‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ Season 1 Episode 7 Recap: “She’s Gone”

The last time we saw Simone Jackson was in Daisy Jones & The Six Episode 4 (“I Saw The Light”), when Daisy’s disco diva BFF hopped a Greyhound for New York City and a reunion with her crush, Bernie. And that’s where we rejoin her, as she winds her way through the lively scene on the dance floor of late ’70s clubland stalwart Better Days. Bernie’s in the DJ booth, and she has a surprise for Simone: it’s her vocals over a disco track, and the club is mad for it. “My beautiful brothers, my lovely sisters,” Bernie says on the mic, “here she is, in the flesh, the Lady Simone.” And as their relationship blossoms Simone’s career starts to accelerate, with the residency at Better Days joined by gigs in midtown clubs, central New Jersey roller discos, and on bills with heavy hitters like Chic and Trammps. Simone is finally making it. But then she gets a cryptic telegram from Daisy. “I need you.” So Simone and Bernie pack their bags and head for the Greek island of Hydra. 

With all of the drama of Episode 6 (“Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”) – Billy kissing Daisy, Billy and Daisy freezing each other out, Karen and Graham becoming a thing, and even Camila maybe sleeping with Eddie? – it’s rather pleasant to trek across the impossible blue of the Aegean Sea with Simone and Bernie as they stand at the prow of the Greek fishing boat delivering them to Hydra, where the taxis have four hooves and a mane. Daisy has traded in her denim cutoffs and bangles for a never ending series of gauzy wraps, and she laughs away the trouble suggested between the lines of her three-word telegram. She’s totally not in jail. She is totally in love, and in typically spontaneous Daisy fashion, she’s totally getting married. And she couldn’t do it without her maid of honor, who’s more than a little taken aback. 

So, is Daisy’s new husband going to live on a tour bus with The Six for eight months? Because spontaneity doesn’t cancel out responsibility, and back in the US Aurora is charting as its support tour looms. That’s Simone’s position, anyway, and it would certainly be that of Teddy Price, were he here. But Daisy just introduces her fiance Nicky (Gavin Drea), the handsome son of Irish nobility who holds down homes in Greece and Italy, and says she isn’t going back to The Six. “Billy made me miserable, and Nicky makes me happy.” And besides, Jonah Berg’s story is out; it made the cover of the Rolling Stone. “Billy told me that he thinks ‘Talent like Daisy’s is wasted on someone like Daisy,’” Berg writes in his feature “Love, Lust & Hatred: The Complex Relationship At The Heart Of America’s Next Great Band.” “But would Daisy’s talent be present in a less difficult person?” In Nicky’s sunny stone villa overlooking Hydra, she stuffs the magazine into a drawer. Her fiancé doesn’t even know she’s a singer, let alone one with the number one single in America. 

On Hydra, Nicky’s group of friends are all cosmopolitan free thinkers who wax philosophical on balconies as children flit about and everyone drinks moschofilero and assyrtiko. One guy hands Daisy a bong and says he once wrote a 28-stanza lyric poem after smoking primo kush from it. “Never let other people tell you whether your work has value,” he says, and she uses this advice and this bunch’s whole entire vibe to justify her whirlwind pivot from band life to a bohemian love fest with Nicky.

She has made a ton of mistakes, and done things she’ll forever regret, Daisy tells her interviewer in the present. “But I don’t regret that day.” And after a lovely hillside wedding ceremony, Daisy and Nicky throw a bonfire bash for all of their friends, where Simone pleads with the groom to talk some sense into her pal. He won’t, and he’s kind of a dick about it. “She says she’s happy. Do you not want her to be happy?” Nicky also suggests to Daisy that Simone is in love with her.

The blush of island life in Hydra has faded, and Simone turns down Daisy’s offer to stay another week. “I have shows booked. And bills to pay. Responsibilities. Some of us have to work, Daisy. Some of us have to work our damn asses off to get the breaks you’ve gotten.” She says Daisy doesn’t want to hear the truth, that she’s scared of Billy Dunne, scared of the public scrutiny that comes with notoriety, and a coward for running away from it all. This doesn’t go well. But finally, Simone says she does love Daisy, after a fashion, and so she’s gonna lay down some truth: “You’re a real selfish bitch.” 

As Simone and Bernie shove off for New York City, Daisy is left to consider her options. Keep her ambitions with Billy and The Six proverbially stuffed in a drawer, or confront the pain and uncertainty and re-engage with the rock ‘n’ roll life? Nicky has already proven to be a font of daily affirmation-style word jumbles — “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional,” “It’s easy to confuse a soul mate with a mirror” — and with his platitudes Daisy is inspired to go back to LA. With Nicky beside her, he says, it won’t be the same, because he’ll protect her? Alright, but in that scenario he’s right back to living on a tour bus for nearly a year. 

The newlyweds land in California, and “Regret Me” is on the radio in their taxi. “Is this you?” Nicky asks. And Daisy offers a resigned sigh. “I guess we’re about to find out.” 

Needle drops in Daisy Jones & The Six Episode 7:

The Trammps, “Disco Inferno” 

Les Terribles, “Chouchou”

Mina, “Citta Vuota”

Nino Ferrer, “Mirza”

Daisy Jones & The Six, “Regret Me”

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges