Vernita Yvonne Green, also known as Copperhead and Jeannie Bell, was a suporting antagonist of Quentin Tarantino's fourth film "Kill Bill: Voulme 1". She was an assassin and a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Her involment in the Massacre at Two Pines caused her name to appear on Beatrix Kiddo's Death List Five. She was also the wife of Dr. Lawrence Bell, with whom she had a daughter named Nikkia.
Biography[]
Massacre[]
Vernita (left) and rest ot the vipers outside the Two Pines chapel
Vernita took part in the Massacre at Two Pines, killing all those who attended Beatrix Kiddo and her fiancé's wedding rehearsal. Vernita, as well as the other members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, stood above Beatrix's living body, before Bill re-entered the chapel and shot the Bride in the head.
New life[]
Eventually, Vernita left her career as an assassin, and went on to marry a doctor Lawrence Bell, under the alias of Jeannie. Vernita soon gave birth to their daughter, Nikkia Bell.
Death[]
Four years after the Two Pines massacre, Vernita receives a visit from Beatrix, which results into immediate fight between the two. After wrecking the living room while having a hand-to-hand combat, Nikki's school bus dropps her off, forcing them to pause the intense fight. Vernita presents Beatrix as an old friend, and tells Nikki to go up to her room, as the two of them have some unfinished business.
Vernita offers a cup of coffee to Beatrix, and the two confront each other about the events of the past. While Vernita attempts to apologize for her actions claiming she is a new person with only family in mind, Beatrix tells that the only fair way would be to kill her, her husband and her daughter. The two then decided on a knife duel in a baseball diamond during the night as the conclusion to their hostility. Vernita then attempts to shoot Beatrix with a gun, hidden in a Kaboom cereal box, but Beatrix tosses her knife, which hit Vernita in her chest, killing her.
Vernita's dead body
After ripping her weapon out of Green's chest, Beatrix notices that Nikki just walked into the kitchen. She tells her that Vernita had it coming and promises that she will be waiting if Nikkia ever decides to avenge the death of her mother.
Beatrix then leaves the Bell family house, enters her car and crosses Vernita's name out of her list.
Code Name[]
The Copperhead is an ambush predator. Also, it prefers to avoid humans and will leave the area without biting if possible. This refers to Green’s use of the Kaboom cereal box and her attempt to talk the Bride out of a fight.
Skills[]
- Edged weapon proficiency: Although Bill doesn't give compliments easily, he claims that Vernita was the best woman with an edged weapon he had ever seen, which is serious praise coming from him. She also managed to hold her own against the bride when she had a knife in her hand. It was also her fighting style of choice, when asked by Beatrix how the two should face off.
- Hand-to-hand Combat: Not as skilled as Beatrix, she was still extremely proficient as she managed to acquit and defend herself well against the onslaught of attacks.
- Improvised weapons: During her showdown with the Bride, she used common objects to injure and knock her back, using them as effective non-conventional weapons.
- Miscellanous skills: As an assassin of Bill's team, she was endowed with high physical prowess such as reflexes, stamina, speed, and strength. When asked how she preferred to die by Beatrix, she chose to fight with a knife at nightime dressed completely in black. This is a hint that she is confident in her stealth and low vision fighting capabilities, fighting in the pitch black night-time or other non-illuminated environments.
Trivia[]
- Vernita claimed she was supposed to be Black Mamba. suggesting she was not pleased with her chosen codename, Copperhead.
- Doing the math, Vernita would have been at least 3 months pregnant at the time of the Wedding Chapel massacre, due to the fact that the event took place four and a half years before Vernita's death, and that Nikki was four at that time.
- At the beginning of the second film, Bill warns Budd that Beatrix had killed O-Ren Ishii and is after him but didn't say anything about Vernita. At the end of the first film, Beatrix wanted the remaining four members of the list to know that she was after them. One of the options is that Beatrix came from Tokyo to Pasadena so fast that Bill didn't had time to warn her. This is the most possible one because according to the original script Bill had a phone call by Elle who told him that Vernita was killed by the Bride and he was shocked. That means that he kept contact with Vernita and his shock reveals that he wanted to warn her but it's possible that he didn't had the time to do it.