Episode 8

The Prisoner: The Schizoid Man.

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

Number 6 is practicing ESP - holding up cards with symbols on them - with Number 24, who is quite adept at identifying the cards. She takes a picture of Number 6 holding some of them.

Number 2 sets a most diabolic plan in motion. While asleep, number 6 is tranquilized and carted off by the now-familiar Village medical experts. He awakes in a strange bedroom with an altered appearance of a mustache and dark hair. He learns that his new identity is Number 12.

Everyone in The Village refers to him by his new name, and after talking to Number 2, soon learns that his purpose is to interrogate Number 6 - who must be an imposter - but everyone is pretending that that Number 6 is the genuine article. Number 12 gets a shave and haircut to make himself look like Number 6.

After Number 12 meets Number 6, he begins to doubt who he really is. Certain things have been altered - his favorite breakfast is different, he is left handed, and he can’t smoke his usual cigar brand. In one tense scene, Number 24 is asked to perform the same ESP game with Number 12 (the real Number 6) and the other Number 6 to try to establish who is the “real” number 6. Number 12 fails the test miserably - which is completely unexpected, as he is the real thing. Confused and dejected, Number 12 begins to doubt his own identity, and a psychic break is imminent.

But he does find a clue in the photograph taken by Number 24. By noting how a bruised fingernail has healed, he deduces that he’d been brainwashed over several weeks while heavily sedated. The discovery leads to a quite brilliant situation where Number 6 - whom everyone is still pretending is Number 12 - decides to take advantage of this identity perversion to escape from The Village. Number 2 knows that this imposter must eventually leave after the mission is accomplished.

Number 6 beats the crap out of the fake Number 6 and extracts a password and his original name. He then uses the password to cause Rover to kill the fake Number 6. The mission is now deemed a failure, and Number 6 (who is now pretending to be the imposter agent) is to be sent home.

Number 6 boards a helicopter after chatting with Number 2 about his wife, Susan. The helicopter lifts off and Number 6 has escaped.

Unfortunately, the helicopter turns around. It turns out Number 12’s wife is no longer alive, and the mention of her in passing conversation was a test by Number 2 to verify the identity of Number 6. It turns out Number 6 was actually not convincing enough playing an the role of the other agent.

Sneaky, and a great pay-off for keeping straight this episode’s shifting identities.

Thoughts

Based on the synopsis above, this is a very elaborate episode, with mistaken identity, brainwashing, and McGoohan playing two different versions of the same character. The “double identity” resembles classic Star Trek episodes where Kirk is cleaved into two. I also enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes brainwashing scenes. But the ultimate payoff is the final sequence where the advantage seems to move to back to Number 6, only to be crushed in the same manner as it was many times before. It’s great fun re-watching the episode and observing how Number 2 begins to doubt the identity of the agent and outwit Number 6 without letting his doubt be completely known. This ranks as one of my favorite episodes of The Prisoner.

Next Episode: Many Happy Returns
Previous Episode: a href=”http://www.webomatica.com/wordpress/2007/09/06/the-prisoner-the-general/”>The General

IMDB: The Schizoid Man
Wikipedia: The Schizoid Man
The Prisoner Online: The Schizoid Man
Bookmice: The Schizoid Man

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