Trust A Woman – Not No.6!

    “Never trust a woman, not even the four legged variety,” such is Number 6’s ethos towards the fairer sex, and with good reason it would seem. After all he had been betrayed by so many women during his incarceration in The Village. It started on the day of his arrival,’ when Number 2 had sent a maid, Number 66, to extract some sort of information from the Prisoner by playing on his sympathies. But the Prisoner had no sympathy for the maid, as he saw straight through her and told her to get out of his cottage!

   Number 9, she had been assigned to Cobb and then was assigned to Number 6 in much the same way. She affords Number 6 the opportunity for escape, but will not go with him, as according to her she never planned to escape without Cobb. 9 gave 6 an Electro Pass which she claimed was from the last pilot, but it was in fact Number 2 who had given it to her. Number 9 is a used woman, no more than a pawn to be used by Number 2 in whatever game he was playing at the time. She might not like the way she is given assignments by Number 2, inwardly she might well be unhappy with her lot, the way she is used to betray people. But on the other hand, it’s a way to survive The Village.

   Nadia Rakovsky who managed to get close to Number 6 as she claimed to know the location of The Village because she had seen a file but for a few seconds only. And he fell for it in his desperation to escape! Although Nadia had betrayed Number 6, she was more his type of woman, as well as working in his line of business. Something like ‘B’, who Number 6 knew in his former life. She like the maid-Number 66 tried to extract the reason behind his resignation. Only she was being manipulated, words being put into her mouth by the doctor-Number 14. But Number 6 soon began to see through the deception, because in putting words into ‘B’s’ mouth she used an expression “We all make mistakes, sometimes we have to,” and just as Number 6 didn’t know about Susan having died a year ago, Number 2 didn’t know about ‘B’s’ son! The doctor-Number 14 did work against Number 6 with the use of the newly developed drug, but at the insistence of Number 2. The doctor wasn’t happy about this, seeing as the drug hadn’t been tested on animals let alone humans. But if she didn’t use the drug on Number 6, Number 2 threatened to see it proved on her! In the end, the doctor appeared happy that Number 2’s machination against Number 6 had failed, and that he had succeeded.

    “Drink it while it’s hot.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s good for you.”
    “Good for someone.”
    Each night Number 6 is betrayed by a woman, the night-time maid who comes to his cottage in order to make him his nightcap of hot chocolate. The nightcap is drugged of course, in order to make him sleep.

   Alison, a young woman who Number 6 was helping with her mind-reading act for The Village festival, betrayed Number 6. Although it’s not clear whether she was assigned to Number 6, or whether the idea came to Number 2 of exploiting the situation upon the discovery that she and Number 6 had a genuine mental link. And then pressure was brought to bear on Alison. It may be suspected it to be the latter. Because later, realising that it was Number 6 who came calling at her cottage, and not Curtis, she told Number 6 that she wanted him to know that if she had a second chance, she wouldn’t have betrayed him.

    Mrs. Butterworth, she managed to convince Number 6 that she was a good Samaritan helping a nameless exile. But she turned out to be no better than any of them, seeing as she turned out to be Number 2! But having written that, the next Number 2 saw Number 6 as having a future with The Village. She stopped the doctor-Number 40 in his tracks while attempting to extract information from Number 6 using Dutton as a communications medium. She told the doctor that Number 6 isn’t like the others, that there are other ways. She doesn’t want Number 6 broken, he must be won over, and sees it as a long process. So this woman is protecting Number 6, well that makes a change, not only against the doctor and his human experiments, but also the angry mob, who was set upon him when sentenced to death for the breaking of a rule….the possession of a radio!

    Number 8 would have doted on Number 6 for the rest of their lives, had her love for Number 6 not been manufactured, and rejected by him! She saw them as being happy together, but he was too much of a doubting Thomas, having hardly any feelings for Number 8 at all. It was her emotions which were betraying Number 6 without even knowing she was doing it, she simply couldn’t help herself the poor woman.

    Monique, she went to ‘6 Private’ looking for help from Number 6 {is that what Alison had done originally?} but was being used as a pawn by an interim Number 2. At first she was an ally, but later she became nothing more that Number 6’s side-kick. She is the first woman not to have betrayed Number 6, she was merely the catalyst for Number 6’s involvement in ‘Plan Division Q.’

    Number 86, another doctor used against Number 6, but it could so easily have been Number 23 from ‘Checkmate,’ who once suggested that a leucotomy operation for Number 6 in order to stem his aggressive tendencies. The only trouble with Number 86 was, she isn’t so quick witted as some. First she is used by Number 2 in order to maintain the illusion that Number 6 had undergone the full Instant Social Conversion, when in fact he was merely drugged. Then once Number 6 had turned the tables on Number 86, after first switching the teacups, he then used her susceptible mind to turn the tables on Number 2.

    Cathy, didn’t betray The Man With No Name {but as Number 22 she had certainly fallen for him by the end of the episode} because she wasn’t who he thought she was, and besides he thought he was going to escape the town of Harmony with her, as he had expected to escape The Village with Nadia. But as with the one-way out of Harmony being guarded by a couple of the Judges gunslingers, so too the one way out of The Village, guarded by Post 5!
   As for The Girl Who Was Death, , she would have loved Mister X to death! But let us not forget that in this case the Girl is of Number 6’s own creation, an adversary worth her salt. Strange then that Number 6 should make such an adversary a woman and not a man. But fitting, with all Number 6’s previous experiences with women in The Village, that he should make a woman try and kill him, and so by eventually vanquishing her, he vanquished all woman kind, symbolically speaking that is. After all, there are no women whatsoever in ‘Fall Out,’ unless of course they are to be found amongst the delegates of the Assembly!

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