Molotov Cocktease
Molotov Cocktease is a supporting character on the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. She appears primarily as a love interest, friend, and occasional rival of Brock Samson. She is voiced by Mia Barron.
Character description
Molotov is a Russian mercenary who performs black ops-type activities for any who can afford her services. On the surface, she appears to be the female equivalent of Brock Samson: an amazingly competent, utterly lethal cigarette smoker who is irresistible to the opposite sex and unbelievably hard to kill. However, she seems to lack Brock's sense of long-term loyalty and duty, often acting in either her own best interests or that of her client of the moment. She also differs from Brock in that she does not share his dislike for firearms.
Cocktease's outfit consists of a very revealing, skin-tight black unitard (which barely covers her large breasts, dips below her navel in front and reveals the tops of her buttocks in back), topped with red gloves and stiletto heel boots and a heart-shaped eyepatch over her left eye. A holster is slung low across her hips and a scabbard strapped to her back holds a katana-like sword. Her hair is long and fiery red, her remaining eye is emerald green, she has a small beauty mark near the right side of her mouth (resembling that of Cindy Crawford), and she is in overall magnificent physical condition. Molotov is quite aware of her beauty and its effect on men, and does not hesitate to use it to her advantage.
While she speaks near-perfect English, she retains a thick Russian accent. As is appropriate to her chosen vocation, she is proficient in a wide variety of weapons (including knives, swords, and guns) as well as unarmed combat and martial arts. Her boots conceal dagger-like (and possibly poison or drug-tipped) spikes that protrude from the heels, although how she extends or retracts them is unclear.
Several of the elements of Molotov's character and appearance--such as her red hair, Russian accent, skin-tight black costume, combat abilities, and background as a Soviet agent--are obvious nods to the Marvel Comics character, the Black Widow (more specifically, the first Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff). She may also possibly be influenced by James Bond villain Xenia Onatopp
History with Brock Samson
She and Brock have known each other for approximately twenty years, when both were young and capable but inexperienced field agents. They clearly possess very strong feelings of attraction towards each other, yet have shared little more than passionate kisses and embraces with each other. Two reasons for this are their often-contradictory goals and Molotov's titanium-reinforced chastity belt (which inspires considerable yet understandable frustration in Brock). While this device has not been explained on the show, the Adult Swim website states that she wears it in keeping with her father's dying wish.
While Brock and "Mol" (as he affectionately calls her) obviously share a good deal of history, little of it has been shown. They first met in Paris while on an undisclosed assignment, Brock working for the Office of Secret Intelligence and Molotov for the KGB (seen in flashback during the episode "Assassinanny 911"). Like many of their subsequent meetings, the encounter resembled sadomasochistic foreplay: she ultimately left him pinned to a mattress in a burning apartment, and in parting threw a lit cigarette onto his chest as he begged for one to smoke. Other events of their turbulent acquaintance, described but not depicted, include the death of Brock's partner at Molotov's hands, Brock subsequently killing Molotov's father, and Brock removing her left eye. (Although the time frame for these happenings in unclear, Brock has kept the eyeball as a souvenir of sorts; it floats in a jar on his nightstand, still brilliant green. Molotov seems to consider this "sentimentality" endearing.) One meeting between the two was described as a laser show in an Akron, Ohio planetarium to the music of Led Zeppelin; it was never specified whether the encounter was romantic, professional or accidental.
Appearances
Cocktease first appeared in the first-season episode "The Incredible Mr. Brisby." Brock had been felled by a drugged cigarette and dumped in a tar pit to die, but he awoke to find Molotov pulling him free with a winch. After alternately viciously battling him and passionately making out with him, she agreed to help Brock rescue the Ventures. True to her word, she led him to the headquarters of the Orange County Liberation Front, but they arrived too late to intercept the boys. They both traveled to Brisbyland, where once inside the Brisbydome she took her leave to pursue her own objective (recovering Brisby's pet panda for its previous owner, David Bowie).
She appeared again in "Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!," although only as a fantasy. Brock became trapped inside one of Dr. Venture's inventions, a device dubbed "The Joy Can" that allowed people to live out their innermost dreams. In Brock's hallucination, she informed him that she was finally ready to go "all the way" but begged him to not be gentle.
In the second season, her relationship with Samson seems to have cooled down somewhat. In "Assassinanny 911," Brock asks her to temporarily assume his duties as Venture family bodyguard while he tackles a separate assignment. While the pair do not flirt much, Cocktease obviously respects Samson immensely and is disgusted with what she considers his babysitting duty. She decides to subject the Ventures to intense training, hoping to eliminate their utter dependence on Brock. Hank becomes smitten with Molotov (as does his father Dr. Venture to a lesser degree). After accidentally injuring himself with her hidden boot spike, Hank hallucinates that she wants him to kill Dr. Venture; he responds by attacking his father with a papier-mâché machete. When Brock returns, he continues to decline Molotov's offers to become a mercenary team together, and she leaves in disappointment.
Notes
- Her name combines Molotov cocktail (an improvised firebomb) with "cock-tease" (a slang term for a woman who subjects men to sexual teasing with no intention of gratifying them, referring to her beauty and chastity belt). 'Coqtiz,' an alternate way of spelling her surname, can be found on a piece of storyboard artwork at Douglas Lovelace's website [1]. Her name is a reference to similarly named James Bond femme fatales such as Pussy Galore and Xenia Onatopp.
- "Assassinanny 911" is easily Molotov's most prominent role in the series to date. The episode also makes several joking references to her Russian background, particularly in accepting blue jeans as payment and hoarding toilet paper (presumably a habit from the days of Soviet rationing).
- A possible early rendition of Molotov Cocktease can be seen near the end of the Season 1 opening credits after Baron Werner Ünderbheit and before a frogman. A female character is shown with red hair, a beauty mark, and a unitard lighting a cigarette off of a Molotov cocktail. This design was later used for the flashback sequences of her & Brock in "Assassinanny 911".
- In the episode "Assassinanny 911," she gives Dean a book that she demands he study due to his inability to combat train because of a foot injury. The book is simply titled "Spetsnaz" and Dean is shown reading the book while practicing some knife thrust moves. This implies that she was a member of the Soviet Special Forces or at least has access to Soviet military training materials.