Photo: AMCTV.com
Note: Huge spoilers abound in this post. The show is definitely worth watching, so if you haven’t seen all of them yet, I recommend you read this only after doing so.
Over the past three nights, I’ve watched the re-envisioned miniseries The Prisoner on AMC.
The last two episodes obviously do a lot to uncover the biggest mysteries of The Prisoner: what/where is The Village, who are Two and M2, why can’t 11-12 go to the Other Place, and most obviously, why is 6 there and why can/can’t he return.
Basically, the show operates on two levels of consciousness: the conscious world, which is set in New York, and some level of the subconscious, which is The Village. The Village is not actually a physical place, but instead is contained within the mind of Helen (so named in New York, or M2, the sleeping woman and Two’s wife in The Village). Helen in the conscious world (which I’m just going to refer to as “the real world” henceforth for simplicity) is some kind of psychotherapist or mental health researcher. Summakor, where Michael (Six in The Village) works, is owned and run by her husband, Mr. Curtis. In the final episode, Mr. Curtis meets with Michael in his New York highrise apartment and explains all this to him. Many of the people who work at Summakor or surround Mr. Curtis, like his driver (147) or the access card guy at Summakor (The Shopkeeper) were those selected to enter into The Village to be treated of their actual mental ailments. Simply put, The Dreamers in the Village are those that are people living in the real world, but entered into The Village through Summakor’s program.
The most poignant and extreme case of this is Sarah, or 313. She suffered constant humiliation as a child which has left her completely withdrawn from society in the real world (as evident by her sitting alone, talking to herself in the church in New York at the end). In the subconscious Village, however, she can live a normal and productive life, and is able to essentially be “treated” for her mental illness. It seems interesting, the occupations that “The Dreamers” in The Village take up; the driver as 147 becomes a taxi driver, not too surprising. But Sarah as 313 is a doctor who is able to help others most in need. In doing so, she’s sort of curing herself by turning herself into a productive member of a society that is dedicated to helping others.
We see Six spontaneously switching back to the real world, most often when his experiences in The Village mimic his real experiences (looking around his apartment in The Village and noticing that it closely resembles his Manhattan apartment, the background slowly fades back to the interior of the latter. This also happens when he kisses 5-14 and has a kind of “déjà vu” moment to when he spent the night with Lucy in his apartment.
What Lucy says at the end of the fourth episode, “Darling,” is true. She is Lucy, for all intents and purposes, and was hired by Two (or more accurately, Mr. Curtis) to enter into the Village, make Six love her, and then break his heart.
But getting back to that “switching,” 313’s connection is even more tenuous, and seems to deteriorate as the show continues. This seems to be largely Two’s doing, he almost provokes her into it. Recall the scene in which she’s sitting in front of the mirror in her apartment and she “switches” back to the vision of Sarah, looking back at her in the mirror. The images in her dreams in the Village of the Other Place are indicative of her earlier memories; that of being forced to stand with a bag over her head and of the church in New York.
One of the more interesting cases that proves all this is the suicide of 2 and M2’s son, 11-12. M2, when she meets 11-12 in the penultimate episode, explains to him that there is indeed another place, but that 11-12 can’t go there. The reason for this is because 11-12 was “born” in The Village, that is to say, Helen’s subconscious willed him into existence due to her inability to have a child in the real world (this is mentioned briefly in a scene between Mr. Curtis and Helen in their apartment near the end). 11-12 conscious-self (or, more simply, 11-12 as what we would collectively refer to as a “real human being”) doesn’t exist.
In the end, Six’s coming to The Village proves to be Two’s doing. Two brought Six to the Village to replace him as the new Two, with 313 becoming his “wife” and the new M2. Back in the real world, Michael takes a seat in the center of the room in the Purpose Floor at Summakor’s headquarters. He’s taken Mr. Curtis’ position as the man in charge. Back in The Village, this cycle seems to have come to fruition in the final scene, with Six (although perhaps he is now he is just called Two) sitting in the dunes admiring the beauty of The Village and discussing his plans to improve the place, with an almost comatose 313 looking mournfully. It’s a pretty dark conclusion.
Again, I could write a lot more, but I think this should give you a pretty good idea of what the show is basically about. There’s still plenty of stuff I don’t understand or don’t fully understand yet. I will definitely be rewatching soon though for answers.
One of the things that is vexing me the most right now though is the inability to find a meaning or overall theme in this whole thing. Most literally, the show seems to be anti-therapy, or, perhaps even worse, anti-self exploration. It’s saying “don’t look too deeply into your subconscious for self-improvement or meaning, because you might literally get stuck there.” There is only in.
