A Very Special Episode of Expats

Abstract

FQ columnist Laurie Ouellette examines “Central,” the penultimate episode of Lulu Wang’s Expats, a television adaptation of Janice Y.K. Lee’s bestselling novel The Expatriates, which follows the lives of several privileged American women living in Hong Kong. The feature-length special episode shifts the focus onto two foreign domestic workers who are employed by the show’s wealthy female protagonists. In redirecting attention onto these two female migrant workers, “Central” challenges viewers’ investments in the protagonists’ lives and the genre of women’s prestige television that celebrates their class status as being won through “meritocracy and neoliberal self-reliance.” Further, Wang uses the “special episode” and the creative liberties that streaming has afforded for such a format not simply for representational purposes but to underline the geopolitical forces and class hierarchies that structure these women’s lives.