtain of the expats’ rich local friend, Olivia Chu (Flora Chan), and the way her seemingly pristine life may be a front — similar to Hilary’s story last week — and Mercy’s new friend Charly (Bonde Sham) returns as well, though her saga feels less revelatory and intriguing in the show’s grander scheme.
The aforementioned newcomers are Tony (Will Orr) and Wen (Maggie Lee), i.e., Charly’s college friend and his janitor mother, whose lives are impacted not only by the storm but by the ongoing Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, orienting us definitively in the country’s 2014 zeitgeist. While the show doesn’t take the time to explore the exact politics of the movement — which grew in response to China’s increased interference in Hong Kong elections — “Central” makes the stakes and potential dangers largely clear through its interpersonal drama and aesthetic approach. Protests have been glimpsed in the corners of the frame in previous weeks, but in “Central,” shots of hundreds of open umbrellas emerge as a collective and colorful symbol of solidarity (and a practical one, to defend from tear gas, though this doesn’t come up onscreen). Meanwhile, Tony chastises Charly for studying for her exams instead of joining the protests full-time, leading to an argument between them over the movement’s short-term and long-term goals. Tony demands immediate dedication at any cost, but Charly hopes to enact systemic change from within in the long run, dueling compromises in a calculus for liberation.
This tale of youth in revolt clashes inevitably with the older generation, namely Tony’s mother, though her disapproval of his participation stems less from political differences and more from preservationist instinct. The first time we meet Wen, she kindly grabs her cat from a rough spot outside her cramped apartment and brings him inside. She’s sweet and cares deeply, but to Tony, the definition of care is taking radical action, even if it means putting himself in danger. Eventually, the protests are consumed by police violence, and Wen loses track of Tony’s whereabouts just as a major storm arrives — Typhoon Kalmaegi, which, in reality, shut down Hong Kong a few weeks before the protests — forcing her to leave her grocery store job early to find him. As the Hong Kong and Chinese flags flutter outside the police station, side by side, she receives mixed information from the police, who seem to have no obligation to tell her the truth about his whereabouts, leaving her helpless in the face of the country’s changing fabric; its takeover by China is just six years away.
Notably, when Wen closes up shop, she props up her mops in an “X” shape outside the rear entrance to the shop, a familiar symbol that Margaret has glimpsed numerous times throughout the series when leaving her getaway apartment in Kowloon. The reveal that its meaning has nothing to do with Margaret at all is a fun subversion, hinting at just how far outside her peripheral vision the rest of Hong Kong lies. Similarly, when Pastor Alan visits Clarke at home in order to comfort him, she sees him as little more than a symbol of the religion she rejects rather than a whole person with his own past and present. Although we learn few facts about Alan, the sense of isolation Mokgohloa brings to his performance tells us everything we need to know about his life as a Black man in Hong Kong, a perpetual outsider who — despite being a fellow “expat” — isn’t afforded the same life of luxury.
Alan’s presence at the family’s dinner (by candlelight, once the electricity goes out) also ignites some of Daisy and Philip’s confusion over the loss of Gus. They want to know where he is, and they wonder if Alan, as a man of the cloth, may have the answers, but they process even their questions through a lens of accusatory anger, having been left to their own thoughts for far too long. It’s upon seeing this and upon learning that her kids have been turning to Essie for comfort that Margaret realizes it may finally be time to take them back home to the U.S.
While “Central” shifts the series’ point of view — in the vein of a one-off episode in a Mike White show, like Enlightened — the expats’ stories still progress in notable ways. David, for instance, comes a step closer to moving out completely (he hilariously grabs his clunky espresso machine and brings it back to his hotel), while Hilary finally files for divorce, though we learn all this information through the stories of other characters. As David searches for a place to put the coffee machine down, Mercy sneaks Charly into the hotel’s pool for a slightly less interesting subplot. There’s a supposed romantic tension between them that doesn’t fully emerge (it didn’t the last time we saw Charly either, leading to Mercy’s confusing exit from a gay nightclub), and this time, it interrupts a powerful moment of Mercy finally verbalizing all her fears, regrets, and self-doubts in the wake of losing Gus, as the two of them float in the glowing water.
Elsewhere, Olivia — after having lunch with Hilary and learning that she’s filed for divorce — returns to her unhappy home, where her daughters misbehave (so much that their Filipina maid has quit) and her distant husband gives her the cold shoulder. Unfortunately, Olivia hasn’t been a big enough part of the show thus far to make her story’s arrival feel like a much-needed payoff, but Chan delivers wonderfully pained and resilient work as a woman on the verge of leaving her husband but who eventually decides to stay if only to keep up appearances — a dilemma symbolized by the black tarp she uses to conceal the leakage in her ceiling. Olivia’s subplot may not be as radical a departure for the show since she, like Margaret and Hilary, is also a wealthy woman in an unhappy marriage. Still, it does help paint a wider picture of how even local members of Hong Kong’s upper crust needn’t concern themselves with political upheaval.
The episode’s undisputed highlight, however, is its exploration of the city’s Filipino workforce, a vibrant community with its own little games, meeting points, and shorthand for the kind of domestic work they do. Essie and Puri have long hovered in the series’ margins and waited for an episode like this one, and “Central” does them complete justice. Puri, a singer about to audition for a reality show, believes Hilary is different from the other rich women who employ her peers, a suspicion that’s nearly confirmed when — after David walks out as the result of a nasty fight — Hilary invites Puri to drink with her.
