Prismatic Reflection

    The Prisoner is never what it seems to be. What I mean is most of the time it’s what we make it. And try as we may its impossible to make all the pieces fit. Its like a jigsaw puzzle, you’re infuriated when you get to the end and find there are one or two pieces missing. The trouble with ‘the Prisoner’ is, when you’re trying to fit it all together, you find there are one or two pieces over! For example, the cause of Number 2’s death must have been through the drink. Remember Number 2 himself said the drink was one hundred percent proof, which in itself is not poison unless you drink sufficient enough to poison the blood. Number 2 didn’t drink enough to do that, so if it was the drink that caused his death, that’s that all fine and dandy. Except there’s a piece of the puzzle over, the fact that Number 6 drank from the same bottle as Number 2, and he didn’t die! So was the glass which Number 2 drank from laced {smeared} with poison, and if so who did it? Well it wasn’t Number 6, so it must have been…..the butler, as in many a murder mystery!
    And the butler, he’s always there somewhere about, and seems always to be at the centre of things. He was the first in the Embryo Room, and seemed to know just how to assist Number 2 without instructions. And another thing, if the butler was first in the Embryo Room, standing there in the child’s play pen playing with the baby’s rattle, who turned the lights out?
   Perhaps it was the butler who did it, laced Number 2’s glass that is. Well there were only three people in the room, and the door was on a time-lock, no-one out, and no-one in! What’s more the Butler knew about the Scammel Highwayman transporter in ‘Fall Out.’ It has always struck me that the butler knew a great deal more about The Village and its infrastructure that he was letting on! He was there at the centre of the Appreciation Day ceremony. He told the electorate what to chant at the speeches by holding up appropriate cards. But what business does the butler have in the Council Chamber when Number 6 is brought before the Committee? Perhaps he makes the tea!
    Number 86 tells Number 6 that she’s higher. That’s the Mytol sedative! She tells him that she’s higher than Number 2, but I reckon that’s the Mytol drug talking! You see I’ve sometimes wondered about that, is 86 higher that 1? I suppose it’s like the Ace in a deck of cards. The Ace can be high or low, making a King, Queen, or even a Knave higher than an Ace!
   And writing of Knaves, that Number 6 was taken in by that Nadia Rakovsky, if indeed that was her real name. Although its highly likely that Nadia was her first name, as spies and secret agents tend to use their real first name. Its the one chink in his otherwise protective suit of armour, he cannot resist a damsel in distress. Okay, he did manage to resist his personal maid Number 66, but then he saw straight through her, but not through Nadia. She said she knew the location of The Village, having seen a file but for as few seconds only. She must have been a quick reader. Nadia told Number 6 that she had a contact man, the man in the cave. Why didn’t Number 6 stop to think for a moment, and ask himself, how was it possible for Nadia to make contact with Karel {the man in the cave}, when she was a prisoner in The Village? Perhaps Number 6 thought the man stayed in the cave on the off-chance that Nadia would turn up one day! Then Number 6 didn’t stop to think because he was blinded, not by Nadia, but by escape! However thinking more about that, had Karel been Nadia’s contact man living day after day in that cave waiting for contact from Nadia, would have meant he knew where she was all along. And from which direction she would come!
   The next damsel to seek the help of the Prisoner is ‘B’ of ‘A B and C.’ Yet we know little or nothing about ‘B’ only that she is a spy, from a very long line of spies, and that she knew the Prisoner in a previous life.  That in itself suggests that Number 6 was a secret agent in his previous life. But for which side did ‘B’ work? Certainly she knew that she could rely on the Prisoner if she ever found herself in a tight spot! Alison was the next woman to become embroiled with Number 6, but we don’t know how. It must surely have been through their genuine mental link, but we still don’t know how that came about. Neither do we know how Alison did in her mind reading act, or the photographic competition at The Village Festival. In fact we don’t know anything about The Village Festival at all, its something that we as the television viewer are not privy to. But we do know that as it stands, producing that Polaroid picture which Alison took of Number 6, should have brought about the downfall of Number 12-Curtis! And yet it would have worked, had both Six’s been wearing identical piped blazers, as per the original plan for the episode.
    Never trust a woman. That’s been a hard lesson for Number 6 with Nadia and Alison. And yet the doctor of ‘A B and C’ well she didn’t betray 6. At the end she seemed pleased that he had got the better of Number 2. But that doesn’t answer why the doctor had a laboratory hidden somewhere in the woods, when all other such experiments are conducted at the hospital. Number 58, she played her part very well. I’d hate to think what 58, as the new Number 2, would have done to our friend Number 6 during her term in office! Again that is something to which we as the viewer are not privy to. In fact I’m of the opinion that there’s as much to ‘the Prisoner’ that we do not see, as that which we do see.
