He’s the Best Villain The Show has Had

Cottonmouth is regarded by most fans of Luke Cage to be far and away not only the best villain in the story, but the best part of the show period. Marshala Ali’s charismatic performance brought life to the relatively unknown villain, and his realistic yet still villainous reactions to Luke Cage led to an interesting dynamic. Cottonmouth wasn’t someone Luke Cage could just solve by punching him out; he had to strategize to beat him, and try to bring him to justice. At the same time Cottonmouth was shown to be sympathetic in his own way (being forced into the life and forced to kill his Uncle despite having the talent to be a musician), and very human (being upset that Pop was killed). Overall, while Diamondback was good and comic-book-y, Cottonmouth was the best.

There are Various Loose Ends to Tie up

One of the great things about Cottonmouth’s character, and thus his resurrection, is that he has a connection to all of the remaining villains. Mariah, the cousin who he helped, loved, and protected, is now his murderer. Shades is the guy who not only planned to kill Cottonmouth, but helped Mariah cover up his death and get through it without implicating herself. Diamondback has been revealed to be Cottonmouth’s friend as well as his superior, yet he let Shades live and teamed up with Cottonmouth’s killer in Mariah.

With Cottonmouth back to life, these new dynamics can be explored. Will Cottonmouth take revenge on Mariah? Or will he let it go and plan to take her out later, when she’s weak? Does he care about Shades helping her? Does he want Shades dead now? How do Diamondback and Cottonmouth interact? We’ve seen other bosses disrespect Cottonmouth (Domingo Colon) and we’ve seen Shades question Diamondback once he went off the deep end, so it’d be interesting to see how their conversations flow, and if Cottonmouth is more of a partner, or if he’s under his heel as Diamondback likes to place everyone else. On top of that, we can see if the new revived Cottonmouth acts the same or if he rebels against Diamondback now that he’s teamed up with Mariah and let Shades live.

It Can Potentially introduce an awesome new villain

With Cottonmouth’s resurrection comes questions. Like, who brought him back? And how? Was it magic? Science? Carefully laid plans? And with those questions come the potential to answer them in an awesome way: with a new villain. The first villain that comes to mind when speaking of resurrecting Cottonmouth is Mephisto, who is basically the devil of Marvel. Mephisto makes deals with people in exchange for their soul, often giving them anything they want, including supernatural powers. With the introduction of Mephisto, there comes the possibility to open up all kinds of storylines for Luke Cage, besides simply cleaning up the streets. Maybe Cottonmouth has to ‘deliver’ a certain amount of souls to Mephisto in exchange for his own? Or perhaps he simply promises to ‘deliver’ Luke Cage? Or maybe, he’s just on one last mission to kill everyone who ruined his life? Anything is possible once these kind of avenues open up.

And it’s not just Mephisto. The Hand can be reintroduced, as we’ve seen them revive people in Daredevil. This gives Luke Cage a new self-reviving threat, and an enemy with actual training (plus ninjas). It could be that scientist that gave Luke his powers in the first place, experimenting with Cottonmouth’s body and bringing him back to life. No matter who it is, Cottonmouth’s resurrection can bust open the doors to new stories and new seasons to come, even after he’s dealt with.

It Brings a new Supernatural Element to the story

Very related to the last point, once Cottonmouth comes back, a new element is automatically added to Luke Cage, one of supernaturalism. Whether it’s science or magic, now it’s official that death is NOT the end for anyone on this show. It allows villains to meet their end and complete an arc logically, while also being able to come back if need be. Plus it gives Luke a more palpable opponent, one that can actually challenge him on many levels, as being bulletproof does NOT make you magicproof or protect you from others with supernatural abilities. Cottonmouth’s resurrection takes the grounded awesomeness of Luke Cage and mixes it with the anything-can-happen supernatural setting of the comic books the show is derived from.

The Final Showdown

At least half of season 1 of Luke Cage was spent building towards the final confrontation between Cottonmouth and Luke Cage. It wasn’t likely to be a plain out fight as Luke had with Diamondback, but something was brewing that would’ve been epic in many ways. Some fans feel like we were robbed of that, and the very simple solution to said robbery is to simply bring Cottonmouth back. With Cottonmouth back to life, we not only get the showdown we were promised, but now, depending on how it’s written, Cottonmouth can be an actual threat to Luke. If desired, he can go toe to toe with Luke physically, or torment him mentally with taunts and stories about how he’s now untouchable. Luke didn’t want to kill Cottonmouth in the first place (hence the struggle between the two), and now Cottonmouth gets to laugh in Luke’s face because Luke couldn’t kill him if he wanted to. And of course, since it’s Luke’s show, we get to see how Luke will handle Cottonmouth’s revival and how he will defeat his new and improved unkillable foe.

It brings a New Aspect to His Character

As said above, Cottonmouth will be seen as unkillable now, as he died once and simply came right back. This alone will give him unbelievable street cred and throw EVERYONE through a loop. But hidden in that unkillable moniker is the new life, the new reputation Cottonmouth will have once brought back. Legally, he’s dead, killed by Diamondback (according to Mariah’s testimony), so he can’t be arrested or dealt with by legal means anymore. The police will be very resistant to any stories involving a dead man taking control of Harlem, which allows him to coast under the radar, as a ghost. Cottonmouth is now a boogeyman to the streets, and untraceable to police, and anyone that wants to take him down will have to do it with their own two hands, or by somehow using Cottonmouth’s revival against him (perhaps strike a deal with his benefactor, whoever it is).

Regardless, Cottonmouth gets to become something even greater than he was before. Before he was a Don, a Kingpin, and now he’ll be a Legend and a Myth, who none would dare cross. And that’d make for great TV.