" Your job, Number Twelve, is to impersonate him. Take his identity away."
This episode is an extraordinary example of institutional gaslighting, a word that probably wouldn’t have been used at the time, with Number Six told he is someone else and that he is to impersonate Number Six- and then introduced to a doppelgänger who seems to be far more himself than he is.
This idea is explored fiendishly, with devastating scenes at which the doppelgänger slowly and confidently makes him lose his sense of identity. And it’s arresting to hear him (well, his double) insisting that “I am Number Six “, the very thing he denies at the start of the episode. This is a deeply affecting example of destroying someone’s identity- all so he can reveal why he resigned “in your dream”. It helps that Anton Rodgers is a superb Number Two- with the venerable Earl Cameron as his deputy. But Patrick McGoohan is, as ever, superb, showing moments where our hero shows a rare, defeated vulnerability.
It’s interesting to see Number Six making a human connection with Alison, a believer in all this ESP nonsense; sadly Number Six believes in this crap, and accuses those of us who don’t of having no imagination!
But, as is traditional, we end with an escape attempt, with our nameless hero telling the latest Number Two that “Number Six is dead” and almost making it out in a helicopter. This is the cleverest plot yet, and the one which deals with some rather intense subject matter. One of the better episodes and a fine bit of telly.
And yes, I do have a certain track by King Crimson going through my head...
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