Spoilers ahead for “Expats.”
In her television debut, “The Farewell” director Lulu Wang focused on the central question of who gets to use the term “expat.”
Wang adapted the book “The Expatriates” by Janice Y. K. Lee into Prime Video’s six-episode limited drama series “Expats,” with Lee present in the writers’ room. Wang enjoyed the nonlinear style of Lee’s story, but she was more precious about keeping certain parts of the plot than Lee was. The show weaves together the lives of Nicole Kidman’s Margaret, Ji-Young Yoo’s Mercy and Sarayu Blue’s Hilary Starr. While Margaret and Hilary moved to Hong Kong, where the story is set, for their husbands’ jobs, Mercy came after college without a significant other because she couldn’t stand living with her mother.