Daisy Jones & the Six stars on that unexpected Billy and Daisy moment
Warning: This article contains spoilers about Daisy Jones & the Six episodes 4-6.
Players only love you when they're playing, and Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin) only allows himself to embrace Daisy Jones (Riley Keough) when he wants her to sing a song a certain way.
Or that's what he's going to tell himself, anyway.
On episode 6 of Daisy Jones & the Six, Billy finally gives in to his attraction to Daisy and kisses her in the parking lot outside recording studio Sound City. Throughout their time recording together, their loathing masks an increasing sexual tension between them — and it all comes to a head in a moment where Billy was trying to evoke an emotional response in Daisy.
Fans of the Taylor Jenkins Reid novel will note this is a big shift from the book, where Daisy goes in to kiss Billy during a songwriting session and he pulls away at the last moment. But showrunner Scott Neustadter always felt like perhaps that reminiscence didn't give us the full truth.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne and Riley Keough as Daisy Jones
"They tell the story and you start to wonder if he's being honest," Neustadter tells EW. "How much is he saying and how much is he hiding? And how revisionist history is this? Being able to see something versus just hear somebody tell you — it felt like the move would've been to go for it. And partially it's why Daisy starts spinning out, because he's gaslighting her. He's saying one thing and doing another."
"It's obvious why he's doing it, but it's really bad as a human," he continues. "She calls him out on it and it causes more and more friction and all that stuff is the meat of the show."
Keough anticipates the kiss will divide fans of the book. "I think half the readers would want them to kiss and half would be like so angry that they kiss," she says with a laugh. "Ultimately, that was in Scott's hands."
But she argues that it's not as simple as giving Daisy and Billy shippers what they want. "It was also a very complicated kiss," she explains. "It's not straightforward. The way that it happened is complicated. It's still this grey area of, what was the intention? It adds to that tension between them and trying to figure out what is going on for Billy."
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video Riley Keough and Sam Claflin on 'Daisy Jones and the Six'
Claflin adds that it's not so much about the kiss as it is what the kiss does or doesn't represent, which is true to the spirit of the book. "The kiss doesn't matter. It's whether you love her or not," he says. "The kiss seems in that moment to be something to push her over the edge to get her to sing the song. As a device, it adds so much more flavor and makes the stakes higher. For Billy, he thinks he's in the wrong for having kissed her. And it's not about that. It's about whether he loves her or not."
Still, as Graham (Will Harrison) says in another episode, Billy is great at lying to himself. And his assertion that he only kisses Daisy to get her to sing the song is one such instance.
"A hundred percent [he's lying to himself,]" says Claflin. "He wanted to know what it felt like and has been wondering about that since the day he met her. The tension is palpable. And he carries that up until the final episode."
Daisy Jones & the Six is now streaming on Prime Video with new episodes dropping every Friday through March 24.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
