Daisy Jones & the Six
★★★★★★★★☆☆
Oh man, that's a wrap on Daisy Jones. This is begging for reflection.
I watch almost everything sped up, but not this. I consider it like reading quickly for the information. I'm rarely feeling myself connected or drawn in by the characters. I'm not on some noble quest to only find and vibe with "the best" or most "deep" and "novel," which I think makes my satisfaction with a series like this all the more enjoyable. This is a very simple story, simply followed and told, and the complexity of the issues it speaks to are handled simply. Simply, but not cheaply. If you watch as much TV as I do, you'll see hundreds of alcoholics, needlessly-complicated love stories, and a kind of matter-of-factism that carries everything forward often against the will of any sense or decency. The rise-to-fame rock-n-roll atmosphere here is, incidentally, a perfect home to couch every room you might walk through.
Simple characters means you don't have to get gritty and gross about substance abuse, near-death experiences, childhood trauma, nor swing for the actual Billboard charts in your song-writing. I liked the music, don't get me wrong, and I'm perfectly happy to accept this being a band created as an homage to Fleetwood Mac, if that's what it was. If you can stop yourself from wishing for something more complicated, you get to ride along like Camilla. You get snapshots, brief insights about things to ponder for maybe the length of a song.
I called this "great" partly because it's comfortably self-contained, and partly because, in my heart of hearts, I'm a romantic. I love when I'm made to dream and believe. I want to be a rockstar, at least, my naive ideal of one, and while this screams the same kind of vibe of an Almost Famous, what comes to mind is Halt and Catch Fire. There's countless stories of people bouncing off one another with the drama-of-the-week or their deep dark secret. There's not so many where you can watch them grow. There's not so many that make you root for redemption because you've watched them work and struggle and come up with every creative "fix" that isn't.
I appreciate that the characters who weren't really highlighted served to ground the flaming-out stardom of the leads. The drummer's having a good time and speaking plainly as to how and why. The father-figure doesn't get the opportunity to get overbearing or awkwardly wedged in, showing up mostly in times of desperation or reflection. The best-friend isn't given a pointless side-quest that feels like a useless excuse to treat being gay in a ham-fisted way, but compliments and contrasts with what it means to gain perspective and own one's identity. [spoiler]Her looking at Daisy on her wedding day was absolutely packed with emotion and allowed to resolve perfectly.[/spoiler]
Every fight scene asks the same kind of questions. What do you really want? To create for its own sake? To be famous? To be loved? To be seen? To be able to see what's been staring at you the whole time? What could be incredibly mellow-dramatic stares into the "we get it" abyss from Billy manage to carry the weight of those questions. You can feel his inability to answer them. Not just with him, but each time one of them gets what they want, it's not quite right. It's wrought with catastrophic potential, but eventually genuine choices start to get made, and life is no longer just happening to them and they start dictating their direction. The band was just what everyone saw, a simple representation, not precisely a lie, at least not in a malicious way, and no one denies the music, but not what they needed.
I see people locked in this infinite battle of what they really want or need all the time. None are dreaming so big, and often enough decisions in the right direction dare them to implode. What do you need to appreciate when the fans, money, family, or general beauty all around you isn't doing it? What's the shape of your desire? Do you have to crash in order to find clarity in the flames? To feel like you've taken control? If you're plugged into a simple rockstar fairytale, you're in for a ride.
This series gets sad, but it doesn't despair. It doesn't really try for laughs as it's not hinting at some underlying joy. It doesn't have the patina of a superficial soap opera. It's not begrudging, hating itself, tongue-in-cheek or painfully self-aware. It's a neatly packaged fantasy, palming tropes, but not carelessly slinging them around and hitting you in the face. I'm thankful it's given me an opportunity to slow down, enjoy the music, and reflect. It's exactly what I want from a show.
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