Episode 3

The Prisoner: Dance Of The Dead.

The Prisoner is a 1967 British television series, starring Patrick McGoohan as “Number 6,” a top-level government agent who resigns his post. As a result, he’s kidnapped and imprisoned in “The Village”, where his captors hope to interrogate him for “information.” The series documents Number 6’s repeated escape attempts and the progressively more extreme methods employed by his captors to break his will.

Synopsis

This time, Number 2 is a woman (Mary Morris). She assigns a new, young girl (Norma West) as the next “watcher” of Number 6.

The Village is having a “carnival and dance” costume ball. Number 2 urges Number 6 to attend. He chooses his “watcher” as his date, who rebuffs him with the statement “questions are a burden” and runs into the Town Hall. He follows but is struck by a force, preventing him from entering.

Number 6 brings a black cat into his home. His housekeeper says animals aren’t allowed, to which he replies that the rules don’t apply to him. At night, he evades the electronic appliances monitoring him in his house - the television, hidden cameras, and a light turning on and off. He sneaks out, running along the beach, in another futile escape attempt - there’s always Rover. He falls asleep on the beach.

Number 6 awakens to find a dead body washed up on the sand. On it, he finds a small radio. He takes the radio to various locations in The Village, trying to pick up signals, perhaps to determine his location, or to mentally hear comforting sounds from the outside world.

Number 2 and the “watcher” confront Number 6, questioning his lack of interest in The Village. It contains everything he could need, and he should side with the community and the values of the masses. Always the stubborn rebel, he’s more interested in maintaining his individuality.

Alone, Number 6 wanders down to a boat and takes a life preserver and a rope. He sneaks off into a cave where he has hidden the dead body. He puts on the corpse a picture of himself and a village map has has drawn. He wraps the life preserver and rope around the body, and places it back in the water, seemingly an attempt to send a message to someone in the outside world who may find the body.

A villager appears in the cave - it’s an old colleague of Number 6: Roland Walter Dutton, who’s been a prisoner for several months. He says he told The Village everything he knows, but they don’t believe them, and that he’ll die at their hands.

It’s time for the costume ball. Number 6 wanders off from the music and dancing, using this event to explore the town hall he was denied entry to earlier. He puts on a doctor’s lab coat. Mistaken for an employee of The Village, a lady gives him an envelope to deliver to Number 2. In it is a black paper containing the name of his friend, Roland Walter Dutton.

Number 6 finds a basement room with morgue cabinets. In one is the corpse of the dead body Number 6 placed back in the water - his plan to signal the outside world has been foiled.

Number 2 escorts Number 6 back to the costume ball, to a court and trial. The judges are the doctor (Napoleon), the maid (Queen Elizabeth), and a man (Caesar), symbolizing a twisted legal system. The charge against Number 6 is effort against the community from possession of the radio. Number 6 questions why these rules are never made public.

Obvious he’s going to be found guilty no matter what, Number 6 calls a witness: Roland Walter Dutton. He’s brought in, wearing a Fool’s outfit, lobotomized - and can’t testify in Number 6’s defense. The Prisoner just can’t win.

At the last moment, the blond watcher stands up in protest. The sentence is death. Number 6 makes a hasty exit, chased by an unruly mob of citizens, determined to kill him. He runs through the Town Hall into a library room with a teletype machine. Angrily, he disembowels it, causing it to stop clattering. Through a one way mirror he sees the crowd, still searching for him.

Number 2 appears in the library. Number 6 says, “You’ll never win,” to which Number 2 replies, “Then how very uncomfortable for you, old chap.” The machine mysteriously reactivates, to the laughter of Number 2.

Thoughts

I feel that the trial was for show, as part of the play-acting of the costume ball. The Prisoner can’t be physically killed as his mind holds the information desired by The Village.

Throughout the series, various methods are employed by The Village to extract information. In this episode, the issue of conformity is raised. It’s clear that someone who sees themselves part of a group will be more willing to participate in its desires, and therefore willingly offer the information.

This alternate ending (found via the Unmutual Prisoner Article Archive) sheds some light on the subject:

The screened ending is literally a deux ex machina conclusion - as it stands, it makes little sense. Death should have been complete as the Prisoner descends in the morgue (surely symbolic). He is in no position to show the initiative which gains him access to the special room and the telex. The Prisoner’s “you’ll never win” is ambiguous and inconsistent with the general movement of the episode. It is only with the original ending that “Dance of the Dead” makes sense, and I summarise here a section from Dave Barrie’s article (ITV 3, P19):

Confronting Number 6 in the telex room, Number 2 says: “A man can only die once. And “you’re already dead, aren’t you? In our little room”. Led to the girl observer, Number 6 says: “I’ll never give in. Being dead does have its advantages”. He then smashes the telex. The script reads: Turning to the girl he asks: ‘Shall we dance?” They leave Number 2 surrounded by the broken parts of the telex. They return to the ballroom where a hectic formation dance is in full swing. They join in. They dance as if the devil is playing. Continuing the music faster and faster. The Village is brightly illuminated. No-one about. Pull back so the sea comes between us and it, until the Village is only a glow in the darkness of the night. END CREDITS.”

What becomes clearer through this ending is Dance of the Dead dealing with literal death, but a metaphor for the passive inhabitants of The Village - their free will has been crushed to the point where they’re arguably no better than dead. Individual will has been replaced by the will of The Village. There’s also the implicaton that Number 6 could actually choose to be part of The Village if he’s able to mentally resist, and somehow, subversively destroy things from within.

This episode also features some rather blunt symbolism:

• Number 6 attends the costume ball in a tuxedo and later dons a scientist’s lab coat. He resists dressing in a fanciful costume, displaying his continued attachment to the outside, “real” world.
• The “watcher” dresses as Little Bo Peep: Tending to a flock. Her job is to watch Number 6 and try to get people like him to conform. At episode’s end, she loses one of her sheep - Number 6.
• Number 2 as Peter Pan: Imaginary childhood friend, symbolizing freedom. I think the implication is that the villagers should follow Number 2. Here, the freedom Peter Pan offers is a deceptive offering.
• Black cat: Death? The cat turns up in later episodes.

The episode’s end, with Number 2 laughing at Number 6’s defiance, indicates the stalemeate Number 6 finds himself in. While The Village will never win until Number 6 confesses, they also won’t ever lose, which is just fine with The Village: he’s still their prisoner, and in terms of physical freedom, already the loser. They always have the upper hand.

Resistance

Number 6 is determined to physically escape from The Village, but his resistance becomes an issue of individualism vs. conformity. Note how he complains at the start of each episode that he’s a man, not a number.

Eventually, he seems less concerned with physical escape and contemplates destroying The Village, either in the process of escape, afterwards, or from within. It’s not enough that he escape: he begins to consider the entire operation an evil that must be eradicated.

Number 6 employs an escape strategy that involves succumbing to the will of The Village on a physical level, but resistance on a mental level. It’s a more difficult challenge but explains some of his behavior in future episodes.

This resistance on a purely intellectual level raises the question: how can The Village identify a resistor if their resistance is only mental and not physical? And how can a captor exert control over this last bastion of freedom? Hence the various excursions into the realm of the mind.

Can phsyical freedom be transcended through mental freedom alone? Prisoners have been known to endure years of physical imprisonment, remaining focused on escape. The mind is a powerful weapon indeed.

Next Episode: Checkmate
Previous Episode: Free For All

IMDB: Dance Of The Dead
Wikipedia: Dance Of The Dead
The Prisoner Online: Dance Of The Dead
Bookmice: Dance Of The Dead

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