Snakes Tolliver

Picture by CalGal

From The Wild Wild West, season 2, episode The Night of the Poisonous Posey

Portrayed by: Christopher Cary

Age: Twenty-eight

Alignment: Himself

Samuel "Snakes" Tolliver is rather universally disliked by both the good guys and the bad guys, and along with Florence, ended up being one of the principle antagonists of The Night of the Time Travel.

Snakes is from the Deep South and fought for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He wasn't particularly for or against the South's ideals, however; he just wanted somewhere else to go besides the orphanage where he had lived since his parents' deaths when he was a small child. At age 17, he lied about his age to get into the Confederate Army. He found he hated being subject to the commander, but he stayed.

One night a young Union soldier stumbled across him on guard duty and pleaded for his help in escaping members of his company who had turned against and were pursuing him. They argued for some time, but when Snakes heard another guard coming, he hid the other boy and kept his secret. Snakes was later found out, however, and was brutally beaten, stabbed, and burned by someone in his company who had already hated him. The cruel scar on his cheek was one result. Another was that Snakes decided from then on to only look out for himself and his interests.

In spite of that resolve, however, Snakes continued to help those he encountered who were in need of help, if he deemed them deserving of it. He had become more discerning of the good guys and the bad guys and surrounded himself with muscle for protection. Eventually he became a name to be both respected and feared. His kindnesses were not well-known, by his own choice, and despite them, he believed himself to be entirely corrupt.

Following the war, Snakes became a riverboat gambler on the Mississippi, and may have spent some time on Captain Grey Holden's boat The Enterprise. The scar and his gravelly voice were turn-offs to most women in his circles, except those who liked his money and skill with gambling, so he went with that and lived it up with such women for as long as he could. He also developed his skills as an explosives expert and was eventually noticed by Lucrece Posey and Little Pinto as they were gathering others to be regional leaders of a worldwide crime syndicate.

There was a great deal of in-fighting within the gang, but Snakes generally tried to stay out of it and get along with everyone. Even Brutus, whom some thought the Southern Snakes would be particularly opposed to working with, was not a problem. Snakes was quite open-minded and welcoming of all races, partially because of their more outcast status in the States at that time. Snakes, who had always been an outcast, could relate. He employed people of all races and both genders in his criminal operations, insisting on refusing to conform to social norms and having dreams of helping to usher in a new world. Perhaps Lucrece Posey's open-mindedness was one reason why Snakes chose to take up with her.

Snakes worked with the Posey gang for a time but eventually decided he wanted out, not liking living under Miss Posey's thumb. He tried to kill her with an explosive-laden gavel, which resulted in his death instead, via the poison she sometimes keeps under her fingernails.

While he lingered in death he was presumably stranded in Justice along with the rest of the gang, and most likely was shunned and ignored by all of them, except for times when Pinto especially wanted to torment him for trying to kill the woman he loves. Snakes still has nightmares about the unspeakable things Pinto did to him then, when death was no longer an escape.

When Dr. Faustina restored him to life along with Gallito, the overload of her machines opened a rift in the space-time continuum, sending everyone to the present-day. Snakes proceeded to mind his own business for a while, but following an encounter with Pinto and Cyril, he became terrified for his life and decided he needed to see that the entire gang was killed. He made an allegiance with Florence, promising to help her find the portal (if it existed) if she would eliminate the gang.

Snakes and Florence are cut from the same cloth, both very self-serving people, but they could not work well together nor trust each other. Snakes soon wanted out of Florence's organization as well, and tried to pit everyone against each other on top of Mt. San Antonio. He nearly caused the deaths of Coley Rodman and Little Pinto with his explosive device, as well as his own. Bleeding and burned and shamed, he fled the mountain the next day with the help of some hikers who found him.

Oddly enough, Snakes' explosion also helped the good guys ultimately, as it blew a hole through the sealed portal. Arte was then able to open it the rest of the way, allowing for continuous time-travel between 1874 and 2012.

Snakes has spent most of the next story, The Night of the Deadly Codename, running into the good guys and the bad guys, who are all furious with him for his actions on the mountain. Florence has tried to frame him as being part of the plot to destroy the entire world, which he balks at. Eventually he tries to help the others, after being forcibly brought back from a train by Jim, to prevent the destruction of the world.

Snakes is selfish and a coward, but he wasn't always, and the events of the climax made him remember that again. After all, he tells himself, looking out for himself certainly hasn't kept him uninjured, and has actually done more damage than when he tried to help the Union soldier. In the end, he nearly gives up his life to try to destroy the back-up counter on THRUSH's doomsday machine, his only consolation being that without Pinto in death with him this time, maybe death won't be too terrible.

Snakes survives, barely, and decides to try to turn his life around, having already been frustrated and disgusted with himself for his previous, cowardly behavior. He remains in Los Angeles, in the Gardena area, and takes up professional gambling again. (Casino-style gambling is legal in Gardena.) Although he is still somewhat selfish and prefers not to put himself in the line of any fire, he has softened and matured to the point that, just like he did many times before his death, he will probably come to someone's aid if they really, desperately need him.

Snakes sees himself as a relic of the past as well as a citizen of the present day. While Coley fits into the present world like a glove and doesn't look back, and Lafe is awkward and uncomfortable in it, Snakes falls somewhere in between. He holds onto the clothing of the 19th Century, preferring it over the less imaginative clothes of the present. But even there, he is a contrast of both times. He likes to lay around his apartment in a modern T-shirt and shorts and drape his old purple coat around him.

Snakes doesn't yet know how to drive and is okay with that. He takes public transport, which he's used to after taking trains and boats in the past. He also doesn't yet own a cell phone, although he's considering it.

He enjoys watching television, especially Westerns. He's discovered shows made about people he knew, such as the Mavericks. He finds the stars' resemblance to the real people uncanny and wonders if at least one of the real Mavericks time-traveled and secretly got the series going, selecting the people he wanted to have play everyone.

While watching television late at night, Snakes discovered a character on a children's movie who runs several accidental parallels with him and his own situation of being a repented criminal looking to understand the meaning of friendship and of living a good life. Snakes is unashamedly intrigued by this character, Sunset Shimmer of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls spin-off movies and books, and associates with a dock worker named Mike Trevino who also enjoys the movies and television series. Sunset Shimmer's song, My Past Is Not Today, could just as easily be talking about Snakes' villainy and how others have offered their friendship as he tries to turn his life around.