The Prisoner – Free For All

October 20, 1967 Season 1 Episode 4

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode can become confusing quickly if you don’t pay attention. The editing in parts of this is fast. This one shows off the Village really well with its pastel colors. Number 6 is tested more in this episode than in the other ones so far. You can tell in parts that they are getting to him mentally.

Number Six is suddenly treated less like a prisoner and more like a public figure when the Village announces an election for Number Two. He is encouraged to stand as a candidate himself. It sounds like a chance to speak out and maybe even expose the whole setup. He might be able to turn the Village’s own system against itself.

As the campaign gets going, it becomes clear that this election is not really about freedom, choice, or public debate. Number Six is coached and packaged for the crowd. The Village turns politics into another form of control. Rallies, speeches, and promises are all part of the performance. The people around him act like voters, but the whole thing has the feeling of a trap, with every move watched.

He tries to speak honestly, telling people not to trust the system, but the message gets twisted into the campaign. The more he resists, the more popular he becomes. It’s all about power and control. Number 6 can’t separate what’s real from what’s being done to him. By the end, the election was a way to break him down and test him. The campaign itself seems like just another prison. Be Seeing You!

 

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

21 thoughts on “The Prisoner – Free For All”

  2. Pingback: The Prisoner – Free For All – MobsterTiger

  3. This episode is eerily relevant to the current political scene. The corporately funded elected are puppets reading cue cards. We need to get the $$ out of politics. They really messed with #6’s mind in this one. When they pulled his # off and put #2 on him (wow that could be a euphemism for something really kinky) they were messing with my mind also. I did *not* like the “sailor woman speaking gibberish” in this at all. She felt like an android and may have been one. I also liked how the village got shown off in this episode. I’m starting to get triggered by Rover now! I hate that thing. The cave segment was probably my favorite.

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    1. Yea I thought of politics as well…it doesn’t change…they all treat us as the unwashed masses.
      Yea it was a lot of symbolism in this one…yea…Rover did it’s job! lol… They make Rover legitimately scary. The drinking scene…I liked.
      You know…writing these…like I told Randy…if I just wrote the plot…it would be hard to follow…in about 10 episodes they will be really hard to write.

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      1. You know, I was thinking about what you have said, that things go off the rails later into the season. E4 is already feeling a little surreal. I felt SO BAD for #6 in this one. He did a great job of showing the agony without words.

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  5. One for tonight. I think I’ll do a few episodes to get ahead, but it’s not the sort of series that you want to binge-watch while snacking on some chips and going off to the fridge to grab a Coke. Or Pepsi. Or Heineken, whatever slakes your thirst. I think you need some time in between to digest the episode, mull it over a little.

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  7. Sounds interesting and as you said, confusing. Probably what did it in… tough to really follow, especially casually. Whereas elsewhere at the time ‘Ooh! It’s Gilligan night! I heard this week the Skipper gets mad at Gilligan and hits him with a hat and that the Professor makes something from a coconut, but Gilligan breaks it by accident!’ ‘Wow, I wouldn’t have seen that turn of events coming!’

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  9. I wrote a comment Friday morning but it didn’t post.  I rewatched the episode just before writing this.

    Did you notice?  This episode was directed by Patrick McGoohan.

    I do not agree with a lot of what Max says.  That isn’t negative.  The show is very much about interpretation and here we have the television show throwing out ideas to the viewer that they don’t appear to do much with. 

    For example, there is a moment after the election where Number 6 calls the man who previously interrogates him only to have that man respond with annoyance of being othered.  I took this to mean that the bureaucracy continues, and is the real power, no matter who is Number 2.  This is kind of echoed in the final Number 2 asking if Number 6 will never learn.

    Did you notice the man in the crowd in the shorts?  I saw him, briefly, four or was it five times?  I thought the Villagers were supposed to be anonymous, but while he is nothing and nobody he is not anonymous.

