Like you, I didn’t watch The Prisoner in my youth. I watched the complete series about a year ago on YouTube and I think, having been through what we’ve been through, right now is the best time ever to watch it.
It was discussed on a previous Q Thread and that intrigued me. There were definite parallels between the show and the carefully curated reality we realize we are living in. But it was an interview McGhoohan did on Canadian television that finally pushed me to watch it. (McGhoohan sounded the alarm about our present global police state 50 years ago and he was still furious about it in 1977.) That’s when I looked it up on YouTube.
I watched the complete series in chronological order, 17(!) episodes, in about 3 weeks. One a day was all I could handle. I thought it was fantastic—so much better than I expected.
And yes, he does get free at the end. I believe rather than answering all our questions that episode was supposed to have us asking even more. The Canadian university students in the audience back in ‘77 wanted McGoohan to “explain it all” to them. He didn’t. He gave them some clues but primarily urged them to think.
Post to get off that evil 6** post number. Like the 13th floor, this post number should not exist.