Number Six suspects that the transfer of power to a new Number Two is the subject of a terrorist conspiracy, and is faced with the choice of whether to accept a fellow rebel's tactics.
This episode provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Much of the younger Number Two's plot involves precise calculations of Number Six's behaviour, which the Village tracks using intelligent computers. When the computer predicts that Six will purchase sweets, Two refuses to believe it because Six never eats sweets... only for Six to buy a bag of sweets for an upset elderly woman who'd run out of her own credits to buy a bag, proving the machines calculated every possibility.
- When Number Two asks if the machines' performances could be verified, he's told that the computers refused to give their own estimates. "They'll be wanting their own unions next," he jokes.
- Bluff the Eavesdropper: Some of the prisoners ("jammers") mess with their captors by making up and spreading false stories about plots and conspiracies, so that the people in charge will have to put some effort into figuring out whether any of their surveillance reports indicate a real threat.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: How the plotters hope to ensnare Number Six: his overriding need to help other people in distress (even when his better judgment is warning him otherwise).
- Displayed in a minor fashion when he helps out an old lady desiring a bag of sweets.
- Complexity Addiction: The entire assassination plot against the retiring Number Two.
- The faction headed by the younger Number Two wants to eliminate the retiring Two, but cannot do it directly lest the other faction(s) controlling the Village retaliate.
- So they set up a frustrated "Jammer" — a known trouble-maker among the population — to commit an act of violent protest that "would send a message" that the Village wardens can't ignore: killing the outgoing Number Two during a public ceremony.
- The plot has to use Number Six — a known figure who isn't a Jammer and still viewed as trustworthy even by the wardens — to confirm that the Jammer's threat is real, and yet in such a way that the retiring Number Two won't believe it so he'd still go through with the ceremony.
- The plot also has to have the younger Two put himself in harm's way — in proximity of the rigged Seal — so to avoid suspicion.
- Continuity Nod: The retiring Number Two asks what use it could possibly serve to make Number Six doubt his own memories. Ironically, "make Number Six doubt his memories and identity" was the entire plot of "The Schizoid Man."
- Control Freak: The incoming Number Two. Hardly a scene goes by without him second-guessing his subordinates to make absolutely certain that they're doing their jobs correctly.
- Crying Wolf: Deliberately invoked by the plotters. When Number Six tries to warn about the assassination plot (believing that the incoming Number Two is the target), the plotters film his warning. Then they doctor the video, creating footage of Number Six warning every prior Number Two of assassinations that never came to pass. They show this to the retiring Number Two—the actual target of the assassination—to make him dismiss the warnings as meaningless scaremongering.
- Damsel in Distress: How the young Number Two tries to involve Number Six in his plot, by sending a worried young woman — a "Jammer" — to warn him about her father's plan to kill someone. Subverted in that Number Six knows full well that the Village is listening in on everything and that they should already know about it, and so refuses to help.
- The plotters have to wreck Number Six's watch to force him to go to the watchmaker directly, and see the bomb pieces for himself, to make him understand how serious the threat is.
- Disproportionate Retribution: What Number Six fears will happen if the watchmaker succeeds in killing Number Two: That the Village would punish every prisoner—even the innocent—to discourage any future assassination attempt.
- It's implied that the faction planning the assassination wants that to happen, so they can assume greater control of the Village for themselves.
- Do Not Go Gentle: The retiring Number Two, upon realizing that the plot to kill him is real, initially gives up because he knows that his enemies will get to him sooner or later. Number Six (after securing an escape for Number Two) talks him out of his despair— if Number Two is going to die no matter what, he should at least make it as hard as possible for his killers.
- Fictional Sport: Kosho, which involves bouncing and grappling on trampolines. Apparently one wins a match by forcing the opponent into an adjacent dunking pool.
- Gambit Roulette: "It's Your Funeral" stands out for the circular logic required to justify Number 6 being involved in the story (a group planning to assassinate Number Two wants Number Six to learn about them, so he can warn Number Two and not be believed, rather than just staying secret in the first place).
- He Knows Too Much: The implication behind killing the older Number Two: he's been with the Village so long that he knows far too many secrets about the organization.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The incoming Number Two's complex plot to kill the retiring Number Two. The plot requires the older Two to be wearing the Seal containing the bomb, but Number Six stops the triggerman long enough that the Seal has to be placed on the younger Two as part of the ceremony. Thus the younger Two becomes the hostage for Number Six, who gives the trigger to the older Two so he can escape with it.
- Hope Spot: The successful escape by the retiring Number Two implies that people can escape the Village.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: After receiving the warning from Number Six about a plot to kill him, the older Number Two asks an aide to replay the video clips of Six's other similar warnings to the other Twos. When the aide - who's in on the younger Two's plot - nervously slips up to reveal that those tapes really didn't exist, the older Two confronts him by wondering how that aide even knew which ones the older Two was even talking about. The aide's fearful silence confirms for Two that there is a plot against him, but it's his own Village masters (he thinks) behind it.
- Mind Screwdriver: An attempted one— this episode attempts to explain the regular changes in Number Twos by suggesting that they're all temporary replacements for a permanent one, and generally depicts the workings of the Village as much more of a "naturalistic" bureaucracy and prison camp than other episodes. However, the later episodes go right back into enigmatic allegory.
- The Reveal: This episode implies that there are multiple Number Twos running the Village at the same time, each of them overseeing a particular operation or handling affairs while a supervising Two is away on other business.
- This episode also reveals that the people running the Village are not unified, and that there are factions among them vying for control.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Both sides.
- There are factions among the Village's prisoners who are trying to rebel, but they're divided between the harmless "Jammers" and the more serious forces wanting to strike a serious blow against their wardens.
- The Village leaders themselves are shown to be in opposition, with factions attempting to assassinate one of their own and not get caught doing so by their higher-ups (who would blame the assassination on a patsy Villager).
- Who Shot JFK?: This episode includes a lot of references - hidden and overt - to the Kennedy assassination in 1963, including a grassy knoll.note
