A friend recently lent me his entire Prisoner collection, and I’m loving it. I particularly loved the episode “Many Happy Returns,” in which
Number 6 finds the island deserted and finally escapes back to England. He and his secret agency buddies determine the probable island location, and Number 6 goes off in search of it. When the pilot finds the island, he turns around and says “Be seeing you!” to Number 6, then hits the eject button. Six is back on the island, and Number 2 appears with a birthday cake for him to welcome him back. (Oh, and it turned out 2 was the same lady who was living in Six’s old house in England much earlier.)
It was a good, yet painful episode to watch…it really drove home the point that Six was there at the whim of the Powers-That-Be, and that he came and went from the Village entirely at their discretion.
My question is this: what, exactly, did Number Two achieve in this episode? Each episode usually revolved around trying to get information out of Six in some insidious way. This episode’s plot didn’t do that in any obvious way that I could determine. Worse, Six now has a rough idea of where the Village is located, and what’s MUCH worse is that Six’s buddies back in England do, too. (“Hey, Six has been gone for awhile. Think he could be on that island again?”) So…what did Number Two get out of it?
I’ll warn that I haven’t gotten to the final episode yet, so if it relates to the climax, put it in a spoiler box…
You’re thinking too hard. “The Prisoner” resists hard logic. For one thing, the location of the Village shifts throughout the series. If you must make sense out of things, do yourself a favor and do not watch the final episode.
However, one prosaic possibility is that No. 2 and colleagues were spying on No. 6, hoping that by observing him on his home turf they could gain some insight into why he resigned. The less practical but more psychologically interesting possibility is that No. 2 was trying to demoralize No. 6 by telling him, “Even if you think you’ve escaped, you’re still a prisoner.”
As for his buddies in England, can you be sure they learned anything they didn’t already know?
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia from that episode. It is mentioned that Number 6’s birthday is March 19th, which just happens to be Patrick McGoohan’s real birthday.
I’ll agree with TWDuke about the final episode. I don’t think a spoiler box is required for what I’m about to say. Basically, do not expect the final episode to answer all your questions, reveal all the answers, etc.
Be seeing you.
This is one of my favorite episodes–almost heartbreaking on the first viewing. But my understanding of it is that the whole thing was, in a weird, cruel, Villagey kind of way, meant to be Six’s birthday present.
And keep in mind that you never know just how many of his buddies back in England are in on it.
I didn’t get the sense that any of them were in on it in this particular episode for two reasons. First, his buddies at the airport seemed to be radiating support even as Six was getting on the plane. I don’t remember their exact conversation, but it was something like “There goes a very determined man.” You’d think they’d have let their guard drop if either had, in fact, known what was going to happen to Six.
Second, the pilots are clearly switched at the airport. Otherwise, the camera wouldn’t have lingered on the milkman who snuck into the hangar. I suppose the episode was ambiguous enough either way, but it just didn’t feel like those particular characters were in on the plan.
On the other hand, in “The Chimes of Big Ben,”
one of Six’s superiors is clearly in the plan, since he’s sitting in a fake replica of his London office which turns out to be back in the village.
I thought that a big part of this episode was observing what #6 would do.
The people that run The Village seem to me to want to know where 6’s loyalties lie, although it is left carefully ambiguous whether they are 6’s former bosses, or 6’s former opponents.
This time the plan is to give him a longer leash, and see where he goes. Does he go to any secret contacts? Does he go back to his former bosses? Of course, #6 doesn’t give anything away – what he does is try to expose the location and existence of the Village, which – regardless of his loyalties – is an obvious action against whomever runs the Village.
So, while #2 is sending the subtle psychological message, “No matter where you go, you’re ours”, #6 is sending the (rather less subtle) message, “By my words or actions, the only thing you’ll get from me is that I’m not giving in to you.”
This was a common theme in many of the episodes, but especially in this one and in “A, B, or C”. I really liked this episode, though.