    I wasn’t confused by any of it.  Much of what goes on reminded me of Dylan’s question of what Number 6 has to go through as the price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.

    Ah but I didn’t see the editing as anything faster than previous episodes, and I am not called to attention regarding the pastel colors of the Village. 

    Is he treated like a public figure?  I don’t think so.  He is a player in somebody else’s play and in my book appears to be putting up with it.  The election, such as it is, is a fraud and an obscenity from the very start, and Number 6 reflects this.  When he speaks of individualization, he has no life within his speech, no fire.  This is not give me liberty or give me death.

    We all see the potential of Number 6 speaking out, but it is handled in such a way that Number 6 knows it is a farce and an obscenity.  Humor is essential to democracy?  How ridiculous.

    By the end we see the election was just another exercise to try to get the information.

    Did you notice that Number 6 asks Who and Number 6 asks Why? 

    Lisa mentions puppets reading cue cards.  Did you notice that the first cue card is followed to the letter but the second cue card is spoken twice?  Did you notice that when Number 6 is in the boat Rover doesn’t materialize as previously, it appears from the shore, but Rover’s retraction is very close to its standard materialization procedure?

    I think the show is playing with us on purpose.

    The sailor woman speaking gibberish is an interesting point.  Why did she speak another language?  To throw off Number 6?  To put distance between her role in the election and her eventual reveal?  Like I said, I think the show is playing with us, throwing this stuff out to see if we, the audience, will catch it and respond.

    Max, there are no backstories for the other residents of the Village.  The story is about the power structure and Number 6.

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    1. I just viewed this one different than you did…but this show does that.

      There are backstories to the residents…we just don’t know them all and never will…no scratch that…we will know some coming… but they just didn’t magically appear there. Yes I would have loved to know. We do know the Colonel or Admiral that plays chess and a few others that are coming that we will know…I just wish we would heard more about others and their stories. I think you took that too literal…I want to know…it’s a wish of mine.

      For me…the humor…I would have to have humor for what was going on because it was so insane. Thats me…I laugh at insane things like the situation he was in and their form of democracy…which it really wasn’t because it was just a game.

      Yes I think when you have huge posters of a guy running for an office…that yea…you are a public figure unlike before when he walked around sometimes un-noticed. They were shouting slogans for him…so yea…in my view that is being treated like a public figure.

      Oh the show does play with us. That is why we both described something different.

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      1. I’m disagreeing with you holding your opinion in the highest respect.  That’s one of the things that makes this show so great.  And, may I say, your decision to go into each episode such an act of courage and guts. 

        In subsequent interviews after The Prisoner, McGoohan uses the word allegory.  He even talked about discussions like the one we are having as being great praise of the show.  I think he is right, and I know you do, too.

        I, for one, am fascinated at where we disagree. 

        Backstories for the residents.  Yes, we both would love that.  You don’t say it but I read it in what you do say.  Backstories that are relevant to the overall themes of the show.  Are you satisfied with what you know about the Colonel or Admiral that plays chess?  To a certain extent yes, to a certain extent no.  Just like the guy I noticed in shorts.

        All these curious details.  I love ‘em.

        As for the line about humor.  It is presented early on in this episode as a statement about the episode, only it clearly is not.  The film makers playing with us.

        You laugh at the absurdity, the insanity.  Yes, me too!!!  And I think the film makers are inviting that kind of reaction.

        Yea, he is on posters and such for a moment.  But I think the film makers maintain the aloof air of anonymity of the character.  We know nothing about Number 6.  We are forced to read into the little the producers give us.  And look at us.  We are enjoying a huge gourmet meal!!!

        Who is right?  Both of us.  Neither of us.  At the same time.  And there is this silly grin on my face as I write this.

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      2. Oh I didn’t take offense at all just so you know…I just wanted to tell you why I said those things…and where my thinking was.
        Yes allegory is it. I mentioned it in my first post….and I truly think that is the reason we are still talking about it. If he wrapped it up nicely…it may not be remembered.

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