Diary of a Prisoner virgin – Getting to know Number Six

(Episode 12 – “Hammer Into Anvil” & Episode 13 – “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling”)

Things seem to have been kicked up a notch with these past two episodes, and I almost wonder if this is the point at which the series was slated not to continue past this one season. I’ll explain later.

In “Hammer Into Anvil,” Six clearly gets the upper hand on the Guardians, in particular Number Two and the creepy Supervisor. This is where the constant ousting of Number Twos hurts the mission of those in charge of The Village: if they keep putting new people in place to watch over and attempt to extract information from Number Six, each successive replacement won’t learn from the mistakes of the past. Number Six clearly is now using this to his advantage, and it’s probably his motivation for making this Two resign on his own — out with the old, in with the new and uninformed.

Not taking away too much from “Hammer,” the stand-out episode for me by far is “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling.” Commenter Scott H mentioned in my last post that I made an “important discovery” in that last review, and I believe what he was talking about was my mentioning the lack of seeing people close to Number Six. Finally, in this episode, we learn quite a bit about Number Six’s personal life outside The Village.

This is where I got the feeling that this episode was written after the writers were told that the show had to wrap up. It seemed quite out of place from everything else so far, especially for the Number Six we’ve come to know up to this point. Until now, he seemed very much to himself. There was no indication at all that he was worrying about anyone else — particularly a fiance — and especially the way we’d seen him carry on packing his bags to seemingly escape away someplace tropical at the start of every episode up to this point.

Another way “Oh My Darling” stood out from the others was how completely different the opening scene was. Admittedly, it was so out of place that I thought something was wrong with the DVD and I’d skipped ahead to another scene. It definitely got my attention quickly, and I was glued to the TV for the entire episode.

Clearly some of the most important facts about the show were learned in this episode. There’s an “Amnesia Room” where ex-Villagers’ minds can be wiped clean of the existence of The Village. We still don’t learn Six’s true name, though we do hear many of his aliases from around the world. And we get a hint as to what kind of business he was in before resigning and then being taken captive to The Village.

Things sort of fell apart a bit, though, at the end of “Oh My Darling.” I understand how (by the show’s theory) Six was able to have consciousness swapped back to his original body. However, I don’t understand how he regained the memories he’d lost when he was subjected to the Amnesia Room. Also, it seemed he was much too quick to point out the trick played on Number Two, to the point I thought for sure he could quickly and easily call the chopper back before Seltzman escaped.

Only four more episodes to go. I’m definitely curious to see if future episodes will take such a drastic change of direction as this one did.

Past posts: Episode 1, Episodes 2 & 3, Episodes 4 & 5, Episodes 6 & 7, Episodes 8 & 9, Episodes 10 & 11

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Jul 22, 2009 @ 14:00 EST5EDT