Episode 14 -  Living in Harmony

The recap below contains plot spoilers about Episode 14, "Living in Harmony." If you haven't seen "Living in Harmony" yet, you can watch the full episode online.

No. 6 finds himself in a Western township, tricked into becoming sheriff -- but can he be forced into carrying a gun and killing?

Give a man love, then take it away. Isolate him. Make him kill, and then face him with death. And he'll crack.

This is the idea behind the latest effort to extract secrets from No. 6 (Patrick McGoohan), and the setting is a Western township called Harmony.

He finds plenty to interest him in Harmony. There's Cathy (Valerie French). Cathy is lovely and interested in him from the start. There's the Kid (Alexis Kanner), an obvious psychopath who takes an instant dislike to No. 6, but finds he is up against a tougher opponent than he has expected. And there's the Judge (David Bauer), who runs the town in dictatorial fashion and asks No. 6 to take over as sheriff.

No. 6 refuses the job, and, as a result, is forced into a situation in which he is placed in jail under "protective custody", and he receives a grim warning of what might happen to him when Cathy's brother is callously hanged.

Cathy helps him to escape, asking him to come back with the law, the real law; but he is caught, and Cathy is put on trial, charged with aiding a criminal. She is found guilty, but the Judge defers sentence. Meanwhile, the Kid is not only increasingly antagonistic toward No. 6 but is paying more and more unwelcome attention to Cathy, and when it becomes clear to No. 6 that Cathy's life depends on his becoming sheriff, he accepts the job.

He refuses to carry a gun, however, and it seems that the tougher elements are determined to show him that he won't get far without one. Again, the Kid is in the lead.

The Judge is certain that he will make No. 6 wear his guns because, while he has got Cathy, he has got No. 6. The next step is to get the Kid "to rough her up" -- but the Kid goes too far and kills her.

And No. 6 gives way at last. The guns go into their holsters. The time has come for reckoning with the Kid.

Even the best laid plans, however, can go awry. No. 6 is still not broken. But the postscript, when the truth about Cathy, the Kid, and the Judge is revealed, contains unexpected tragedy.