Monday 8 July 2013

The Therapy Zone


No.6 - A Lucky Number
  "How does one talk to someone that one has met in a dream?"
    And you do, don't you, often dream about those people you know. Such as 'A', in the episode ‘A B and C,’ he was once a friend of No.6. They did the same job, if for different reasons, they both wanted to rule the world. Now on different sides of the iron Curtain, they were once on the same side. 'B' even looks like a spy, and comes from a very long line of spies. The last time No.6 remembers her, she was hiking across the mountains to Switzerland, and got sore feet in the process! Madam Engadine, No.6 also knew, as he was one of many who attended her celebrated parties in Paris. And then there's the woman who hands No.6 one of her diamond earrings "Number six, I'm sure its your lucky number." So who is this woman, the Prisoner must know her, has met her once. Could she be Mrs. Butterworth as pictured above?
    If you take the episodes as they are in the running order that we know the Prisoner to be, where ‘A B and C’ comes before ‘Many Happy Returns,’ then it is difficult to see the woman who hands the Prisoner her diamond earring as being Mrs. Butterworth, although it is possible. However if it was the case that ‘Many Happy Returns’ came before ‘A B and C,’ then the case of this woman actually being Mrs. Butterworth is far stronger. And being so means that the Prisoner had met her as both Mrs. Butterworth in his home, and in the village as the new No.2. Thereby having met the woman he was able to put her in his dream during ‘A B and C,’ this would then explain the her knowing his number, and the in-joke of ; "Number Six, I'm sure its your lucky number."

For A Fistful Of Work Units!
    It has been the case that comparisons have been drawn between the Prisoner episode Living In Harmony and the two Spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "The Man With No Name," ‘A Fistful Of Dollars’ and ‘For A Few Dollars More.’
   In this the two central characters of both have no name, although in a ‘Fistful of Dollars’ the stranger played by Clint Eastwood is referred to as "Joe", but this could be due to the fact that the character is an American!
   Both the stranger "the man with no name" in Harmony,    and "the man with no name" as "loners", but they have a very different attitude towards violence and bloodshed. The character of the stranger-No.6 of Harmony has more in common with the 1950's western character of Shane. A man who knows how to use a gun, is fast on the draw, but only takes up the gun when there is absolutely no other alternative. As for "the man with no mane" it has been written that he has but one ethic, and that's money, and lives by the gun. However in a ‘Fistful of Dollars’ we did see the more compassionate side to "the man with no name" as he reunites a Mexican wife to her husband and young son, giving them the American dollars he seems to value so highly in a bid to help them escape the clutches of the Ramon Rojo. This is the compassionate side to his character which "the man with no name" shares with the stranger in Harmony, in the way he tries to help Cathy escape the clutches of both the Kid and the Judge!

Fancy living in Harmony stranger?

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