Number 6 was a Plant: The Girl Who Was Death and Once Upon a Time
The introduction to this series of posts considering the theory that Number 6 didn't resign at all and was a 'plant' in the Village may be read here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/number-6-was-a-plant-introduction
The Girl Who Was Death
I have paused in posting posts about the 'plant' theory for the simple reason that I needed to let the idea of this episode settle into my head, read around it a bit, and see whether it would fit with the theory, because I had predicted it wouldn't.
Although I think I can fit The Girl Who Was Death into the theory that Number 6 was a plant, the way I have had to do it is rather far-fetched.
So far I have found that the theory that Number 6 was a plant has drawn me along a particular line: he clearly wasn't planted by anyone else because nobody is supporting him, and I have been irresistibly drawn along the line of him having the true nature of his erstwhile/ongoing employer revealed to him. Of course it's not pretty but he's found that the most talented and intelligent people in Europe are either relentless psychopaths or complete cabbages, and almost none of them is inclined to do the right thing. Well, I suppose he had to learn it at some stage in his life.
In the same lines the key to fitting The Girl Who Was Death into the theory is that the events of the episode are clearly not real. This is therefore an ongoing realisation for Number 6 that the life and profession he has given himself to are not real. Despite the clearly fantastic events of the episode, if you look closely the scenes are all events which could take place in the life of a secret agent, and this episode makes it clear that it was pretend. This is of course also an episode with a connection to Danger Man (in the shape of Potter) which brings the secret agent theme even clearer.
Once again, making himself a plant has resulted in the collapse of his own life rather than the rectification of a corrupt Village.
Once Upon a Time
I have been surprised to realise that this inversion of the whole premise of the show makes more sense of Once Upon a Time than I have ever been able to make of it, so I'm quite chuffed.
Again you would be perfectly correct to say that this is quite far-fetched and even departs in many ways from the simple premise that Number 6 is a plant. Once again it requires the idea that the act of being a self-inflicted plant has unexpectedly resulted in Number 6 receiving a revelation of the truth about his past life, rather than whistle blowing on the corrupt Village.
It turns the entire premise of the show around and we see this in the return to childhood, hinting that his entire life has been corrupt. It is reflected in the unreality of this episode, indicating that everything he has thought he stood for - the nation, the crown, what is right, etc - has been proved to be a lie. It also makes sense of the somewhat to-and-fro power dynamic in this episode.
Because, as I've said before, what Number 6 finds out by planting himself in the Village is that he *is* the Village in a sense, because he is part of the corrupt establishment, and what is more, there is nowhere to go. The Village is international and so is the corruption.
So it is wrong to see Number 6 as the perennial rebel and spoke in the wheel against the establishment, or even the message of the show as being about freedom, corruption, responsibility. In this reading the message is that we are the cause of this, we are the Village, and there is nowhere to go. I think this is honestly the bleakest way to read the show that there is.
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