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Biggest Prisoner Spoiler Ever *SPOILER ALERT**

posted 11 years ago by reddaze75
18 replies | jump to latest

As an avid fan of the series, I was keen to get 'the wife' into it, as you do. Now I'd like to consider myself as an intellectual person but my wife completely stunned me with this observation, on her first viewing I might add:

Intro sequence to every episode;

No. 6 "who are you?"
No. 2 "the new number 2"
No. 6 "who is number 1?"
No. 2 "you...are number 6"

As throughout the series, the question of who number one actually is, was completely avoided.

In fact, it wasn't.

We are told the answer at the start of the whole series and subsequently every episode. Just pause in a different place when you say number 2's response.......

"Who is number one?"
"You are, number 6"

Blew me away that I never spotted it after so any years and viewings.

This is where you all say it was blindingly obvious to you all and I was one of the few that missed it......,.

[–] cind5 11 years ago

Don't worry alot of us missed it too. Somebody a couple of years ago posted this same thing and several of us ran back watched the episodes over and then we noticed it. I'l admit it, I'm not too brilliant, but sounds like your wife is, she's a keeper.

BOO-YEAH!

[–] The_Monocled_Mutineer 11 years ago

It's not just that though is it?

There are loads of little references dotted around. The fact that he lives at Number 1 is also quite telling.

[–] tbx5959 11 years ago

Some of the numbers 2 say it differently, to the point that I always wonder if it really is the clue it is made out to be; hell, hearing the intro might have influenced what happens in the finales. I don't know when I started hearing it as a possible you are, number 6, but, by hook or by crook, once you hear it, it's hard to unhear --- but it's also hard to unhear you, are (in turn) number 6.

I'd love to know if they gave the number 2s notes on how to say it, or if the number 2s just gave their own reading (and those that seem to point to 6 being 1 making that choice based on their interpretation).

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] hurricanehorton 11 years ago

I had somebody point this out to me a few years back that it's possible The Prisoner was Number 1, and I had never noticed.

Is this generally accepted as a truth, or just a theory made by fans?

[–] cind5 11 years ago

Watch the last episode.
BOO-YEAH!

[–] !!!deleted!!! (19664510) 10 years ago

Watch the last episode.

:::facepalm::: Everyone here has watched the last episode. That was pretty much the point of the whole thread, Einstein.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

We are told the answer at the start of the whole series and subsequently every episode. Just pause in a different place when you say number 2's response.......

"Who is number one?"
"You are, number 6" - reddaze75

During my last re-watch of the series, I paid particular attention to the opening-credits exchange. This ultimately gets to interpretation, but what I heard in every episode that has the exchange is either "YOU are Number Six" or "You are NUMBER SIX." In none of the episodes did I hear a pause between "You are" and "Number Six" that would indicate the crucial comma needed for the explicit identification "You are, Number Six."

Which I don't think means anything other than a series this subtle and this ambiguous is not going to provide such an obvious and unequivocal clue. Rather, I think it's yet another suggestion dangled before us.

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History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull$hit. - Hunter S. Thompson

[–] cstu11 10 years ago

It was absolutely intentional not to insert the pause and clue in the viewer. Brilliant decision to put meaning of the show right in the intro so viewers could have that mindblown moment when they realize it.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

Whose decision was it? You state this as if it were a fact. What is your source?

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"The past is never dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner

[–] cstu11 9 years ago

An interview with McGoohan, apologies for not remembering which one but it's on Youtube.

[–] sherlock-37 9 years ago

I don't think it's as straight forward as that. There was another interview with a key figure on the production who later went on to work on A Clockwork Orange, who said they rarely had finished scripts in good time for shooting - the crew and actors would just have to trust that McGoohan had good instincts, and could pull it off on the spot. There was only intended to be six or seven episodes as I recall from the interview on the documentary.

If number six is number one, where does that get us? Does the number system imply a hierarchy? I don't think we can assume even that number one calls all the shots. The organizational chart is bureaucratic and sprawling as some episodes suggest. This is not James Bond, where he reports to a single individual, "M", with their own secretary.

I don't buy the slight of hand word play. I think it reads just as you hear it. The viewer is left to guess who number one is, what their role is and primarily if the prisoner can get a hold of his own destiny by making an escape.

If he's number one, it's because it's McGoohan's show - he played the lead, invented the concept, directed, hired actors, found the location and on and on. Of course he's number one. Great actor too. What a great series.

My accountant says, 1 + 1, 40% of the time, equals divorce.

[–] Maya55555 9 years ago

Since the scripts were playing "cat and mouse" with the audience; we guessed it right away.

"A stitch in time, saves your embarrassment." (RIP Ms. Penny LoBello)

[–] lawrenced-544-76959 9 years ago

Patrick McGoohan has said in interviews that at the time of writing the early episodes with George Markstein, he had no idea what the final outcome of the story would be. In fact, by episode 13 he'd ran out of ideas for storylines so Lew Grade allowed him to wrap the series up with 4 final episodes, which are incongruous to the other 13 in plot, location, everything. The idea that he (No.6) was No.1 was a late idea and never the original intention of the series.

The Octave Doctor

[–] lawrenced-544-76959 9 years ago

And the theory about the opening lines (You are....number 6) is pure foolishness. The line is not even spoken like that, regardless of which actor is playing No.2.

The Octave Doctor

[–] FootOfDavros (8198) 2 years ago

I just watched the same interview on the YouTube.

It was quite funny reading this thread and people think this was some kind of genius hidden reveal when it was nothing of the sort.

[–] Rinn13 (167) 3 years ago

The only problem with this theory, as others have pointed out in other threads, is that the final episode where that "big reveal" came, wasn't written until the very last minute. Meaning it's quite likely there was zero concept of who "Number 1" was, when they came up with the show's intro. I could be wrong, but after just recently finishing the show myself, it seems incredibly apparent to me, as brilliant as the show could be in certain episodes, that they had zero idea where it all was going, and it's terribly obvious that what they threw together at the end, was just that: thrown together.

[–] Owlwise (1535) 3 years ago

But thrown together brilliantly, I'd say. Which is why it remains so fascinating & thought-provoking to this day. It's pouted white-hot from the crucible at the last moment, so to speak. The pressure of not knowing how it would end & facing an imminent deadline brought out the best from everyone, with the material emerging from the Unconscious. No carefully pre-planned, pre-conceived ending could ever have matched what we got.

Biggest Prisoner Spoiler Ever ***SPOILER ALERT****

Biggest Prisoner Spoiler Ever *SPOILER ALERT**