The Expats, the TV series on Prime, is the story of accidental tragedy, when a person becomes a perpetrator and inadvertently causes life-altering events. The perpetrators are not criminals, but normal people who upset lives through human fallibility or circumstances out of their control.

In short, without giving any spoilers, it’s a narrative trajectory of a contemporary, classic tragedy. The first episode begins with the voiceover of the perpetrator of the story that we are about to be told. She tells the stories of others’ mishaps and how no one wants to know about what happened to the ones who caused others’ pain, except for her, “People like me,” she says.

And then, we are taken to the present of each of the characters’ lives, after the event, the key players both victim and person responsible. There is an overarching sense of the aftermath, the judgment, the conflicts, the disconnects and wounds, how lives are being torn apart, but also the unexpected connections that are occurring between people looking for comfort.

The main characters, Nicole Kidman as Margaret, Ji-young Yoo as Mercy and Saraya Blue as Hilary Star, seem to wear a shroud of loss. It’s unclear whether the event caused it or if it was always there.

The tale is set in Hong Kong where cultural and economic differences heighten the tension and play a major role in the series. This backdrop emphasizes the outsiderness, the complexity of each character’s life before and after the tragedy, their sense of numbness and limbo as they move through the ceaseless stages of grief, guilt and regret.