Thought For The Day

    There is much to swallow during the episode of 'Many Happy Returns.' However that is not to say that the episode does not work. Where 'Many Happy Returns' does succeed is with the central character of the Prisoner. Because after escaping the Village, and having attained the freedom he craved so much. More than this he has the freedom of movement, the fact that no-one appears to be persuing him. And yet he can find no-one who will take his story seriously. Mrs Butterworth said she believed him, but then she would, wouldn't she?!
    The Prisoner finds he has no friends. His home is no longer his castle, and having returned to London he is a man without identity, at least in the Village he had a number!
   In the outside world the Prisoner is alienated. The raggedy man looks like a tramp, and having knocked on the door of his one time house, the housemaid Martha looks down her nose at him, and then shuts the door in his face. Who the Prisoner thought might be there to answer his knock on the door I don't know. But it is a young gypsy woman who shows the Prisoner the first genuine act of kindness since his abduction to the Village.
  But the Prisoner's new found freedom is a myth. He has been under the control of the Village authorities since the moment he cast off aboard his sea-going raft, aided by the Prisoner's predictability. They knew where the Prisoner would run to, when after finally achieving escape. After all home is the only place he could go, and his ex-colleagues, the Colonel and Thorpe being the only people who might be able to help him.
    And yet in the end, the Prisoner is his own worst enemy, because no-one asked him to go looking for the Village, it's like watching a man committing suicide! And yet, in the outside world the Prisoner is no-one. He has no home, no friends, at least in the Village he has an identity, people know him. And it would appear that his home is there, and a friend is there to greet him with a cake upon his return. The Prisoner may be back in the Village, but at least he can exist again, and this may be reason enough for celebration!

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