The co-writer for Another Simple Favor has addressed the film’s queer incest scene, explaining that “It may be twisted, but it is a love story.”

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Another Simple Favor and mentions of sexual assault.

The follow-up to the 2018 film A Simple Favor sees Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick’s and Henry Golding’s return as Emily, Stephanie and Henry, respectively. The Amazon Prime Movie sequel follows on from Emily (Lively) being released from prison after she murders her twin sister, and sees the trio reuniting in Capri, Italy, where Emily marries Dante (Michele Morrone), a member of an Italian mob.

Following on from the twin reveal in the first film, the second installment has more where that came from as it’s revealed that Emily’s triplet who she thought died in childbirth is actually alive. 

Not only is her triplet, Charity (also played by Lively in a double bill role à la season five of You), alive, she’s got it in for the people in Emily’s life. After killing both Dante and Emily’s ex-husband, she becomes obsessed with Emily, and believes that she and Emily are the same person. 

Long story short, Charity drugs Emily and begins touching her inappropriately, telling her sister that she wants to make her “feel good”. The scene – which follows in the footsteps of the queer incestuous relationship in Max’s The White Lotus – echoes an incestuous quip previously made in the first movie after Emily made fun of Stephie for sharing an intimate encounter with her stepbrother.

Co-writer Jessica Sharzer (American Horror Story) said to The Hollywood Reporter that her reason to include the scene was to “embrace” the “gay following” of the first movie, “to tell really great stories that also have a queer element to them”.

Sharzer continued: “The queer element of the franchise is baked in as far as we’re concerned to the storytelling and the relationship between Anna and Blake in the movie we see as a love story. It may not be a romantic story, but we see it as primarily a love story between two women. It may be twisted, but it is a love story.”

The writer added that while she wasn’t a part of all the conversations regarding the incest scene due to the writer’s strike, she said: “I think Blake really was behind this decision. I don’t think it was handed to her without her participation. My sense is that she really embraced it and wanted to do it.”

Another Simple Favor is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video now.

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