Years after sending her best friend to prison, Stephanie Smothers is capitalizing on her 15 minutes of fame. Another Simple Favor picks up with Stephanie preparing to launch her new book, which details her involvement with Emily Nelson – and how Stephanie helped expose her true identity, her attempted insurance fraud, and the murder of her sister.

However, Emily herself throws a wrench in Stephanie’s plans. Freshly released from prison thanks to her new deep-pocketed fiancé, Emily takes it upon herself to crash Stephanie’s book signing, where she publicly requests Stephanie become the maid of honor at her destination wedding. Well… blackmails might be a more fitting description of events. Suddenly, Stephanie has no choice but to willingly walk into Emily’s web once more.

After all, what’s a few dead bodies between friends? 

Another Simple Favor is the aptly-named sequel to 2018’s Simple Favor. The feature brings the return of director Paul Feig, as well as its leads Anna Kendrick (Stephanie) and Blake Lively (Emily).

Like its predecessor, Another Simple Favor knows what it is (and what it isn’t). If you’re looking for realism or trying to take this movie seriously, you’re missing the point. The original film had a very soapy, Lifetime-drama feel to the plot, and Another Simple Favor follows in a similar vein. Twists and turns are over-the-top, feuding mafia families make an appearance, and at one point, someone deploys truth serum. And that’s not even diving into the McLanden family drama of it all.

It’s all juicy and fun, topped off with some beautiful visuals, thanks to the Capri setting and plenty of iconic, lux wardrobe looks for Lively. However, the twists of the story felt more predictable this time around, which made Another Simple Favor lose some of its edge. And similar to the original film, there are pacing issues here. Things drag in the middle, and the movie stretches on a bit longer than really necessary. This isn’t helped by the extended cast of new characters, many of whom feel underused or entirely unnecessary (Stephanie’s assistant, the FBI agent, most of the mafia family members…).

Still, at the heart of the movie we have the relationship between Stephanie and Emily. And in Another Simple Favor, it’s a relationship that absolutely continues to deliver. The friendship between these two women is often toxic, weirdly antagonistic, and deeply homoerotic. But no matter what, it’s a relationship that works because they really get each other like no one else does. 

The front half of Another Simple Favor does a great job reminding fans how compelling and addicting the Emily/Stephanie dynamic can be. From Emily crashing Stephanie’s book signing to their back-and-forth on the jet to Capri, to Emily’s “bachelorette party” (where Stephanie is the only guest) – these two women fall right back into old habits, and that’s a real delight for audiences.

I will say that Emily feels a little defanged as a character compared to the first film. (She received a lot of comparisons to Amy Dunne in Gone Girl originally, and I don’t know that the comparison still rings true.) In a way this works, because it brings her closer to the slightly less naive and stronger-willed Stephanie in this sequel. However, it admittedly also peels back some of the intensity and threat she brought to the original.

Overall, Another Simple Favor is a bit of a downgrade when it comes to the unpredictable twists and dramatic intensity of its predecessor. But it still delivers a lot of what fans loved about the original – soapy, murdery melodrama, a bit of mystery, a hell of a wardrobe, and an incomparable, deeply compelling relationship between its leading ladies. Put it this way: if they announced Yet Another Simple Favor as a threequel, I’d surely give it a watch.

Another Simple Favor releases on Prime Video May 1.