Character Analysis: Skins

James Cook "It's not about the destination. It's about the journey"

Creds: tumblr user kerouacophy

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This post breaks down the personality and motivations of one of the most extreme and most explosive characters Skins...fuck...television has ever seen.

There is honestly not a character like Cook. It was solidified when Jack O'Connell was chosen to play Cook that this character would be a writer's wet dream. Why? Because both Cook and O'Connell are willing to do anything. Absolutely anything. Cook was in many ways the plot pusher with his honesty and his zest for life. Before I get ahead of myself let me first begin with Cook's family.

Cook's family stayed a mystery for quite some time until the last episode of Series 3 and then into Series 4. We learned that Cook has a father who is a dead beat. He's a selfish crook who uses the people around him in order to accomplish what he wants. For instance using Cook in order to settle his bar tab. There are many comparisons between Cook and his father especially in Series 3's Finale. However the one thing that Cook has that his father does not is the ability to love and care about people. Despite Cook's fuckery he does love people and will do anything to protect those he loves.

Cook's mother is named Ruth. She is a loaded artist who is communicative about her sexual life in front of Cook. They have a tense relationship that involves quite a bit of fighting and severe differences in opinion. She also has a younger son (Cook's half brother) named Paddy. Who Cook absolutely adores and he is quite sweet too. He sees his mother doing the same things with Paddy as she did with Cook. So he kidnaps Paddy for a day showing him a day of mayhem and laughs. Just like with Cook's Dad there are also some parallel's with Paddy. Cook's Dad represented the person he could turn into and Paddy represents what he once was filled with potential without life in the way.

His family life has instilled a sense of independence in Cook. He relies on himself and has built his own family with his friends of choice. Freddie and JJ become his new family. Freddie being the person who gets him out of trouble and JJ being the amusing kid who says hilarious things. Together they form the three musketeers and a new kind of family.

Cook personality wise is best described by the element of fire. He is passionate, impulsive, could change on a whim, violent, temperamental, scares himself, and when not contained can burn wild. Leaving scares and destruction behind it. He lives life to the fullest and never backs down from anything. He sings louder than most. He dances fiercer than most. He gets into fights when he feels hurt. He has sex when he wants. He just lives hard as Naomi pointed out. He feels everything intensely and has this innate need to see what happens.

Sometimes though when you live your life like fire you sometimes hurt people you never meant to hurt. The chase for Effy ended up hurting Freddie though Freddie did his own brand of hurting as well. Cook's impulsive and rebellious attitude also left JJ behind for a little bit as well. The biggest victim of fire though is fire itself. Sometimes Cook burns bridges and opportunities by his behavior. He burns himself sometimes.

Freddie gets fed up with this personality trait of Cook especially when he starts to fall for Effy. This tears Cook apart. He does care about Effy and Freddie is his best mate. The person he relies on to throw water in this fiery path. Because Effy came between these two friends Cook was left on his own to stop his own fire instincts. To rise and spread. This of course does not work and Cook does get himself into trouble. Massive trouble.

Despite the destruction and the impulsive nature of Cook. He is also a brave and honest character. Many of the plot points of Generation 2 are driven by Cook's honesty. Either by him revealing secrets people are hiding. Such as the affair that Pandora was having with Cook for example. Or by him making a decision to party or to turn himself in for something. When everyone else is running, avoiding, and keeping secrets. Afraid of drama, afraid of pain, and afraid of the bad in the world. Cook instead takes it head on. Forces the pain on others as well, because the pain inevitable. Cook is not a romantic like Freddie nor is he detached like Effy. He is in reality the realest character of that triangle. He accepts the pain. He accepts the destruction. He accepts the disappointment. He would choose it again because he believes in no regrets. He is fire...and fire burns absolutely.

Even with this standpoint he still has moments where he feels frustrated by the lack of love in his life. Cook feels the majority of the time as if everyone leaves and treats him like shit. That life has dealt him a bad deal. Part of his careless nature stems from his innate passionate nature, but it also stems from a secret feeling he has...that he is nothing. When you have nothing, feel like nothing, and are told multiple times you deserve nothing. Eventually you stop feeling complacent and you start to feel something. All of this stirs a zest for life and a zest for the taking on everything head on in Cook to compensate for the negative label he has been given. That he is the criminal and he is the one who is dangerous.

He may be a criminal but he does have the heart of a lion. He is brave to try things and brave to love things fiercely. He would do anything for his friends and in fact his last action was him revenging Freddie. Of course he did it in his innate fiery way but he still did it. He is also the only one to really get through to Effy when she had her break down, because he wanted Effy to face reality. He forced Effy to face reality. He didn't run. He didn't get scared. He didn't panic. He talked about reality and used reality as a way to get Effy back down to earth.

Cook has no limits. He will do anything once and will laugh in the way he does when he accomplishes it. However we must not forget his capacity to love. He loves as hard as he lives.