Top Line Thoughts: I knew before I even watched a second of this show that I was going to have complicated feelings about it. Adaptations are hard, especially for books that have really strong fanbases. I took a class in college about adapting books into movies and I still think about it all the time. There’s always a reason behind a change so, when I watch adaptations, I try to figure out why certain choices were made. Most of the time, changes are made to save money: cutting characters, cutting sets, cutting storylines means less people, places, and scenes to film and pay for. But other changes aren’t as clear cut. For me, when watching an adaptation of something I love, my first instinct is to dislike any changes. Why mess with a good thing? But then I have to try to separate if a change is actually bad or if it’s just a different way to get to the same end. All of that is a long way of saying that the show “Daisy Jones and the Six” is different from the book “Daisy Jones and the Six”. Most of the changes are fairly subtle and probably seem inconsequential if you haven’t read the book, but to book readers who feel like we really know these fully formed characters created by author Taylor Jenkins Reid, some of them feel incompatible with who we know these characters to be. The bottom line is that I really did like this show, but only if I think of it as something separate from the book it is based on.

I finished watching this show 2 days ago and I miss it already. I missed it the second it ended. I wanted to spend infinitely more time with the characters who are endlessly complex and interesting. I listen to the show album “Aurora” every day. The songs are great and catchy. I’ve been stalking the cast on social media. They all seem to be genuinely good friends and get along so well. Riley Keough may be one of the coolest people ever. I want to buy everything from the Free People collection based on the show and spend the whole summer dressing in a 70s vibe. I loved living in the world of this show. If you know me, this probably shouldn’t be surprising since “Almost Famous” is one of my favorite movies of all time and is so important to me. “Almost Famous” is the blueprint. And while “Daisy Jones and the Six” is quite literally “a think piece about a mid-level band struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom”, it doesn’t achieve the same highs. It feels like it gets 85-90% of the way there but then is just missing something that I can’t quite put my finger on that makes parts of it fall a little flat. This didn’t stop me from enjoying the whole experience, but does make me wonder what this show could have been if it was able to achieve its full potential. Nonetheless, I would definitely recommend this show. I think it’s really great and fun with lots of good music and star-making performances. And maybe people who have not read the book will like the show even more for not having anything else to compare it to. (But also everyone should read the book because it’s fantastic.)

Spoiler Section: The easiest way to do this is to break it down by character, starting with Daisy. I think Riley Keough was the perfect Daisy and captured her wild, fun, but fragile energy. She has that star power as an actress that Daisy also has within the world of the show where she just pulls your focus in every scene. I’m also obsessed with her voice. The tone of it is really unique and makes the songs sound that much better, especially on the harmonies. Any issues I have with the character of Daisy have nothing to do with Riley’s performance and everything to do with the way the character was written for the show. A subtle but impactful detail involved the show making Daisy’s real name “Margaret”, with “Daisy Jones” just being a persona she adopts while, in the book, her parents named her “Daisy Jones”. The character isn’t supposed to be trying to be someone else. She’s always been uniquely herself. She doesn’t follow trends, she starts them. Just by doing whatever she wants to do so confidently that other people want to emulate it. Deep down, she’s not confident and is broken, but it doesn’t drive her to become a different person. It drives her constant need for attention, good or bad, and therefore is an underlying factor in the wild behavior and decisions that draw people’s eyes but also make her famous for being herself. 

The show also played up the interpersonal drama and played down the addiction problems with Daisy. Yes, she was definitely shown taking drugs a lot, but for most of the series she seemed fairly in control when Daisy’s entire being is based on being out of control. Her Greece wedding, in particular, seemed more like a conscious decision to take space from Billy and the band instead of the drug-fueled bender it was in the book. Show-Daisy is also shown to be fixated on her relationship with her parents, concluding with an ugly phone call with her mom in the final episode. Book-Daisy is of course impacted by her parents seeming absence of care about her, but does not maintain any relationship with them at all and rarely even mentions them. However, these changes did not impact her character as much to me as the concept of her name.

Billy was fine as a character. Kind of a wet blanket but that’s what he’s supposed to be. He’s so scared of relapsing with his addiction and breaking the life he worked so hard to build that he struggles to relinquish control in any area. That’s why Daisy is the perfect contrast to him: she’s everything he wants to be and hates that he can’t be. To him, she’s free and he’s trapped by the consequences of his own mistakes. I thought Sam Claflin’s best scenes as Billy were any time he had to look at Daisy. You could really see the pure love in his eyes that anyone else in the room would be blind not to notice. Exactly like in the books, he looked at her like they were the only people there. 

Maybe the biggest revelation of the show was Camila Morrone’s performance as Camila. Not to minimize her, but I had previously only known her as Leonardo DiCaprio’s model girlfriend and never seen her act in anything. But her performance of a complex character was really nuanced and emotionally resonant. In the book, Camila is just unbelievably likable. She’s kind and warm and always says the right thing but is also strong and smart. Camila Morrone captures all of this while also being annoyingly beautiful in every single frame. 

