Daisy Jones and the Six

Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote the novel and then co-produced this excellent limited series. The novel follows the “unreliable narrator” approach, where different characters tell different and often conflicting versions of events. The show changes that format, and Jenkins Reid and the main characters say it does a perfect job showing what actually happened. It’s glorious to watch. I watched it three times (skipping one episode the third time through). We see the characters as they struggle with addiction, marital conflict, competing interests, some backstabbing, fears, and a chaotic run of success, failure, success, and then what appears to be a chaotic and powerful final failure. But wait: as all the pieces come together, we find things we didn’t know, and we find joy again. I watched the ending several times, crying each time. There aren’t enough words to describe how much this show moved me. The lead characters say it moved them as well.

Riley Keough (Elvis’ granddaughter and heir) is powerful as Daisy Jones; so are Camila Morrone (Camila Alvarez, Billy’s wife and Julia Dunne’s mother), Sam Claflin (Billy Dunne), Suki Waterhouse (Karen Sirko, the pianist), and Nabiyah Be and Ayesha Harris as a gay couple at a time when it was not okay to be gay in public. (Nabiyah, as Simone Jackson, makes a powerful statement when she walks away from the recording contract she’s wanted her whole life because of a clause that would have forced her and Ayesha to keep their relationship secret.) Timothy Olyphant plays a completely unexpected role as the band’s manager, nothing like the tough cop roles he’s famous for from Deadwood and Justified.

To add a postscript, I am now trying to finish my first novel and created this website because I was inspired by Taylor Jenkins Reid (and in particular by her novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Carrie Soto is Back, Daisy Jones and The Six, and Malibu Rising, in that order).

See the Daily Beast review.