Number 6 was a Plant: Dance of the Dead

The introduction to this series of posts considering the theory that Number 6 didn't really resign but is instead a 'plant' in the Village, may be read here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/number-6-was-a-plant-introduction

Watching the series through and considering this theory I am really getting to like this approach, mainly because it turns so many of the accepted ways to understand this series on their head without having to do violence to the show in any way.

An example would be that in this episode, far from the continual questioning of why he resigned, we discover the real reason Number 6 is in the Village. Number 2 says it: 'he has a future with us'. That's the reason they don't want to hurt him, they think he has a future with the Village authorities, whoever they may be. They actually want to keep him. This even sits well with the continual questioning about his resignation: he's behaved uncharacteristically and they want to find out what's going on.

Another way in which the 'plant' theory turns the series on its head is that now he is finding out what actually goes on in the Village, even if he didn't resign he probably wants to as a result of the Village's treatment. I am following the ITC order in this series of posts, but Dance of the Dead is often placed early in the run on the basis that NUmber 6 says he is new here. He also states that he has never seen a night there. So I would suggest that he has arrived and the Village has gone straight into nocturnal hypnotised or drugged experiments on him; it could still be early days.

His worst fears about the Village having been confirmed already, I am certain that a moral person such as NUmber 6 would be thinking it as well that he did put his resignation in so that he would not have to return to his employers who have been revealed to be pretty rubbish. Although not even the most rubbish employers so illegal imprisonment and experiments on their staff as a rule. He is probably experiencing a mixture of relief and shame, shame that he has been a representative of such a terribly organisation or country.

It is also revealed, to us at least, that his workplace as far as the Village is representative of it, is also fairly shitty in that people seem to do what experiments they want with no consequences. I don't care who your employers are, you have to at least run human experiments past your boss.

There is another element of this episode which has workplace written all over it, and that is the carnival. McGoohan was inordinately fond of his allegorical approach to the show, and especially since it involves being merry to order, I would suggest that the carnival can be seen as an allegory of a work 'do'. The fact that people are given identities is exactly like many a workplace do, where you have to behave in the way expected.

Finally, you could read this episode in terms of organisational theory if you really want those workplace vibes to come out.

You may object to my characterisation of the Village as representing Number 6's workplace and his relief at having actually resigned because his worst fears have been confirmed, that this episode deals with larger matters of death, identity, coercion, etc, and I'm making them pedestrian. However don't forget that Number 6 wasn't, say, a lifeguard, but has resigned from a certain sort of job where the personnel are considered possibly vulnerable or liabilities. It is precisely because he has appeared to resign from no ordinary job that the things depicted in the show are so extreme.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting this episode to be easily interpreted in light of this theory and am quite pleased that it has bent so easily to do so.

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