As for the Billy/Daisy/Camila/(and I guess Eddie?) love triangle, where to even start? While Sam Claflin’s performance as Billy is good, it’s missing the same star power magnetism that Riley Keough brings to Daisy and that book-Billy has which makes him a great frontman for the band. With this missing piece and Riley Keough and Camila Morrone playing their strong female characters to perfection, it’s hard to see why either of these incredible women would even want to be with Billy. They’re both too good for him. 

I knew the show would really play up the drama of the love triangle because what is a show without drama anyway? I didn’t mind it as a whole but disliked when it changed the narrative. The core of the Billy/Daisy relationship is that, despite their love for each other, Billy would never leave Camila. Daisy represents who Billy is, but Camila represents who he wants to be. A better husband, a better father, a better person. Camila may never understand him on the core level that Daisy does, but this is the life he chose and the life he will continue to choose. Camila knows this and tells it to Daisy at the end of the book. Daisy has to accept this fact and move on because her relationship with Billy has gone as far as it can and pushing it is only hurting all of them. But mainly, she does it for Camila who she respects. She specifically states that she left the band because Camila asked her to. 

In the show, everything is much murkier. Billy doesn’t have the same conviction as his book character. He is the one who initiates the first kiss (instead of pulling away from Daisy’s kiss in the book) and even ends up completely relapsing and fully pursuing Daisy after he thinks his relationship with Camila is over. Even though I like that they still had Daisy be the one to walk away, she shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. The moment in the book where the two women speak bluntly but compassionately about the situation and Camila tells Daisy “I know he loves you but he will never leave me so you should walk away” is so powerful. Daisy leaves because of Camila, not Billy. Book-Camila is unlike any character I’ve seen before, with all of her ethos on love and faith and holding onto both while dealing with physical and emotional infidelity in her relationship. Deep down, she doesn’t care what Billy says, feels, or does because she knows that he loves her and will always come home to her at the end of the day. She doesn’t need to be the only one she loves as long as she gets the life with him that she wants. Her musings on having faith in people felt so unique and different from the typical scorned woman in the story of an affair. Book-Camila never loses her cool, never breaks down, and always has strong convictions and good intentions. 

To amplify the drama, show-Camila is forced to deal with more of the typical storyline of a woman who is cheated on. She’s paranoid, suspicious, vengeful, and angry. The display of these emotions aren’t all bad, but the worst of which is her attempt to even the score by pursuing a fling with Eddie, who in the show harbors a secret love for her. This was one of the worst book-to-show changes for me. In the book, Eddie has a big ego and despises Billy for being the leader and star of the band. In the show, in addition to his ego, Eddie has a crush on Camila from the beginning and it is implied they have a brief affair that Billy later finds out about. This all further complicates the love triangle and the interpersonal relationships of the band but, to me, it added an unnecessary layer. Some fans have posted online that they wanted Eddie and Camila to end up together which I really don’t understand. Eddie, with or without a crush on Camila, sucks as a person. He’s annoying and self-centered and the show does a good job of conveying that. Just because he shows more outward care towards Camila, doesn’t mean he would necessarily be a better partner for her. 

I understand that from a dramatic standpoint, the show maybe needed a heightened tension that the book doesn’t have, but I don’t think that all drama needs to be romantic in nature to be interesting. I actually liked that, in the book, the issues that the bandmates had with each other weren’t all the same. Some were romantic, some were familial, and some were based on personality clashes. The show pushing all the storylines toward a romantic center took away the complexity of the drama. All the conflict stemmed from love versus multiple conflicts stemming from love, power, desire, dreams, values, and more. Not everyone has love as their #1 priority.

That is actually the core of the Graham and Karen storyline: Graham wants to find love and Karen wants to be a rockstar. Their arc in the show stays the most true to what happened in the book. The biggest difference was that they revealed their relationship to the rest of the band while, in the book, even 40 years later it wasn’t public knowledge. When this change first occurred, I was worried they were going to change the ending of their story to have them end up together, but was relieved they didn’t. I’m not sure why they had to change this detail if it didn’t impact the rest of the story. I think Graham and Karen’s relationship represents a different version of Daisy and Billy’s. Both couples want to be together in some capacity and have deep connections but, in the end, they prove that loving someone isn’t always enough. There are so many other factors involved that can make the person you love not the person you should be with. Daisy and Billy love each other but their sobriety and mental health are more important than being together. Karen loves Graham but she wants a career and doesn’t want to settle down and raise a family. Graham wants that someday and Karen won’t let him give that up for her the way she won’t compromise her goals for him either. Karen is yet another example of a strong female character in this story. She knows exactly what she wants and will not be influenced by people or society’s expectations of her. Their story does have a heartbreaking ending because you know they love each other, but ultimately neither of them would have been able to give the other the life they wanted.

Warren was the only sane character in the entire story. He was self aware enough to realize how good they all had it and just let himself enjoy it, despite everything not being perfect all the time. It’s honestly probably better to have less of the spotlight and the same amount of money and experience. I always think that being a non-famous friend of a celebrity is the best thing to be. You get to tag along for all the experiences and perks but still get to be anonymous when you walk down the street. Warren understood that, which probably contributed to his positive and laid back attitude.

