It took a while to get here, but Daisy Jones & The Six finally examines the fallout of the rocky relationships that took so much time and cared to establish. Daisy and Billy are, of course, the primary duo that comes to mind when talking about unstable relationships, but it isn’t without Daisy coming to terms with the issues she has with herself and others in her life that gets us to that point. Previous episodes have shown Daisy’s inability to face any conflict in her life head-on, and the consequences are now raining down on her without any real chance of escape.
Episode seven, “She’s Gone,” shifts focus away from Daisy for a moment to focus on Simone (Nabiyah Be), who is gaining success in New York’s thriving disco scene. We see her growing confidence in herself, her talent, and her relationship with Bertie, even though she isn’t entirely on board with making their relationship public. However, as soon as she gets an opportunity to meet with music execs, she gets a telegram from Daisy – who has an apparent aversion to less fear-inducing methods of communication – asking Simone to come to Greece, where she’s run away to.
When Simone discovers that Daisy wants to abandon The Six and their upcoming tour to marry Nicky, a rich and royal adjacent man she just met. In her mind, Daisy’s choice to marry Nicky stems from love. What’s clear to the viewer and Simone is that she’s running away from her life and what her life could be with Billy in the picture. Simone attempts to reason with Daisy: she needs to return to reality, she needs to be responsible, and most of all, she needs not to let Billy Dunne keep her from squandering the many opportunities she’s been given.
Most of the previous episodes have taken Daisy’s story and mirrored it against the rest of the members of The Six. Here, we get to see how her rise to fame and success are very different from Simone’s path. Where Simone has had to fight and struggle to find any modicum of accomplishment, Daisy has almost stumbled into hers. It’s an interesting dynamic at play, and when Simone calls her selfish for potentially leaving it all behind, Daisy implies (at the suggestion of Nicky) that maybe Simone is just in love with her. It’s a horrible accusation that Daisy obviously doesn’t believe. But for a woman so afraid of letting herself be seen, accusing someone of being in love with her as a defense mechanism is pretty effective because she knows that while Simone does love her, she isn’t in love with her. She takes Simone’s advice, returns to California after marrying Nicky, and rejoins the band for tour rehearsal.
It’s clear that Daisy doesn’t yet know what love really is, and the little part of her that thinks she might love Billy is the same part of her pushing away Simone. Daisy’s lashing out at Simone is shockingly similar to how she’s lashed out at Billy in the past, all because she fears letting her guard down long enough for someone to get to her. She wants to silence that part of her brain, the part letting Billy get in her head.
How does she do this? With drugs and alcohol, of course.
“Looks Like We Made It” is a frantic and charged episode of television, especially in contrast to the previous chapter’s slower pace. Billy and Daisy’s reunion after her quick trip to Greece and after the Rolling Stone article is not a pleasant interaction. They are both angry, insistent that the other is in the wrong, and the only thing they can agree about is that they must be separated at all times on the tour. They think their anger equals dislike or apathy, but it’s clear that neither of them is anywhere close to quitting the other. Despite all of this, the tour starts and goes surprisingly well. The audiences love them, the music sounds great, Daisy and Billy have more chemistry than ever, and they all get to celebrate every night. Well, everyone except Billy, who is doing his best to avoid getting sucked into the endless drinking and partying.
On the other hand, Daisy is doing more drugs than ever, all with her new husband cheering her on. We see this repeatedly in multiple scenes of her snorting coke and getting drunk. Daisy receives a letter addressed to “Margaret,” her birth name, and clearly from her mother or someone from her past. When Daisy eventually falls on stage and then bursts into a solo rendition of Look At Us Now with blood running down her leg it’s clear she’s reached a point of no return, perhaps similar to the place Billy was in when he missed his daughter’s birth. Billy had urged Nicky to convince Daisy to slow down, something her husband did not take to heart. Her drinking is out of control, and when she overdoses, Billy comes to her rescue, not Nicky. Their struggle for power on this tour has come to a screeching halt as Billy forgets all that and holds Daisy in his arms, begging her to wake up.
It’s the Daisy and Billy show now, and while their story is compelling, it’s not hard to miss the other characters. Did Eddie and Camila sleep together? What’s going on with her photography? Karen and Graham are adorable, and the most we get to see of them is when Karen defends him to the rest of the band and tells them they have been sleeping together. It’s all charming and fun and should have been integrated into this episode more to help lighten up the intensity with Billy and Daisy. They are both struggling in their own ways, Daisy with a very real drug and alcohol dependency and Billy with his potential feelings for someone other than his wife. Going into the final two episodes, it feels like the band’s imminent collapse is minutes away from destroying everything we have seen so far.
