It has been supposed that this episode concerns itself with demonstrating that no matter where Number Six goes, he can never evade the long reach of the Village. Meaning that there is nowhere he can go, where he cannot be found, retrieved, and returned to the Village, no matter the circumstances. Well that's as maybe. Yet I feel there is more to this episode than the simple re-incarceration of the Prisoner.
'Many Happy Returns' gives a false freedom to the Prisoner. It is the torture of escape, only to be recaptured, and unceremoniously returned to the confines of the Village, a game of 'cat and mouse,' in which the Prisoner ecapes, is given a glimpse of the world beyond the Village. The torture to find that someone else is living in his former home. That someone else now owns his beloved Lotus 7, placing doubt and mistrust in the mind of the Prisoner. And then it is all snatched away from him once more.
For his captors, there is the pleasure of control, in manipulating the Prisoner. Giving him escape, hope, and then dashing those hopes, taking away his freedom {if he was ever really free}, amused as they were at the thought that 'they' could return the Prisoner to the Village at any time of their choice. You will recall the breaking of the cup and saucer just as the Priosner was to set sail aboard his raft, that was a torture in itself. The Prisoner having gone to all that effort and hard work in having built his sea-going raft, to think that the game was up so early. Yet at the same time, in seeing that it was only the cat, also gave the Prisoner renewed hope. In as much as the game was far from up, and there was still chance of escape.
The pleasure for his captors being in the control they exert over the Prisoner. They could allow him to escape, hunt him down, bring him back to the Village, so that they could continue their torment and manipulation of the Prisoner all over again, in other and more fascinating ways.
This I learned from the Marquis De Sade.
Be seeing you
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