If you visited these parts in 2019, you’re probably familiar with how obsessed Duana and I were with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling book, Daisy Jones & The Six. We wrote about it constantly, we talked about it constantly, and we had Taylor Jenkins Reid on our podcast! Which explained our excitement in Duana’s post from a couple of weeks ago when the first look teaser was released.

 

This week they dropped the first full trailer. And both of us… haaaaaated it. Duana described it as “music wanky”, LOL. My issue is that they seem to be really focusing on the love triangle between Daisy, Billy, and Camila. Which, sure, that happened in the book but it wasn’t a main takeaway, it wasn’t THE focal plot point. Because Daisy Jones & The Six isn’t a romance novel. Romance happens, but it happens around the work. The work is the nucleus. 

This is the story about a band, the band dynamic, how they came together, how they fell apart. And the falling apart part isn’t about two people, it’s about all the people, all the members and their fractured relationships, the rivalry, the unforgiveable betrayals… some of which don’t even involve Daisy. 

In the trailer, though, we’re not seeing much of the other band members – there are six of them in total. In addition to Daisy, played by Riley Keogh, and Billy, played by Sam Claflin, it’s Graham, Eddie, Pete, and Karen… WHERE IS KAREN?!?

 

If you’ve read the book, you know that Karen is not a side character; Taylor Jenkins Reid put a lot into Karen, she says a LOT through Karen. The fact that Karen has been practically disappeared from this trailer so as to give more attention to this love triangle…

It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a reflection of the series overall, for sure. Trailers can sometimes misrepresent the show – a trailer is a marketing tool, after all. And the people who are trying to market Daisy Jones & The Six to its potential audience likely felt that a love triangle would draw people in. 

Obviously, over ten episodes, there’s going to be a lot more story to tell. Which is where we’ll hopefully be spending a lot more time on what this is really about, where the central conflicts really are. 

 

Because in the book, if there is a love triangle, it’s Billy, Graham, and Eddie that take up more triangle space than Daisy, Billy, and Camila ever did. In fact, Camila’s not that big of a presence in the book. And if this were a film, I wonder if she would have remained that way. I wonder if they expanded the role because it’s a ten-part series which totally tracks. But expanding it to the point where in the trailer Camila is #3 on the call sheet is… 

Not the conversation I want to be having about this show when it premieres in two weeks. 

And on top of that, over and above the fact that the love triangle didn’t really play out in the book like they’re suggesting in the trailer, is that Camila in the trailer isn’t the person we meet in the book. For Camila, the biggest threat to her relationship with Billy wasn’t Daisy. It was fame and all its trappings. Daisy and Billy don’t make Camila interesting. What makes Camila interesting is that she’s the proxy for the people on the periphery of fame, the people who aren’t on stage but who love those who own the stage. She represents the reality of that life, she is the embodiment of the faith that you have to have in what’s real amid the chaos of celebrity and success. In other words, Camila is a lot more than the “wife who’s worried by the other woman”. 

 

But again, I go back to the fact that this is just a trailer. And that in the end, it might not mean anything by the time all the episodes are available on Prime and we can play out the entire story arc – with all these different perspectives. Because that’s what’s also SO compelling about Daisy Jones & The Six. This is an oral history about a band from inside and outside and every character has a version of what happened. Which means every character is their own main character. And every character is unreliable. I can’t wait to see how they play with that in the series. So for all the concern I just laid out, I still have faith, I’ll still be  bingeing the sh-t out of this, watching every episode at least twice. Also re-reading the book this weekend. 

Daisy Jones & The Six is releasing on Prime Video on March 3 in four parts with new episodes every Friday until March 24.