Episode 8   - Dance of the Dead

The recap below contains plot spoilers about Episode 8, "Dance of the Dead." If you haven't seen "Dance of the Dead" yet, you can watch the full episode online.

Death lurks amid the gaiety of a carnival, and No. 6 is put on trial when he makes an audacious bid to foil his captors.

"Never trust a woman, even when she has four legs" is the cynical summing-up made by No. 6 (Patrick McGoohan) when he finds that he cannot even trust a cat with which he has become friendly.

He cannot trust any of the other females who suddenly come into his life, either. One is the new No. 2 (Mary Morris). Another is the day supervisor, (Camilla Hasse). A third is the girl who has been assigned as his observer (Norma West), even though she betrays a feminine weakness and relaxes in her attitude towards him as she gets to know him better. He cannot even trust the attractive maid (Denise Buckley).

An electrical treatment to make him talk has to be called off because of the risk that it will damage his brain, but during this treatment he discovers than an old colleague, Dutton (Alan White), is a new captive in The Village -- a captive who breaks and tells everything he knows but still faces death because No. 2 refuses to believe him when he says he had no access to top-secret files.

Dutton is used to try and make No. 6 reveal why he resigned, but the attempt fails, and the drama develops against a background of revelry. It is the day of the annual carnival, with a ball and cabaret at the climax of the festivities.

When No. 6 goes off on his own, he finds the body of a young man on the beach. He seizes the opportunity to write a message, addressed to "whoever may find this," which he places into the dead man's suit with a photograph of himself and a drawing of The Village. And, in the hope that the finder might be able to trace him, pushes the body into the sea.

But he discovers, later, that No. 2 has won this round by learning what has happened and amending the message on the body to give the impression to whoever might find it that No. 6 himself is the victim of a drowning accident.

The affair has undermined him in more ways than one, as he discovers when reaching the evening's ball and finding himself as the star in the "cabaret" the star of a grim drama, as he is placed on trial with the villagers as the jury.