This Character In 'Luke Cage' Season 2 Met His Demise In The Most Ironic Way
One of the more delightful aspects of all the Netflix Marvel shows is how they remix and reinvent characters from the comic books. Antagonists from Daredevil are re-imagined for Jessica Jones to take on, characters from the Iron Fist comics like Hogarth wind up gender-swapped and at least touching, if not directly involved in, the other series. The latest remixed villain out of the comics to turn up on Luke Cage Season 2 is Raymond "Piranha" Jones, who, sadly, doesn't survive long in Harlem. What happened to Piranha Jones in Luke Cage Season 2? Warning: Spoilers for Luke Cage Season 2 follow.
For those who don't read the comics, Raymond "Piranha" Jones is a Luke Cage antagonist, first appearing in the Power Man comics, and then again in the Power Man & Iron Fist series. But he's kind of a vampire character with sharp, freaky, triangular blades for teeth, hence his nickname. (Yes, he does bite his victims to kill them.)
He's a highly-competent crime boss, though, and a guy Dontrell "Cockroach" Hamilton works for as an enforcer, trying to steal chemicals from the Adonis Chemical Company. He is just as much an antagonist to Cottonmouth in the comics as Cage is, and his death comes about when he tries to take the Stokes family down.
The show has changed this up quite a bit. When fans first meet Piranha, as played by Chaz Lamar Shepherd, he's in deep with the Stokes family, giving Mariah insider trading information, pushing her to invest in Adonis Chemical Company, which is now the largest black-owned chemical corporation in the country. He believes if they can talk the owner into selling, the stock will shoot up in value, making Mariah near half a billion dollars in the process, and a chance to sell the gun business and go clean.
As Raymond tells everyone who asks, and even some people who don't, the name "Piranha" is one he gave himself. As a teen, he was a math and numbers whiz. It was Mariah's family who paid for his education, getting him into the right schools and the right connections. This is how he wound up on Wall Street. There, he found himself surrounded by sharks, so he decided to be the piranha.
The only kind of crime boss Jones could be considered is dabbling in the kind of crimes rich people commit every day to keep their money safe and growing. Otherwise, as a character, he's harmless. His fan obsession with Luke Cage is a little creepy, including having one of Cage's bullet hole-riddled hoodies from Season 1 in a box. But on the whole, he's harmless.
It's why Luke Cage agrees to do an appearance at one of Jones' parties. (He needs the money to settle a lawsuit.) When the Bushmaster attacks the party in an effort to get to Jones, Cage even agrees to become a "Hero for Hire" and keep the poor guy safe through the night.
The reason Bushmaster wants Jones is because he has technical authority over the Stokes family fortune, including the deed to Harlem's Paradise during the stock sale's grace period. (This is a real thing.) Cage does everything he can to keep Jones locked down and out of sight, but Jones is convinced if he could just get to his private jet, he'll take off and be fine.
He never gets to the plane. The next time viewers see him, he's being forced to give up his passwords and turn over all the Stokes accounts to Bushmaster under pain of death.
The pain of death comes anyway. By the time Luke and Misty arrive to rescue him, Bushmaster and Mariah's money are long gone, and Jones' head is floating in a piranha tank, being eaten by his namesakes.
