Series / Daisy Jones & The Six

"Oh, baby, look at us now..."

"The chosen ones never know they are chosen."

— Rod Reyes

Daisy Jones & The Six is an American television show streamed on Amazon Prime, adapted from the book of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The first three of its ten episodes premiered on March 3, 2023.

The show chronicles the short-lived career of the fictional 1970s rock band, Daisy Jones & the Six: from their origins as a Pittsburgh-based garage band named The Dunne Brothers to one of the most popular bands in the United States, until their final sold-out concert that ended the group. It is framed as a tell-all documentary filmed 20 years after the climactic concert.

The band members are:

• Margaret "Daisy" Jones (Riley Keough), a singer-songwriter from a rich Los Angeles family who eventually becomes the band's frontwoman;
• Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin), the Dunne Brothers' charismatic frontman who eventually leads the band alongside Daisy;
• Graham Dunne (Will Harrison), Billy's younger brother and the band's lead guitarist;
• Eddie Roundtree (Josh Whitehouse), the band's increasingly resentful bassist;
• Warren Rojas (Sebastian Chacon), the upbeat drummer;
• Karen Sirko (Suki Waterhouse), a pragmatic Londoner who becomes the band's keyboardist and guitarist.

Other main cast members include Camila Morrone as Camila Alvarez, Billy's wife; Nabiyah Be as disco singer Simone Jackson; Timothy Olyphant as tour manager Rod Reyes; and Tom Wright as music producer Teddy Price.

An album of songs supposedly performed by the band, Aurora, was released on the day the show premiered. It was produced by Blake Mills.

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Tropes:

• The '70s: The bulk of the story is set in 1970s Los Angeles, where rock-and-roll and bohemian outfits abound.
• Abortion Fallout Drama: In the ninth episode, Karen, adamant that she doesn't want children, quietly aborts her baby by Graham. The fallout occurs in the finale, when she tells Graham, who's upset that she didn't tell him, and the two are forced to confront their incompatible desires for family.
• Actor Allusion: At one point Daisy wears a guitar strap that looks like the one worn by Elvis Presley during his '68 Comeback Special. Daisy's actress, Riley Keough, is Elvis' granddaughter.
• Adaptational Nationality: The book's Nicky was Italian; here he's Irish.
• Adaptation Name Change: Some surnames change from page to screen:
  • Eddie Loving becomes Eddie Roundtree.
  • Camila Martinez becomes Camila Alvarez.
  • In keeping with the character's Latino ethnicity in the show, Warren Rhodes becomes Warren Rojas.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Simone's exact sexuality in the book is unknown, and she eventually marries and has a daughter. In the show she has an explicit lesbian romance with a woman named Bernie.
• Always Late: Daisy is so notoriously tardy, The Six's manager Rod routinely tells her sound checks are an hour earlier than they are. The band refers to this as "Daisy Standard Time."
• Artist and the Band: The show is called 'Daisy Jones and the Six.'
• Bait-and-Switch: In the episode "She's Gone", Simone gets a telegram from Daisy that reads, "I Need You", and assuming Daisy is A Friend in Need, jumps on a plane to find her and help. Turns out Daisy is getting married, and wants Simone to be her maid of honor.
• Band of Relatives: Only two of the Dunne Brothers' members are actually the Dunne brothers (the rest are friends), but they roll with the name.
• Betty and Veronica: Billy is torn between his loving and loyal wife Camila and his volatile and vivacious co-frontman Daisy.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: In the final episode, Graham insists he can give up his dream of having a family and just focus on music if it means he and Karen can stay together, because he loves her. She doesn't say she loves him back, and dumps him. Later on in life, Graham is Happily Married to another woman and has a couple kids, and is very grateful Karen was "brutally honest" with him, as it meant he didn't sacrifice what he really wanted to pine after someone who didn't feel the same way about him. In her own interview, Karen confessed she wasn't honest; she loved Graham, but she realized their life goals were incompatible, and she had to make a hard break so he could move on with his life.
• Composite Character: The novel's Chuck Williams (the group's original rhythm guitarist who dies in Vietnam) and Pete Loving (the bassist who stays out of the documentary) are combined here into Chuck Loving, who quits the band early to go to college.
• Career vs. Man: A lesbian variation. Simone, an aspiring singer, is on the cusp of getting signed by a label...except they want to hide the fact that she's a lesbian.
• A Day in the Limelight: Although it ends up being mostly about Daisy, "She's Gone" is told largely from Simone's point of view, including her life in New York and relationship with Bernie.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the book, Teddy died during the Aurora tour leaving Billy unsure if the band could go on without him. In the series Teddy dies in the 1980s, well after the band had already broken up.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After the band breaks up, the characters spend many years trying to deal with their issues and get their lives in order. They mostly succeed and are satisfied with their lives.
  • Billy goes to rehab and this time he stays clean. He reconciles with Camila and they have a happy marriage till she dies of cancer
  • Daisy's continued her music career but her romantic life was a mess for decades. She gave birth to a daughter, finally settled down and became a good mother.
  • Karen started her own band and still has a successful music career.
  • Teddy continued producing music and discovering new talent. He died in 1984, doing what he loved, recording a new album.
  • Warren is Happily Married to Lisa and still works as a session drummer.
  • Graham left the industry and settled down back home, getting married and starting a family, and is quite happy with the way things turned out, preferring a simpler life.
  • Eddie is the sole exception; he still works as a musician and has more creative freedom, but is no longer friends with anyone in the group, didn't attend Camila's funeral, and hasn't found much independent professional success. He simply says his life is "fine."
• Foregone Conclusion: Both the first and last episodes open with the knowledge that the sold-out Chicago performance was the band's final performance. The ninth episode ends with various interpersonal conflicts within the band threatening to boil over as they head to Chicago, upping the tension for the eventual breakup.
• Girls Like Musicians: In the first episode, Graham sighs about a crush. Billy comforts him by telling him that he's a guy who can play guitar, so he'll have no shortage of future girlfriends.
• The Heart: Camila. Everyone cares about her, and everyone in the group has an emotional connection with her and generally wants to do right by her. Even Daisy, who begins to fall for Camila's husband Billy, likes and respects Camila herself, and doesn't want to hurt her. In the show, the reason the band is called "The Six" even before Daisy shows up is because Karen considers Camila to be an essential part of the group, despite her not being a musician.
• Headbutt of Love: In the ninth episode, Daisy professes her feelings for Billy. He admits that he loves her too, but he can't leave his wife Camila. He presses their foreheads together and tells her that they can continue to have an amazing work relationship. Unfortunately, Camila sees them doing this and is convinced Billy is in love with Daisy.
• Hollywood Thin: In the book, Daisy has an eating disorder that manifests in her only eating one meal a day in order to maintain her thin frame. In the series, no mention of her having an eating disorder is made. The one scene that shows it (where Daisy goes to a hamburger place on a date and doesn't eat) is changed in the series, so that she actually eats two hamburgers. She stays extremely thin.
• How We Got Here: The tenth episode opens with the band's final concert performance. Things are obviously tense among the group, with a lot of long looks and disheveled expressions (Eddie's even sporting a black eye). The episode intersperses the concert with scenes from earlier in the day, showing how things got that bad between the members.
• Leg Focus: Daisy wears a lot of outfits that emphasize her legs. Warren and Eddie comment about Daisy's great legs until Daisy tells them to stick it.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Daisy is described as having her father's money and her mother's beauty, and yet being completely alone. Her family is unsupportive of her musical ambitions, and even she starts to doubt herself until she meets Simone.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Simone has a more feminine style, and starts seeing Butch Lesbian Bernie.
• A Minor Kidroduction: Invoked. Daisy is unsure where to start their tell-all documentary, so the interviewer suggests telling where her love of music began. Cue flashback to her rocking out in her room as a child.
• The Muse: Defied. Daisy hates that her boyfriends keep using her as inspiration. She doesn't want to be the muse, but to be recognized as an artist and person in her own right.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Although there are several differences, the titular group has obvious parallels to Fleetwood Mac. Both are 70's folk/rock groups with both British and American members, both featured a female singer/songwriter and keyboardist, and both were known for internal romantic entanglements and tensions. Daisy in particular dresses and acts a lot like Stevie Nicks, including wearing dresses similar to the famous black "Rhiannon" outfit. It even extends to their music — "Honeycomb" contains a guitar solo/riff evocative of one from Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain". Word of God has confirmed that Fleetwood Mac was indeed part of the original inspiration for the novel. invoked
• Non-Indicative Name: In the book, the Six are actually comprised of six people: Billy, Graham, Eddie, Warren, Karen, and Pete. The show excises Pete and makes it a Running Gag that there are only five of them. It is explained in the show that the sixth spot is filled by Billy's wife Camila.
• Only Sane Man: Warren is the only member of the band who's not entangled in romantic drama and/or ego clashes.
• Promoted to Love Interest: The adaptation adds romantic feelings between Eddie and Camila that aren't implied in the book.
• Race Lift: Ethnicity lift: Warren Rhodes becomes the Latino Warren Rojas on the show.
• Raised Lighter Tribute: At the band's Chicago encore the audience raises lighters as "Look At Us Now" comes on. It helps show how adored and popular they are.
• Rape Discretion Shot: Daisy is raped offscreen in the first episode after going in to a room with a musician.
• The Resenter: Eddie becomes increasingly resentful of Billy for how Billy keeps sidelining him. Another factor is that Billy married Camila, the girl Eddie liked, and mistreated her.
• The Reveal: The final episode reveals that the documentary is made by Billy and Camila's daughter.
• Secret Relationship: Graham and Karen hide their relationship. Although they got together after both joining The Six, Karen does not want their relationship to be public as she fears that people will think she is only in the band as she is his girlfriend. This becomes subverted in the episode "Looks Like We Made It", when Karen, tired of hearing the other band members run Graham down, reveals their relationship to them, and the two make out in front of everybody.
• Singing in the Shower: Daisy sings in the shower in her first episode. It's how her then-boyfriend realizes she's an aspiring musician.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the novel, the Six's original bassist Chuck is forced to quit the band due to being drafted and is killed in Vietnam. In the show, he willingly quits to go to college, claiming he doesn't see a future for the group.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: A scene in the first episode sees a teenage Daisy lured up to the hotel room of a musician at an afterparty. A rock song is playing in the background that abruptly stops when she realizes there's nobody else in the room and the lock clicks behind her.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: When the Six try to find a replacement frontman, the audience gets a montage of middle-aged men who butcher their song.
• Timeshifted Actor: Different actors play the band members in flashbacks to their teens.
• Titled After the Song: All of the episode titles are named after period songs:
  • The pilot episode is named after the Badfinger song "Come and Get It".
  • Episode Two: "I'll Take You There".
  • Episode Three: "Someone Saved My Life Tonight".
  • Episode Four: "I Saw the Light".
  • Episode Five: "Fire".
  • Episode Six: "Whatever Gets You Through the Night".
  • Episode Seven: "She's Gone".
  • Episode Eight: "Looks Like We Made It".
  • Episode Nine: "Feels Like The First Time".
  • Episode Ten: "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide".
• Tomboyish Name: The Butch Lesbian who flirts with Simone at a party is named Bernie, short for Bernice.