An awkwardness lingers in the air despite Hilary’s own attempts at friendship. She helps Puri with her makeup and even puts her in one of her own fancy dresses for her audition, but she treats Puri like a doll or plaything. There’s a kindness to Hilary that comes laced with an oblivious aggression — a total ignorance of the class dynamic between them and how it might make Puri feel obligated to listen and obey. It undoubtedly comes from a place of deep hurt (last week’s episode revealed new and painful layers to Hilary, including the reasons she knows so much about makeup), but even words of encouragement about Puri’s dreams and aspirations have a patronizing streak, which Pardenilla tells us all about through her silent, put-upon reactions. It’s a mesmerizing performance that walks a fine line in every scene.
“Central” is also the first time we see Puri and Essie meaningfully interact, in a crowded queue for what turns out to be a Western Union, where other Filipino workers are also sending money to family back home. The inevitable topic of Gus comes up (since Puri has just learned from another maid that David is having an affair with Mercy), leading to the show’s first instance of Essie being able to open up about her relationship with Margaret’s children and her own guilt about Gus’s disappearance. Had she been at the market that night — had she, perhaps, not committed some mysterious mistake that led Margaret to give her the night off — then Gus might not have been abducted.
Essie’s and Puri’s cramped living quarters in their employers’ homes, each adorned with religious imagery, also paint a key psychological portrait of women forced to make do in tight spaces while adjacent to lavish luxury. Their job forces them to grin and bear humiliation despite being treated like friends and family, but only on Margaret and Hilary’s terms. Meanwhile, Essie’s actual family is an ocean away in Manila, and one of their brief video calls leads to the heartbreaking revelation that she’s never met her infant grandchild.
When Margaret finally makes the decision to return to America, it alleviates the burden Essie might feel about leaving her position since she’s spent so much time raising Philip and Daisy. They feel like they’re her responsibility, but during a tearful video chat with her son, she breaks the news that she might be returning home. The next morning, Margaret sits down with her and has a difficult conversation that helps her breathe again: she admits to Essie that it was her own insecurities over Essie’s closeness with Gus that led her to seek Mercy’s help on the day he was taken. As Margaret begins to discuss her decision to move the family Stateside, it feels like the peaceful closing of a tumultuous chapter in Essie’s life — that is, until Margaret proposes that Essie move with the family as well. The money would be good, and the children need her to some degree, but this leaves her utterly torn, given that she’s just promised her own family that she’ll see them soon. Margaret presents her with a choice, but as the rest of the episode has gone to show, Essie may not have the option of truly wrestling between two different outcomes. Rather, the uncertainty on Ruiz’s face tells a different story: Essie is now left to determine whether she has a choice in the matter at all.
The morning after the storm, Puri is met with a similar realization when a now-sober Hilary turns from her friendly demeanor and returns to ordering her around. Instead of wearing Hilary’s shiny dress and leaving for her audition that morning, she places the garment back in Hilary’s stacked closet. She begins making her breakfast, as though even Hilary’s words of encouragement and following her dreams were entirely conditional. Her position living in the expats’ shadow makes having a choice completely illusory.
The episode ends with a job interview. Olivia — after discussing “sampling” Malaysian or Indonesian maids as if they were food items — curtly grills a prospective Filipina applicant about what dishes she can cook as a maid. The young girl gives rehearsed answers with a forced smile, likely aware of the indignities she’ll have to face, as “A Simple Prayer” by the Harry Simeone Choral fades in, and a fitting line coincides with the final frames: “… to help us ease the burdens that we all must bear.”
Visual Expressions
• As Hilary applies makeup to Puri and gives her a sermon on self-worth, the camera rotates slowly around them but remains entirely focused on Puri, as though it were waiting for a reaction that may never (and given her financial position, could never) come.
• As Essie and Puri go from exchanging pleasantries to a difficult conversation about Gus in the Western Union queue, the camera follows them in a long, unassuming take, allowing their mutual care for each other, along with Essie’s deep love for Margaret’s children as well her painful remorse, emerge slowly but surely, imbuing it with a sense of emotional discovery.
• The buzz and hum of this crowded Western Union scene is immediately contrasted with the haunting silence in Clarke’s living room, as he admits to Alan — in a difficult close-up that looks down at him, making him feel small and vulnerable — that he wished, on some level, that the body found by the police had been Gus, as though even the most painful closure would release him from his anguish.
• Pastor Alan speaks plenty about his life in Hong Kong and his second marriage, but the camera paints the clearest possible picture of his life, capturing him in quiet isolation as he takes in the rain or walks through fallen trees the next morning in a wide shot, entirely alone.
• When Tony scarfs down a few quick bites of his mother’s carefully prepared food, the camera lingers on the largely untouched meal when he bolts out the door and heads back to the protests. These few extra seconds feel like an eternity, as though this culinary symbol of love was overshadowed by a dark cloud, portending a terrible outcome. It’s as though his mother’s cooking was destined to be some final connection between them.
• Okay, but where was Sam?