The final character I want to talk about is Simone. This one is complicated. The show gives Simone a much more expanded role than she has in the book. I don’t have any issues with the Simone storyline itself but more the fact that it was there at all. Simone is an important character as essentially Daisy’s only friend and family. Daisy needs someone to look out for her. But Simone’s really just there to be a part of Daisy’s story and not have her own. The moments spent in Simone’s bubble were just more time away from the band and the central story I cared about. The episode in Greece that is almost a bottle episode was probably the worst of the bunch for me since the show really shines in moments that feature the interplay of the band members. Any time spent away from that center just dragged for me. The reason this is complicated is that I understand it doesn’t look good to have the one character of color (Teddy Price is a white, British man in the book but changed to a black man in the show) just there to be a sidekick. They used Simone’s character to inject comments on race, sexuality, and gender identity in the 70’s music scene, all themes that the book does not address. I think these themes are incredibly important and should be discussed, but then let’s create more stories about them. Not every story has to be about everything. This is a story about this one band and the members of that band, not about the entire music scene in the 1970s. Trying to mesh these largely unconnected stories felt like it lessened the impact of both by not allotting either the time and depth it deserved.

If the time management on the show was executed better, I think there’s a lot that could have been explored deeper. For me, a few scenes and storylines suffered from a lack of explanation. I know a main adage of any storytelling is “show, don’t tell”. You want to lead audiences to an understanding instead of telling them straight to their face. But the style of the book as an oral history/documentary uniquely allows characters to reflect back on the story with deeper insight and provide commentary that you typically wouldn’t get from people in the moment. The show kept the same storytelling style but greatly decreased the instances of documentary scenes. The show would not flow as smoothly if it were constantly cutting back and forth, but I think the story would have benefitted from just a few added documentary interview scenes. In general, I think hearing a bit more from music critics and experts of the time would give us a better understanding of the band’s place in the music industry and celebrity scene at the time. We see small benchmarks throughout the the series of crowd and venue sizes, Rolling Stone covers, and #1 hits, but a few experts talking about the band’s impact and legacy would have been a nice touch. 

The one scene or storyline I felt suffered the most from a lack of explanation was when Billy went on a bender after Camila got pregnant with Julia and then later refused to meet his daughter. It is touched on super briefly in the show but also takes a while to get to the explanation. I knew the reasoning behind his actions and decisions in that moment from reading the book but I kept wondering if non-book readers would understand what was happening. Billy has some really great analysis in the book about his issues with his own father and therefore doubts about fatherhood for himself that could have elevated these scenes. Also just a tiny nitpick that one my favorite quotes from the book was omitted from the show. They included some of it but the end of the book quote encapsulates the entire story so well I think it should have been in there.

“Passion is…it’s fire. And fire is great, man. But we’re made of water. Water is how we keep living. Water is what we need to survive. My family was my water. I picked water. I’ll pick water every time. And I wanted Daisy to find her water. Because I couldn’t be it.” – Billy

Also had to sneak in another perfect quote about relationships that could have added a layer of depth and self-reflection you get with the passing of time:

“I wish someone had told me that love isn’t torture. Because I thought love was this thing that was supposed to tear you in two and leave you heartbroken and make your heart race in the worst way. I thought love was bombs and tears and blood. I did not know that it was supposed to make you lighter, not heavier. I didn’t know it was supposed to take only the kind of work that makes you softer. I thought love was war. I didn’t know it was supposed to… I didn’t know it was supposed to be peace.” – Daisy

There were other book-to-show changes I ended up not minding. You may have noticed that the band “The Six” actually has 5 members. The character who was written out of the show, Eddie’s brother Pete, lifts out the story fairly well. He does not participate in the documentary in the book, so contributes very little to the story. How they still decided on the name “The Six” for the band is pretty flimsy, but ultimately I didn’t miss Pete. I had also heard before the show even came out that the songs would be completely different from the book. This really bothered me at first because all of the song lyrics were included in full in the book and all functioned as important parts of the narrative. I didn’t understand why they would change the songs when half the work was already done for them. Cut to a month later and I’m listening to the album on repeat, not caring one bit that they’re different from the book songs. That’s the thing about changes, if they’re good enough you barely notice them.

Believe it or not, there’s a million other things I could say about this show. About every small detail from the album cover to the wardrobe to the dialogue. But I feel like I just spent the majority of this talking about everything I didn’t like about the show and that doesn’t accurately represent my experience watching it. I really, really enjoyed this show. Despite the differences from the book, it still depicts a painfully heartbreaking relationship between two people who are simultaneously perfect for each other and terrible for each other. It’s emotional, it’s funny, it’s cool, it’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it has some powerful performances. The ending is executed almost perfectly and is altogether sad and hopeful. It leaves you wanting more because, while our story is done, Billy and Daisy’s is just about to get a second start. In conclusion: read the book, listen to the album, watch the show!

2023 Count: 6 seasons, 17 movies