The Accidental Favorite

The Fisher family gathers at a remote glass house for a weeklong holiday to celebrate baby Dolly's naming ceremony and the upcoming 70th birthday of family matriarch Vivienne. Eva, the youngest of three adult sisters, has paid for the stay. The house, featured on Grand Designs, has strange acoustics that make nothing stay private for long.

Vivienne observes her daughters as her husband Patrick photographs them in the forest. Alex, 45, is a music teacher married to Luc; they have three children, including six-month-old Dolly, an unplanned baby Alex privately views as a "Band-Aid baby" meant to save her marriage. Nancy, 44, is a consultant radiologist divorced from Leon, a composer; her 10-year-old daughter Georgie is with her father for his custody time. Eva, 40, became wealthy after inventing a dice game called Unfortune8! She is dating Scott, whom the rest of the family suspects of being a gold digger. Eva's 16-year-old daughter Lucy is the oldest grandchild.

The inciting crisis occurs during the naming ceremony when a massive cedar tree begins falling toward the sisters. It lodges in an oak above their heads, and no one is hurt, but Vivienne watches Patrick lunge past Alex and Nancy to wrench Eva, who is standing farthest from the tree, out of its path. The choice is unmistakable. Nancy calls her colleague Nik, a radiographer and close friend, and haltingly describes what she saw, comparing the situation to King Lear.

A flashback to 1975 reveals the event that shaped the family: During a camping trip, toddler Alex wanders barefoot into hot barbecue embers while her parents argue nearby, suffering severe burns to her feet that require skin grafts and years of treatment. The scars never fully heal and itch throughout her adult life.

Eva is privately concealing that she married Scott a month ago without telling anyone, including Lucy. The marriage was impulsive, born of loneliness, and Eva already regrets it. Scott's 22-year-old son Jay is now technically Lucy's stepbrother, though no one knows. Meanwhile, Alex sneaks away each morning for phone signal to obsessively track the social media of Matt Dempster, her teenage boyfriend from nearly three decades ago, an addiction she cannot stop.

Flashbacks crystallize the sisters' fixed roles. In 1980, eight-year-old Alex finds her father's diary entry about Eva's birth: "She's the MOST beautiful one so far." In 1985, 11-year-old Nancy endures a dentist who praises Alex's teeth while dismissing Nancy. In a 2015 flashback, the sisters decide to get matching tattoos of a lilac-breasted roller from a childhood game, but Alex backs out, unable to face a needle near her scarred feet. These scenes establish the family labels: Alex is "the clever one," Eva "the beautiful one," and Nancy "the fuckup."

The holiday grows volatile. On the beach, the family encounters the Wilsons, old neighbors from their London street, and Vivienne's visceral reaction hints at unresolved history. Jay arrives uninvited; Eva is disturbed by his ogling of Lucy. Then Jay shows everyone a TikTok video Lucy made of the tree incident, which has gone viral. The looping footage clearly shows Patrick running past Alex and Nancy to grab Eva. The family falls silent.

At a dinner with the Wilsons, the family puts on a united front, but no one sits next to Patrick. Alex, heavily intoxicated, publicly attacks Eva for offering to pay the bill, calling her generosity "charity." Nancy opens a hospital letter she has been avoiding: It confirms her suspension following a patient complaint, and she hides the news from her family.

Tensions escalate when Eva rushes in after Rosa, Alex's daughter, pushes baby Dolly off a bed. Alex slaps Eva during the argument; Eva bites Alex's arm in retaliation, echoing a childhood pattern. Rosa parrots something Alex has privately said about Lucy being a "narcissist," exposing hidden criticisms. Patrick tries to explain himself to Alex, but she refuses to listen and drives away. She messages Matt Dempster, and he responds immediately.

Nik arrives with Georgie and his niece Priya; a pool party materializes, exemplifying the family's habit of sweeping conflict aside. Nancy experiences an intense attraction to Nik. Alex, fueled by Matt's message, drives hundreds of miles to London through dangerous storm conditions. She arrives outside Matt's house, calls him, and watches through his window as he flirts nostalgically then lies about cooking dinner while preening at his reflection. When she echoes his own words back, he deflects and ends the call. Alex realizes her obsession was built on social media posts and unstable memories.

Back at the glass house, revelations cascade. Eva discovers Lucy and Jay in a physical embrace through the glass wall. Scott inadvertently reveals Eva's secret marriage; Nancy calls Scott a gold digger; Patrick rounds on Nancy: "Why the hell do you always make things worse?" Nancy refuses the scapegoat role. Eva, screaming that no one listens to her, hurls a sculpture through the glass wall, shattering it.

Vivienne walks out into the severe rainstorm, trips on a tree root, and lies alone in the dark forest, reflecting on the full scope of what she has hidden. Nancy and Nik find her cold and disoriented but alive. Composed upon her return, Vivienne tells Patrick: "You need to tell them that you left us. It's time."

The central secret is the foundation beneath every conflict. After Alex's burn accident, Patrick was so consumed by guilt that he left the family. He never visited the hospital, leaving Vivienne to manage Alex's surgeries alone. During his absence, Vivienne had a brief sexual encounter with John-Paul, a cousin of their neighbor Stella Wilson. She then slept with Patrick during one of his return visits and soon discovered she was pregnant. Patrick came back permanently, viewing Eva as his "second chance," and poured his redemptive energy into being a perfect father to his youngest daughter. This explains the favoritism that has damaged all three sisters and his instinctive lunge toward Eva when the tree fell.

Part II opens on Thursday morning. The three sisters wade into their flooded childhood home in Dartmouth Park, a London neighborhood, and survey the devastation, processing their parents' revelations. In a striking exchange, Alex says she always thought she was "the ugly one," shocking Nancy, who believed the same about herself. Nancy reveals her suspension; her sisters respond with fierce support. Eva announces she plans to end her marriage.

Alex reunites with Luc and baby Dolly on the flooded street. Luc tells her Vivienne confronted him about not pulling his weight, and he pledges to do more. Alex experiences a powerful surge of feeling for Dolly, and she and Luc share a tentative kiss, recognizing their shared history is worth fighting for.

Nine months later, Vivienne stands outside the Dartmouth Park house, now bearing a Sold sign. She wears a nicotine patch and has visited a doctor about her increasing forgetfulness. She reflects on the question she can never answer: whether Eva is Patrick's biological daughter or John-Paul's. Inside, Alex shows her sisters the lilac-breasted roller tattoo she has finally gotten, completing the matching set she backed out of years earlier because of the trauma associated with her scarred feet. Vivienne enters the kitchen, proposes a toast, and walks into the room where her family is waiting.