The Prisoner (TV Mini Series)

Episode 6: Checkmate (2009)

Jim Caviezel: 6, Michael

Photos 

Quotes 

• 2 : There are people here, 6. Good people. Newcomers. Look at them. They choose life. But you...

  6 : I'll find a way out before I die.

  2 : Oh, 6. Let me give you the very secret of life. Breathe in... breathe out. More... Village. I say once you die, one breath at a time, 6. One... tick of the clock at a time.

• Curtis : Michael, how are you? Dear, look, it's Michael. From Summakor. My wife, Helen. Helen is a biochemist. She studies the mind. The depths of the mind. We all commonly accept the existence of the unconscious. Helen's surmised that if there are two layers of consciousness, then why not more? And if there are more, where are they and what are they? What if we could go there? And what if we could take with us all these broken people and let them fix themselves. Nothing too clever, just the simple virtues in life. Dignity of labor, civic pride, family. Sufficient to rekindle their lost purpose back here on terra firma.

  Michael : Your driver. He was one of these people.

  Curtis : Well, yes. And hundreds more like him. Michael, you found them. Your work in Summakor.

  Michael : Spying on people.

  Curtis : No. Protecting them. Repairing them. We all need that, son. Helen was the first person ever in the Village. All those remarkable dreams. Every thought, every impulse within the Village resides here in her mind. No children of our own, her great heartbreak. And we thought, we wondered if it were possible, if we went there that we could have a family.

• 6 : They're building houses, busing people in. That has to mean something.

  313 : Yeah.

  [drawing his blood] 

  313 : More Village. Be still. Please.

  6 : What is this, anyway?

  313 : Your name came up on the test list.

  6 : If the Village is all that there is, and now there are newcomers, how can they say that's possible?

  313 : You're right. I say it as though it was something ordinary.

• 6 : Been celebrating, 11-12?

  11-12 : I'm not 11-12. I'm only 2's son. That's all I'll ever be to anybody.

  6 : 313 told me about the pills. Is your mother dying?

  11-12 : I thought one day... maybe one day, she will come back. One day.

  6 : Come with us. Leave. Leave your father. Leave all of this.

  11-12 : The Village is best for me. I live here. This place is all I've got. Besides... I've got stuff to do. Only I'm not nearly drunk enough yet. I'd like to get on with finishing the job.

• 6 : What is this?

  2 : Is it perhaps your certificate of dying?

  6 : Why now? You could've killed me a thousand times.

  2 : I've tried every way I know to help you to belong, but still you refuse. You choose. This life or no life.

  6 : Assimilate or die?

  2 : That is the great gift of Village death. Clarity of choice.

• 6 : [11-12 visits 909's grave]  Still come here?

  11-12 : What do you want from me, 6?

  6 : To kill someone you love because you love them. The Village does that to you. Don't you have to wonder what kind of place it is? I know you don't want to yet. That time is coming... when you'll wanna tell me, to give me the information. To get us all out of here. To get you out of here.

  11-12 : Does your mother care for you, 6? Mine does. I believe she does.

  6 : Only a mother can destroy every ounce of hope in you.

• Michael : Nobody signed up for this. None of these people asked to be fixed.

  Curtis : You mean we should seek their permission?

  Michael : I'm human. I have a thousand flaws. I break down, I get up, I don't get up. I get lost. I make the same mistakes over and over. I have scars and wounds. Sometimes when I can't bear them anymore, I... I drink. You can't fix me. You can't fix any of us. You can't make us perfect. But I'm not like them, am I? You were keeping me quiet because nobody resigns from Summakor. Not on your watch, huh? Am I right?

  Curtis : You just listen to yourself. Your integrity, your vision. We threw at you everything we had. Love, loathing... death itself, and still you resist. Well, now I see. You are not the problem, Michael. You're a challenge, but an asset. An opportunity to take us forward.