Expats on Prime

[Showmethebagels]

Is anyone watching Expats on Prime? I’m really enjoying it, disappointed only episode 1 and 2 currently available, episode 3 next Friday. Annoyingly a couple of reviews contained spoilers for events only revealed in episode 2.

I was not keen to watch because I knew it involved loss or death of a little boy, and I have my own son so am very sensitive to that sort of thing, but I was too curious about the HK scenes so I steeled myself. Fortunately the acting is so wooden and the kid playing Gus was so annoying that I am not remotely emotionally involved!

Good point.

The storyline is about such a traumatic event, but I find myself not really caring about any of the characters. Even the children. I don't know if that is down to the acting, the writing or if the characters are just meant to be like that. The only one I kind of like is Hilary.

Especially when you saw Mercy later say that David had gone too far when he threw in a comment about her losing the child as part of their “hate you” sex game.

That was cringey.

I hate most sex scenes involving a large age gap, but these two are nastier than most. They are both so unpleasant.

And of course she just had to get pregnant. Has there ever been a TV series which does not feature at least one 'accidental' pregnancy? It's such a cliche.

Another thing that I noticed, and I don’t know if it was bad writing or a deliberate plot point:

Margaret says to Clarke that she knows he has been going to church and so it must be him who has put the idea in her older son’s head of Gus being with Jesus.

Clarke swears blind that he has never talked to Philip about religion. They both scratch their heads. Where CAN he have got this from?

The children spend all their time with Essie, who is Filipina! 99% of Filipinos are extremely devout Catholics and they talk about God ALL the time. The churches in HK are overflowing with them at weekends. Of course Essie will be bringing God and Jesus into the loss of a child. If this were real she’d have been saying this directly to the parents from day one.

So, given that we are going to have an episode devoted entirely to the helpers’ perspective soon, was this a deliberate omission so that the uninitiated watcher goes “aha!” when we finally hear Essie’s point of view? Or is it meant to tell us that Clarke and Margaret are so spectacularly uninterested in their helper that they somehow haven’t noticed she is Catholic?

Also, how does Mercy have a visa?

One final thing- when you take a step back, it is quite an extreme plot, given that the loss of a child is such a harrowing thing:

Margaret’s son disappears while in the care of a young woman
Margaret’s neighbour shags and knocks up the woman who lost the child

Or if you are Hilary- your best friend’s child goes missing, and your husband shags the girl who your best mate blames for the child’s disappearance. And gets her pregnant when you could not conceive.

It’s all just a wee bit far fetched for a serious drama, surely?

I mean, it was bad enough for Margaret that Mercy turned up as a waitress at the party. So if she knew David had been shagging her all along….how do you process that?

(not that we will find out as plastic face Nicole will just stare into space a bit)

I think maybe Mercy is on a working holiday visa on a Korean passport which gives you up to 12 months. But the book makes reference to her getting letters from immigration enquiring about her status. But think it’s a bit of a plot hole really

Did Hilary know that David is shagging Mercy? I wasn't sure.

Also may have got this wrong but wasn't she secretly taking the pill?

No, Hilary doesn’t know that it is Mercy that David is shagging (he called her “Bunny” in the text) but I am assuming it will come out at some point.

You’re right, Hilary did say to Margaret in the flash back that she had started taking the pill again without telling him, but my impression was that this meant they had been TTC for a while before that (that’s why she was taking it “again”) and it was the fact that it wasn’t working that made her decide children were not what she wanted anyway.

Regardless, I think that her reaction to him getting another woman pregnant is going to be coloured in some way by their not having conceived, even if she’d decided she didn’t want it.

Do you think Nicole Kidmans nearest and dearest ever say enough now with that messing of your face? Will she ever start to lose work because of it? She literally can’t act because if it. She must have all kinds of issues going on. I wonder how women like this explain to their young daughters that it’s normal?

@EachandEveryone I often wonder this to, it seems like such a terrible example to set for your daughter.

I’m now at the point where I’m merely hate-watching this. It’s sooooo slooooow. I do not care about any of the characters. David turns my stomach the way he walks around slapping his gut.

Nicole’s acting is awful. She speaks like Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek.

It is slow. I think very often these days book adaptations are dragged out for more episodes than they 'need'. Especially as Prime are releasing it on a week by week basis. They clearly want to get 'value' from it.

I hate them all, maybe not Hilary or Tilda.
But Nicole, Please, reverse what you've done if that's possible.
Watching your face makes me so anxious and confused

In the first episode Margaret speaks Cantonese at a market asking how much something is. It's basic expat Cantonese but at least it shows she makes an effort.

In the supermarket scene I thought it was funny when the Chinese guy said she was crazy in Cantonese.

I think it can people can speak louder when they are trying to be understood when they are not fluent in a language but in my experience not many expat Hongkongers become fluent in Cantonese

Episode 4 was the worst for me. I forwarded most of it to make it watchable.

I like NK, and I always want to like her characters, but unfortunately, I'm always disappointed.

The thing that underlined Margaret’s rudeness in Park n Shop or Jason’s, or wherever she was, was that she did not take her phone away from her ear and give the man her full attention, as she continued to bark “corn syrup” ever more loudly.

I was surprised, actually, that Clarke had no Cantonese or Mandarin when they went to the morgue in the mainland. His parents had quite strong accents, you got the sense that they would have spoken a Chinese dialect at home.

I'm quite enjoying this, love that it's set in HK - and Clarke is gorgeous- but frustrating that one episode comes out each week.

I'm guessing too that they don't find Gus.

David and his gut comment made me laugh, he's a very unlikeable character.

I kind of liked the idea of one episode a week, as it would give us a chance to discuss the plot without spoilers. But it seems not much is happening with the plot so there's not really much opportunity to share theories. It's all just mopey Mercy, nutty Nicole and sleazy David. Not much by way of hints about what might have happened to Gus.

I don’t think this is surprising. Mandarin and Cantonese aren’t mutually intelligible and there are plenty of other Chinese dialects that aren’t either. Plus, there are a lot of children of migrants who don’t speak their parents’ native languages.

The whole Jesus & God talk coming from Essie thing is so bleeding obvious it’s painful.

I don’t think Mercy’s lack of visa was explained in the book. I remember wondering about that while I was reading it and I think it’s a plot hole.

Surely Clarke would at least attempt a bit of Mandarin or Cantonese, working in HK and having Asian heritage? And Margaret would surley have managed a few words, please, thank you, where is the etc. I grew up in the ME and all expats managed the basics like that.

We heard her say thank you and “how much?” in an earlier episode.

In the last episode they went to mainland China and everyone was speaking Mandarin. In Hong Kong everyone is speaking Cantonese. So even if Clarke could speak Cantonese, it wouldn’t help him in the scenes where they went to identify the body.

I think given the departure from the source material (G goes missing in Seoul while they’re on holiday) I think they tried to replicate the issues of being unable to communicate and feeling powerless and frustrated because of that.

It makes a nice change having an older woman/younger man relationship. I think it was mentioned that Gus was an accident so it’s plausible that she was going through the menopause and had an accidental pregnancy, but would have been better if they made that clearer.

Can a woman on tv ever just do a pregnancy test without having to go through all that throwing up before. Every time a woman is sick she is pregnant.

Can a woman on tv ever just do a pregnancy test without having to go through all that throwing up before. Every time a woman is sick she is pregnant.

Nope, it’s the law. TV and movie pregnancies can only be confirmed after vomiting. May or may not be accompanied by weird food cravings. Just like all labours start with a spectacular breaking of waters followed by rushing to hospital and giving birth immediately.

I’m hoping Gus ran away to avoid the boring people surrounding him.