The Prisoner: Fall Out

“You are the only individual.”

That was... a lot to digest, utterly glorious and at the same time quite, quite mad. On the surface this may not be quite as surreal as the first episode but there’s so much going on and we certainly aren’t spoon fed the subtext. Those who insist on a diet of strict realism probably hate this. Personally, I found it a fitting and magnificent ending. What straight- up realist finale could possibly have satisfied? Who actually cares why Number Six resigned, what his name is or the backstory of the Village? Revealing any of that would ruin everything. Patrick McGoohan knows this, which is why he reveals Number One to be a mask beneath a mask under which is Number Six himself. Is this a literal metaphor about Number Six being a repressed man who has really trapped himself, with the Village being within his own head? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Why reduce it all to one meaning when you can have the possibility of many? Keep the box closed, or the death of Schrodinger’s Cat may become real.

Has Number Six won and convinced the Village that individualism is best? Perhaps; suddenly the Judge who seems to be running things is fawning before him and he’s constantly praised and promised an “inauguration”. Yet his much-encouraged speech is drowned out by choreographed enthusiasm, and his own victory is juxtaposed by the trials of Numbers Two and Forty-Eight for, essentially, being individuals (Forry-Eight, of course, would be better charged with sexual assault...), the very quality for which Number Six is now suddenly being praised. Are the promises of power or freedom real? We will never know, as the narrative collapses and the escape of all three is a decidedly fourth wall breaking event.

So what does it all mean? Let us not spoil the fun by nailing that down. The author is dead, and Patrick McGoohan is jumping on his grave here. We, the viewers, are left to construct our own meaning from this wonderfully barmy text, and I for one am glad of it.

As for the series as a whole- yes, there are half a dozen episodes that we could have done without, but it wasn’t McGoohan’s wish to pad the whole thing out to seventeen episodes. The Prisoner is indeed a justly renowned and legendary piece of telly, and in 1967 was pointing forward to what television drama could be and do.