   At one point I thought there was another side we were going to see of Number 6 at the end of ‘The General.’ The super computer had been destroyed, both Number 12 and the Professor dead, and at her home the grieving widow. Number 6 then appeared on the scene. I thought he was going to offer comfort to Madam Professor, but no, instead he goes into the house probably to have a poke around. Not that I expect there would be very much for him to find. And what would Madam Professor care, she had lost her husband, and would be forced to spend the rest of her life in The Village. In fact women play more of a part in Number 6’s life that one might first imagine, especially during the ‘Dance of the Dead!’
    Number 2 said of Number 6’s reliable men, that they would all be back on the chessboard tomorrow. Well the shopkeeper wasn’t for one, he was replaced by a weasel type of character Number 112. And we don’t see the white Queen-Number 8. Mind you she had probably been assigned to someone else. In fact after the episode of ‘Checkmate,’ we don’t see the large chessboard set out on the lawn again!
    Poor 73, she was brought to The Village because they couldn’t find her husband. Oh he was somewhere over there, presumably behind the iron Curtain finishing off some business he had there. Number 2 had a photograph of 73’s husband with the woman Mariah. So if they knew where the woman Mariah was, then it follows that they should have known where 73’s husband was, seeing as they had a photograph of them together! Perhaps they’d have been better off by bringing the woman Mariah to The Village!
    It was nearly a funeral for the retired Number 2, but who ended up almost flying the coop! I wonder what changed his mind, seeing as the helicopter turned back to the Village mid flight like that. Perhaps the retired Number 2 didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder! They would have got him sooner or later, no matter where he went, and he knew that. Perhaps by returning to The Village he thought he would be better off there, able to live out the rest of his life in quite retirement in the Old People’s Home! Or was it the pilot who decided to return the retiring Number 2 back to The Village. If so upon who’s orders? Certainly not by order of the new Number 2 that’s for sure!
    Number 6 was threatened with the procedure known as Instant Social Conversion, in other words a leucotomy to isolate the aggressive frontal lobes. This operation was recommended by the doctor-Number 22 in ‘Checkmate,’ but Number 2 said Number 6 was far too important. But by the time of ‘A Change of Mind’ it would seem that Number 6’s importance is beginning to wear a bit thin, especially with the citizens of The Village. But even then Number 2 wasn’t so irresponsible as to seen Number 86 carry out a leucotomy operation on Number 6, but just to keep him sedated. After all such barbaric operations didn’t do the patient any good in the long run. The operation would either have no affect on the patient, or the patient would lose his mind utterly and completely. That’s why Number 2 was so concerned about “losing Number 6” while tapping the side of his head.
    Living In Harmony, isn’t that what they wanted people to do in ‘A Change of Mind?
    ‘The Girl Who Was Death,’ no mystery here, but the episode is comparable to other television series, and films. An extraordinary story which is fitting enough for ‘The Avengers.‘ And yet through this episode we are perhaps privy to the kind of work the Prisoner-Number 6 carried out in his former job. Unless of course he was making it all up as he went along!
    ‘Once upon A Time,’ the Prisoner is regressed back to his childhood, and parts of his life are played out in the Embryo room, from the cradle to the grave in fact. The only mystery being how did Number 2 die? We may have wondered about the drink, but perhaps we should turn our minds to other possible causes, like a heart attack brought about by the stress of the ordeal. And had it not been for the advent of ‘Fall Out’ and the eventual resuscitation of Number 2 he would have remained dead, and we the television viewer would have waited for the advent of the second series of ‘the Prisoner!’
   However as it is, the Prisoner known as Number 6 finally escaped The Village and managed to return to his home in the City of Westminster. Although now he has certain information inside his head, such as which side ran The Village. He knows who Number 1 was. He knows the location of The Village, and he knows why he was abducted and taken there. But perhaps there are other questions that need to answered. Maybe he’s looking for retribution as he drives through the streets of London, back to that office in which he originally handed in his letter of resignation. But then there’s that word PRISONER which we see on the screen towards the end of ‘Fall Out.’ Is it the knowledge the Man With No Name now has about The Village that keeps him a prisoner? Or at the end of ‘Fall Out’ are we witnessing the actual beginning of all that is to come once the Prisoner has handed in his resignation? It might be that it’s all part of a vicious circle, that the Prisoner is about to go through all over again. If he is, I wonder what memories, if any, he retains from his previous experience of his time in The Village!

I’ll be seeing you