I know the Oriental taxi driver said to the
Prisoner that he’ll never know who he’ll meet. However it seems somewhat
incomprehensible that Cobb had been put on the same hospital ward as the
Prisoner, simply so he might encounter him there, and even if he was, for what
reason? Perhaps Cobb was a plant, his encounter with the Prisoner in the
hospital being the start of the build up to his funeral, where Number 6 and
Number 9 would be brought together. If it was, then it was far thinking on
someone’s part.
Cobb couldn’t tell the Prisoner much,
he couldn’t remember much. He thinks he’s been there three perhaps four weeks,
months, it’s difficult to work out he said. So Cobb was disorientated as to
time. They keep asking him questions, they want to know all about him. Did he
tell them? No, he’s so tired he wants to sleep. But who brought him to The
Village, how did he get there? Cobb said he was in Germany, he remembers going back to his hotel,
he went into the bedroom, and thinks he went to bed, he was here! What, in The
Village hospital? Perhaps Cobb had been drugged back in Germany so that seemingly he had died at the
hotel. Eventually undertakers had been arranged to take the body away, and so
he was effectively abducted!
Back in the hospital it seems to me
that Cobb might well have been undergoing the same kind of treatment that
Roland Walter Dutton went through. But I expect Cobb also woke up in what he
thought was, a room in a hotel in Germany? Well the two undertakers, or whoever they
were, didn’t extract Cobb from his home like they had the Prisoner. So he could
hardly wake up in The Village in what he thinks is his own home, that would
confuse Cobb on two levels. Firstly that he’s suddenly back in his own home
when he went to bed in a hotel room. And secondly to find he’s not at home at
all, but in a replica of his home in The Village!
Cobb!
Suddenly an alarm bell sounds. The doctor
and the Prisoner quickly return to the hospital ward, where the medical orderly
reports that the amnesia case, Cobb, has jumped out of the window…..he’s dead!
It’s a pity Number 6 couldn’t get to look out of the window as he does after
Number 73 jumps through a hospital window to her death in ‘Hammer Into Anvil.’
He would have seen there wasn’t a body lying on the ground below!
So Cobb was an amnesia case was he?
But he recognized an old colleague soon enough, the Prisoner, when he started
asking him questions. Yes he found it difficult to say how long he’d been in
The Village, but he remembered being in Germany, going back to his hotel, and into the
bedroom well enough. But if Cobb’s amnesia was real, then it wouldn’t be worth
their while trying to find out everything about Cobb {hadn’t they got a file on
Cobb then} he wouldn’t be able to remember! Perhaps Cobb was in the hospital
because the doctors were trying to induce Cobb’s memory to return. And it would
seem that they succeeded judging by Cobb’s state of mind at the end. But if
Cobb’s amnesia was a fabrication, presumably it must have been for the
Prisoner’s benefit!
Cobb
– He’s Dead!
Cobb was supposed to have been a hospital
patient suffering from amnesia. Apparently they want to know all about him, but
if he has amnesia he wouldn’t be able to tell them anything, because he
wouldn’t be able to remember! Perhaps that’s why Cobb was in the hospital, the
doctors were trying to induce his memory to return. But then again…………
Even before the Prisoner’s arrival in The Village someone had had the
forward thinking idea of bringing Cobb to The Village in order to stage the
encounter between Cobb and the Prisoner on the ward in the hospital. And yet
how did they know the Prisoner would end up in the hospital when he did? Was it
purely a question of percentages, that at some point the Prisoner would
encounter the Guardian as he did on the beach, and then unconscious, be brought
to the hospital and so placed on the same ward as Cobb. But even if it wasn’t
for that encounter, they would have found another way of putting the Prisoner
in hospital, and on the same ward as Cobb. Of course the most important part of
that encounter was Cobb’s staged death in order that a funeral could then take
place in Cobb’s name. After all, his funeral would certainly be an attraction
for Number 6, and a way of bringing him and Number 9 together at Cobb’s
funeral. Number 9 would have been briefed on the plan, and having been given a
background story placed as a lone mourner at the funeral. She would also become
an attraction for Number 6, especially having encountered someone else who knew
Cobb, that would allow her to play on Number 6’s sympathies, and draw him close
to her. The rest of the plan we know, and watch as it’s played out.
As for Cobb, had he been brought to
The Village as being part of the plan, just as the Colonel and Fotheringay had
been during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ and the Colonel in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh
My Darling?’ As for Cobb’s new
masters, who he mustn’t keep waiting, he is a Civil Servant which serves the
Government of the day. Back in Britain there had been a General Election, and
that brought about a change in Government, hence new masters. In Britain the Government might change, but not
the Civil Service which owes the same allegiance to whichever Government is in
power. How Cobb knew that there had been a change in Government is perhaps less
easier to explain. However seeing as he’s working for The Village it would not then be unreasonable for
communications to take place between The Village and London. And in one such communication news
might easily have arrived regarding a change in Government, because such a
change might bring about a change in Village policy. Besides which, any new
Minister for the Foreign Office would need to be briefed on The Village, as
well as the new Prime Minister himself!
But returning to The Village, Number 6
once suggested that Number 2’s clever, “Clever aren’t you!” to which he replied
“They are, damned clever!” They must
be, to be able to come up with such a plan so in advance as they had in
‘Arrival,’ and to stage everything so well for that plan to work out so
perfectly. Even if it was simply to teach Number 6 a lesson!
Be seeing you
