Who is Billie Fisher in The Impossible Plant?
Who is Billie Fisher in The Impossible Plant? Meet Andrea’s gifted PhD assistant and increasingly important research partner.
Billie Fisher is the gifted PhD candidate who becomes Dr Andrea Williams’ laboratory assistant in The Impossible Plant. Her arrival affects both Andrea’s secret research and the carefully controlled life Andrea has built around her work.
Billie arrives in Episode 1 already familiar with Andrea’s research on stress-induced metabolic switching in endangered alpine flora. Andrea knows plenty about Billie too. She has read Billie’s work, challenges one of its conclusions and reveals that Billie was not assigned to her by chance. Andrea personally chose her because she believes she has considerable potential.
Billie is not intimidated by Andrea’s formal manner. She repeatedly asks to be called Billie rather than Miss Fisher, and by the end of her first day she has already challenged Andrea intellectually.
Episode 2 shows how quickly she has made herself indispensable. She arrives early with coffee and has already organised Andrea’s research data before a busy day of meetings. When Dr Burroughs warns her that Andrea has a reputation for being difficult, serious and demanding, Billie strongly disagrees and describes Andrea as welcoming, patient and “amazing”. She also learns that Andrea’s father, Lewis, was a botanist who died from cancer when Andrea was around 18 or 19.
Billie is at the centre of the series’ most talked-about moment so far. When she spills a chemical on her hand at the end of Episode 2, Andrea rushes to help and washes it off herself, a scene creator Charlize Remi has described as the first time Andrea departs from her usual stoicism.
In Episode 3, Billie proves why Andrea chose her. She notices a pattern suggesting that environmental stress may be triggering the compound linked to Andrea’s mysterious plant, and Andrea responds by arranging security clearance so they can work on the project together. The same episode leaves Billie with a small mystery of her own when flowers arrive. She says she does not know who sent them and does not want them, and the sender has not been revealed.
Charlize has given Billie habits of her own. Billie smiles a lot and purses her lips when she is thinking, and she is the only person who can bring out Andrea’s softer side.
That makes Billie much more than a new assistant. She is both an important scientific partner and the person gradually getting past Andrea’s emotional defences.
Watch The Impossible Plant on YouTube, follow Charlize Remi on Instagram and Facebook, and support the series on Patreon.
