5 Things You Need to Know Before Watching ‘Another Simple Favor’

“Hi, Moms!” Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively are coming back to fans’ screens after 7 years to reprise their roles as Stephanie Smothers and Emily Nelson in Another Simple Favor.

The Sequel to the hit thriller/comedy follows Stephanie’s (Kendrick) life after she agrees to travel to Italy to be the maid of honour for the devious and cunning Emily’s (Lively) wedding. However, she soon suspects Emily’s goodwill is part of an elaborate plan for revenge when murder and betrayal take over the trip.

In honor of Another Simple Favor, which released on May 1, now is the perfect time for a refresher of what happened in the first film before you watch the sequel.

1. How Emily and Stephanie became friends

A Simple Favor follows Stephanie, a cheerful and somewhat naive single mother and vlogger living in suburban Connecticut. Widowed and raising her young son Miles on her own, Stephanie fills her days with school pick-ups, bake sales, and lifestyle content for her small but loyal online following.

One afternoon, after picking up Miles from school, she notices that his best friend Nicky hasn’t been picked up yet. Wanting to be kind, Stephanie offers to wait with him so he’s not left alone. That’s when she meets Nicky’s mother, Emily—a woman who couldn’t be more different from Stephanie.

Emily is everything Stephanie is not: effortlessly chic, mysterious, sharp-tongued, and high-powered. Despite their contrasting personalities, there’s an instant fascination between the two women.

When Nicky begs his mom for a playdate with Miles, Emily hesitantly agrees, but on one condition: Stephanie has to come along, so she has someone to share a drink with. What starts as a casual visit quickly turns into an unconventional friendship.

Over strong martinis and witty banter, the two women begin to open up to each other. Stephanie, eager for connection, is drawn to Emily’s boldness and glamorous lifestyle, while Emily seems amused by Stephanie’s sincerity.

As the playdates continue, the two form a surprisingly close bond and start to consider each other best friends, despite their obvious differences.

2. Emily goes missing

As her friendship with Stephanie grows stronger with each visit, Emily begins to feel she can trust her completely.

One day, she asks Stephanie for a simple favor: to pick up her son Nicky from school and let him spend time with Miles at their house until she gets home from work.

Wanting to support her best friend in any way she can, Stephanie happily agrees and follows through without hesitation. But after a few days go by with no response from Emily and her calls going straight to voicemail, Stephanie starts to feel that something is wrong.

Unable to shake her growing concern, Stephanie reaches out to Emily’s husband, Sean. He admits he hasn’t heard from her either, and together, the two of them decide it’s time to go to the police.

They file a missing person report, hoping they’re just overreacting—that Emily will call any moment to explain everything. But as hours turn into days, and days stretch into weeks, the reality becomes impossible to ignore: Emily is gone.

Police begin a full-scale investigation, conducting interviews, reviewing security footage, and organizing search efforts. Stephanie, shaken but determined, keeps her online community informed through her channel.

She posts updates regularly, asking for help, sharing any information she can, and urging viewers to stay alert. Her audience rallies behind her, offering support, theories, and even helping spread the word.

Then, after weeks of desperate searching, the heartbreaking news comes in. A body is discovered in a nearby lake. Authorities confirm it is Emily. Toxicology reports reveal that Emily had heroin in her system when she drowned.

When Stephanie learns that, according to those around her, Emily never used drugs—and that she recently took out a $4 million life insurance policy—she launches her personal investigation to uncover what really happened to Emily.

3. What happens between Stephanie and Sean

While mourning the loss of her best friend, Stephanie still finds time to help Sean take care of Nicky, recognizing that while she lost a friend, they lost a wife and a mother.

As Sean’s work demands grow, Stephanie begins picking Nicky up from school more regularly, often bringing her own son, Miles, along so the children can spend more time together. Stephanie also starts cooking home-cooked meals for the kids and Sean.

Over time, the boundaries between grief and connection begin to blur. The more time Sean and Stephanie spend together, the more their friendship deepens into something more intimate.

Sean is moved by the way Stephanie cares for Nicky as if he were her own, and Stephanie begins to see a gentler, more vulnerable side of Sean. Their mutual pain slowly transforms into companionship, and eventually, love.

Before long, the pair begin a committed relationship and even move in together. It seems like they’re becoming the picture-perfect family, slowly healing from a tragic loss—until Stephanie begins to suspect that Sean may have had something to do with Emily’s death.

Her doubts grow when he urges her to stop digging into Emily’s case, and she discovers he collected Emily’s $4 million life insurance policy.

4. Hope McLanden is alive?

Plot twist for anyone who hasn’t seen the first film yet: although viewers see her lifeless body pulled from the lake, Emily is actually alive. The body the police recover belongs to Emily’s twin sister, Faith.

Here’s where things get a bit complicated—Emily’s real name is Hope McLanden, and she was actually born a triplet alongside her sisters, Faith and Charity. Sadly, Charity was stillborn.

Hope and Faith grow up in a toxic and traumatic environment, eventually setting their parents’ house on fire as a distraction so they can disappear. In search of a better life, the two sisters split up, planning to reunite down the road.

Years later, when Faith finally finds Emily and hopes to reconnect, things don’t go as planned. Emily wants nothing to do with her sister after seeing how she’s turned to drugs and blackmail to survive.

Instead of rekindling their bond, Emily seizes the opportunity to use Faith—to fake her own death and start over.

5. Where the story leaves off

After discovering that Emily is alive and actually murdered Faith, Stephanie confronts her about everything that’s happened. Emily reveals that her plan was to fake her death, frame her husband for the murder, collect the life insurance money, and gain full custody of Nicky.

In true Emily fashion, she plays a recording of Sean saying that Stephanie means nothing to him and that he only thinks about Emily when he’s with her. She then pitches a new plan—she and Stephanie should frame Sean for the murder as revenge for double-crossing them both.

But Stephanie has other ideas. She secretly teams up with Sean and plans to stage a fake shooting in front of Emily, hoping to provoke a confession that Emily—not Sean—killed her sister. The only problem? Emily’s too smart.

She realizes it’s a setup and even cuts the microphone feed they’re using to record her. She then shoots Sean for real. Just as she’s about to shoot Stephanie, Emily uses their final moments to confess to killing her sister and promises to take care of Miles.

It would be the perfect murder-suicide—except Stephanie has been livestreaming everything through a tiny camera hidden in her shirt button.

As the cops race to the scene, Emily tries to flee but ends up getting hit by a car and is arrested.

The story wraps up with Emily sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murders of her father and sister, as well as the attempted murder of her now ex-husband, Sean.

Stephanie thrives as a successful mom vlogger and part-time cold case detective.

Sean gets full custody of Nicky, his second novel becomes a New York Times bestseller, and he’s appointed head of the literature department at UC Berkeley, where he and Nicky move to start a more peaceful life.

Now you’re all caught up and ready to watch Another Simple Favor!

—

Are you excited for Another Simple Favor? What do you suspect will happen? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Another Simple Favor is now streaming on Prime Video.

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!