Directed by Pat Jackson
Written by Anthony Skene
The title of this episode is given onscreen as "A. B. and C."; IMDb and Wikipedia reflect this. However, the menu from the A&E DVD displays the title as "A, B and C" instead.
Number Two (Colin Gordon) decides to manipulate and observe Number Six's dreams to see if he was "turned" by one of three people, codenamed A, B, and C.
Number Fourteen (Sheila Allen) uses a dangerous drug that requires 24 hours between doses, and shouldn't be administered more than three times.
The image of A (Peter Bowles), a former colleague of Number Six's who defected to "the other side," is piped into Number Six's brain, who then dreams of running into A at a party hosted by Madame Engadine (Katherine Kath). A tries to get Number Six to defect also but fails.
Number Two is now convinced that Number Six had no intention of defecting to the other side with A. Number Two is eager to proceed on to B, but Number Fourteen insists Number Six must be given a day to recuperate.
Waking up in his residence, Number Six notices a strange needle mark on his wrist, and suspects Number Fourteen has something to do with it (he saw her briefly while dreaming). He strikes up a conversation with her at an outdoor café as she reads the newspaper The Tally, with the front page story headlined "Is No. 2 Fit For Further [Duty]?"
Number Six mentions that Number Fourteen used to be an old lady in a wheelchair. The new Number Fourteen dismisses the statement as boring nonsense.
Later, Number Six is once again taken to the laboratory, given the drug and fed the image of B (Annette Carrell). Number Six dreams that he goes to talk to B at the arbor. The two of them dance rather carefree, and Number Two worries they're getting nowhere.
So Number Fourteen intrudes into the dream to have B say that she's going to be killed if she doesn't find out why Number Six resigned. Now B sounds more like Number Fourteen. Number Six asks B some basic biographical questions, which B has trouble answering. Now it's unclear if Number Six was going to sell out to B.
Now Number Six has two needle marks on his wrist. He follows Number Fourteen to the lab and breaks into the building through an air vent. He finds the dossiers for A, B and C, only the dossier for C is empty. He also finds the third dose of the drug, which he waters down.
At the next dream session, Madame Engadine is revealed as an unlikely C. She has Number Six win a key by betting on 6 Black at roulette. Then Number Six and Madame Engadine open a door. Next, they're in the car, on the way to meet her boss, a mysterious masked man.
After a very slight struggle, Number Six unmasks the mysterious man, who turns out to be... Number Two. Number Six further manipulates the dream, confronting Number Two in the dream, in the same room they are in real life. As this clearly means he has failed, Number Two is aghast. Number Six remains a prisoner in the Village, and the reason for his resignation remains unclear.
Tropes
- Air-Vent Passageway: How Number Six breaks into the lab.
- Anachronic Order: One of the most obvious of the series. The Number Two played by Colin Gordon appears in this episode as terrified of failing his masters if he doesn't break Number Six... yet he appears later in the series in the episode "The General" as though nothing was wrong and indeed appears more confident and convinced his plans will succeed. There is no evidence Colin Gordon was meant to play two entirely different Twos, yet this series came out before the idea of continuity in a television series caught on (most shows in that era would recycle the same actors in different roles all the time). There's also the fact that he says "I am Number Two" in the Couch Gag and "The new Number Two," in "The General" — therefore, most episode orderings place them as a pseudo-two-parter with "The General" first in order to make things more sensible.
- All Just a Dream: Literally, the majority of the episode is a vision projected into Six's mind.
- Bad Boss: Number One is implied to be this by the way Number Two is clearly terrified of failing him.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Number Six intentionally allows himself to become one during the C segment as he begins to take over the dream.
- Determinator: Number Six's dreams are an endless loop of his resignation... and nothing else. He doesn't even quit when he's asleep.
- Dutch Angle: The third dream is afflicted with this. Number Six "fixes" it by twisting a nearby mirror.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: This Number Two is one of the few who never asks Number Six why he resigned, because he thinks he already knows the answer. He's convinced Number Six was going to sell out to one of three enemy operatives he knew: A, B, or C, and spends the episode trying to find out which one. Of course, he's completely wrong about why Number Six resigned.
- Face–Heel Turn: The agent code-named A is based on a colleague of Number Six who defected to the other side. Number Two is convinced that A was trying to tempt Number Six to do the same, except the first dream session proved Six hated A for what he did. He even dreams a Curb-Stomp Battle on A to display his contempt for his ex-friend.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At first, Six's dreams are just of him handing in his resignation... which means the first dream Number Two and Number Fourteen see is basically the opening credits. Also, when Number Six is about to unmask the mysterious "D," he says the people watching want to see who the mysterious man is. Of course Number Six is referring to Number Two and Number Fourteen, but the viewers at home also want to see.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The device used to project a false dreamscape into Number Six's mind.
- Oh, Crap!: It's bad enough for Number Two when he realizes that Number Six has tricked him in the third dream. Then, suddenly, the direct phone line to Number One starts ringing...
- Out-of-Character Moment: Number Six realizes a woman (named B) he trusts in the dream is a fake by the way she's terrified of being threatened when the real-life one scoffs at danger.
- The Reveal: In-story, the Village has no idea who C was, only that Number Six met him at Madame Engandine's parties. Number Six dreams that C is Engandine, and that C is working for a shadowy figure called "D". Subverted in that Number Six is faking his dream during the third session, and maybe lied about Engandine being C. D is a complete fiction... whom Number Six mocks by making him Number Two under that mask!
- Number Six does reveal that his plan after visiting Madame Engandine's party — where he was going before the Village kidnapped him — was to honestly go on a vacation: he never planned on defecting at all.
- Rule of Three: The dream-reading machine can only work three times, there are three subjects that the Village has under suspicion (A B and C), and all three revolve around Madame Engandine's parties.
- The Prisoner's first two dreams have him arriving at formal, rather sedate shindigs at Madame E's home. After Number Six discovers the ruse he switches out the dream serum with water before the third session and fakes the third party. He imagines it as a raucous Sixties swinging affair, nothing like the original dreams (which should have tipped off Number Two that this wasn't a real dream session).
- Trust Password: Number Six, when discovering his friend B isn't behaving like herself in his second dream, asks her about "her son," a tidbit of information the Village didn't know about. It throws off Number Fourteen's attempts to manipulate the dream state, which confirms Number Six's angry realization that the dream version of B isn't real.
- Villainous Breakdown: Number Two is pretty anxious throughout the episode, until he finally loses it in the end.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Number Two is convinced that the reason Number Six resigned was to defect or sell out to the other side. Number Six makes it clear — especially in the first two dreams that were real — he wasn't.
- Xanatos Gambit: As typical in the Village, they have one planned for Number Six via a Lotus-Eater Machine. Number Six turns the tables on them by taking control over his dream.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Implied to be the fate of Number Two for wasting the Village's time.
