The Prisoner can largely be credited, or blamed, for the mystery-box genre via its outsized influence on Lost, which in many ways feels like a sexier, less severe version of this show — The Prisoner: Pacific Nights, if you will. Certainly the question of who runs the Village and why they’re so obsessed with Number Six is of grave concern both to the audience and Six himself.
But what I take away from this episode is not a puzzle to solve but a person to study. Here’s a guy who did Her Majesty’s dirty work, and apparently with enough aplomb and success to drive a preposterous sportscar. He was so good at his job of being a spy for a Western government that the Village, whoever or whatever is behind it, has dedicated its resources to cracking his brain open and seeing what’s inside.
And what is his attitude towards all this? Lol yeah right, best of luck, assholes. Is he confused, is he angry, is he frightened? Oh, for sure. But he has a single conviction, and it is this:
“I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.”
The most talked about and praised show of the year is Andor, Tony Gilroy’s exploration of violent insurrection in the face of fascism, set in the Star Wars universe. The reason it has resonated so much with people, I think, is because its eponymous character shares this sentiment.
For all its maddening — and intentional; it serves fascists well to confuse their opponents and victims — contradictions, fascism presents us with a straightforward proposition: We are human only to the extent that we fit the regime’s perpetually constricting definition of who is human. Resisting fascism is in large part a matter of personal integrity: My words will match my thoughts, my actions will match my words, I will be the person I am and not the servant they want me to become, I will not betray my soul. Number Six, who in this episode gives Patrick McGoohan’s birthdate as his own down to the minute, will not go along with any of this either. He’s not the machine-man with a mind of gray sludge that Number Two and his masters want him to be. He is a human. He is not a number. He is a free man.
So are you.
Oh boy! Starting today over at Pop Heist, I’m launching a new series called Prestige Prehistory, about stone-classic pre-Sopranos dramas that helped (re)define what you could do on television. My first show is Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, beginning with its premiere, “Arrival”!
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Tags: pop heist, prestige prehistory, the prisoner, TV, TV reviews