Paul Feig & Co are taking on a fun little murder mystery in the trailer for Another Simple Favor

If it was at all possible for me to be more seated for Another Simple Favor, I am. I liked the teaser, but the full trailer is here, and it looks like Paul Feig & Co are taking on the fun little murder mystery in the way the first movie took on true crime. I am so seated my butt is superglued to the floor!

Given the twisty turny nature of the Simple Favor-verse, it’s hard to know if what we’re being presented is all as it seems, but if it IS, then Emily Nelson brings Stephanie Smothers to her fabulous Italian wedding to solve a murder. Fratricide? Identity fraud?? All is not as it seems! Also, I have not ruled out an Emily Revenge Plot, but I do hope Another Simple Favor takes on the tropes of fun little murder mysteries the same way the first film takes on true crime. That makes me less concerned about sequelizing a film with a definitive ending, because it gives me some hope that writers Jessica Sharzer and Laeta Kalogridis really do have a good story to tell, that they found new inspiration to justify returning to this universe.

Also, this trailer gives us a good look at Henry Golding, back as Emily’s now-ex-husband, Sean Townsend. Do we think he ever published another book? I bet not. We also get to see Elizabeth Perkins, taking over from Jean Smart as Emily’s mother, Margaret, and Allison Janney appearing as Emily’s aunt, Linda. LOVE that casting. Allison Janney is in her spectacular era—I have no time for The Diplomat EXCEPT for Janney’s episodes—not that she’s never not spectacular, but she seems to have found a new gear lately. She’s just having so much fun in everything lately.

And Another Simple Favor looks like a lot of fun. Given that we’re just done with season three and it’s still on my mind, I am getting a whiff of White Lotus, but that show is very much about the rich being miserable because money cannot fulfill you, while the Simple Favor-verse isn’t really about wealth or privilege at all (even though A Simple Favor touches on class a couple times, it doesn’t make up a core tenet of the film’s identity). So it’s more of a surface comparison due to the commonality of rich people being awful in a stunning seaside location.

I remain petrified of this press tour because everything around Blake Lively is so noxious, and the LAST thing I have patience for is a bunch of “body language experts”—not a real thing—decoding how every twitch from Anna Kendrick means she actually hates Blake Lively. Maybe she does! Maybe she doesn’t! Kendrick has generally held it together well enough in public that we don’t know. And rumors that she does hate Lively are just that—rumors. Worse, rumors propped up by…body language experts. Let’s at least credit Anna Kendrick for being professional enough that we don’t actually know how she feels about Blake Lively.