Favorite Characters: Cornell Stokes a.k.a. Cottonmouth (Luke Cage)

Luke Cage fits the overall Marvel trend of the TV shows generally having better villains than the movies.  Now, I wouldn’t put this show quite up there with Jessica Jones or Agent Carter, since Diamondback doesn’t really work for me, but fortunately, the show spreads the villain love between a few different characters.  Like his cousin Mariah, Cottonmouth makes an excellent baddie, albeit for very different reasons (some Cottonmouth-related spoilers.)

This is the type of story that lends itself well to a suave crime lord, and Cottonmouth fits the bill quite nicely.  On the (very ostensible) surface, he’s a wealthy club owner who oversees the happening Harlem’s Paradise, the place to be with live music to die for.  However, he’s so notorious that his position running a vast criminal enterprise isn’t even an open secret.  Everyone knows exactly what sort of business he gets up to – from extortion to drugs to guns – and he’s the type who manages to stay just far enough out of the muck that the police can’t pin anything to him.

Cottonmouth is all about power.  He runs his operation with icy determination, and everyone in his employ know they cross him at their own risk.  The “everybody wants to be the king” speech in his office is a masterful bit of acting, and I love how it’s filmed, with him delivering it straight into the camera where his unseen lackey is tied up just offscreen.  His words are calm, eloquent, all business – and then he beats his lackey so hard, the blood spatters onto his clothes.  He means what he says, he can turn on a dime, and he does not stand for anything less than what he ordered.

And yet, he has a pull that’s about more than just intimidation and power.  Most people in Harlem live in fear of getting on his bad side, but he’s so compelling, so charismatic, that he’s capable of making them, for just a moment, almost forget that.  When he speaks at Pop’s funeral, he suddenly rallies the people, moving them with this words, and in that instant, they stop being afraid.

This is partially because, unlike the other villains we see in Luke Cage, Cottonmouth does have a sort of code that he follows.  He knows the unwritten rules of the neighborhood, like Pop’s barber shop being neutral ground, and so, despite his general unpredictability, people know where he stands on things like that and can trust him to honor the code.  His stance on these matters are absolute, and he has no mercy for any of his goons who color outside these lines against his orders.  Yes, this severity ties back into his need for power and control – he won’t brook disobedience under any circumstances – but it also shows what principles he’s maintained throughout his criminal enterprises.  That always makes for good drama, because even though he’s definitely a villain first and foremost, it can’t be said that he’s only one thing, and when is that not a plus?

Relationship Spotlight: Mariah Dillard & Cornell Stokes a.k.a. Cottonmouth (Luke Cage)

There a number of different adages you could probably apply to Cottonmouth and Mariah if you wanted to.  “Blood is thicker than water.”  “You can’t choose your family.”  Even stuff along the lines of tigers not changing their stripes and apples falling within reach of their trees.  But though the relationship obviously has its roots in these different ideas, it doesn’t feel clichéd or tropey.  Instead, it’s a fascinating, fraught connection that keeps both characters entangled in one another (a few spoilers for Cottonmouth-Mariah.)

At first glance, these cousins appear to be positioned as polar opposites – the crime boss and the councilwoman.  Really, though, they have much more in common.  Having grown up surrounded by the family business, both carry it on in their own way, and both have identities that are not what they seem.  Mariah, although she presents herself as the respectable politician, plays a shell game with official funds to help bankroll Cottonmouth’s criminal ventures.  Her illegal activities are much more of a secret than her cousin’s; Cottonmouth is the sort of man who’s widely known to be a crime boss, and his front as a legitimate businessman/club owner is more cover-by-rote than anything else.

They play the same game with the actual illegal activities they conduct and their respective attitudes toward the family business/desire for power.  Cottonmouth’s is much more out in the open.  He’s the one sending his lieutenants out to “deliver messages” or bring gun deals to fruition, while Mariah is eager to say that she’s “just” the money, that she doesn’t even fully want to know what Cottonmouth is up to as long as he takes care of it quickly and discreetly.  But when push comes to shove, Mariah has a much greater capacity for crime and power plays than she lets on.  When she takes over partway through the season, even as she insists that she’s just tying up loose ends so they can never come back to bite her, there’s also that little piece of her that takes pride in improving on Cottonmouth’s – by her estimation – sloppy operation.

It’s such a messed-up relationship.  Mariah wants nothing to do with Cottonmouth (even though, deep down so far that it takes her a good chunk of the season to admit it to herself, she kind of does,) but she still can’t turn him down when he needs something from her.  She knows how her dealings with him could mess with her career if they come out, but she does it anyway.  Cottonmouth is beholden to Mariah for the money she’s given him, and yet (maybe because he’s seen how she can’t tell him no?), he still acts like he has all the power. 

Both went through very different iterations of the same trauma, and both kind of blame the other for it, especially now that the actual people who traumatized them are dead and can no longer be confronted about it.  Cottonmouth resents Mariah because, while she was sent away to school and put on the path to her current highly-respected career, he was forced to join the family business as a teenager.  As he was made to commit horrific acts at Mama Mabel’s behest, his impression of events is that Mariah abandoned him by allowing herself to be sent away.  Meanwhile, Mariah loathes the way Cottonmouth remembers their Uncle Pete as the one person who tried to look out for him and wanted to nurture his musical talent instead of pushing him toward crime, because Uncle Pete’s abuse of her was the real reason she was sent away.  Hate and love and need and anger get all jumbled up between them, and it’s only a matter of time before all those fomenting emotions bring them to a crisis point.