hi friends! did you miss me?
we’re closer to february than jan 1 at this point, but still, happy new year! one of my major accomplishments of 2020 was powering through 363 episodes of grey’s anatomy within a few months. while not without criticism, grey’s was my ideal show in the same way that m/billionaire incels in Silicon Valley only know how to wear one outfit.
life is a lot simpler when you never have to think about what to watch or even think while you’re watching. but nothing gold can stay or whatever, and the new year presented a rude awakening. i was in desperate need of a perfectly addictive and moderately entertaining “folding laundry” show.
using Netflix’s (new?) “play something” feature, i stumbled upon Cobra Kai, the tv-show revival of the second-best movie trilogy of the 80s, The Karate Kid. i had heard of Cobra Kai when it first premiered on YouTube Red (now Youtube Premium), but i had never bothered to watch it at the time. i mean, who would pay for YouTube?
Cobrai Kai quietly slipped out of my mind until a few days ago when Netflix presented me with the first episode. i was confused to see that it somehow managed to garner enough popularity to convince Netflix to purchase the show from YouTube and even bankroll a third (and soon, a fourth!) season.
after watching all 30 episodes in a week and a half, i can confidently say that the show is not good but i am thoroughly invested. i’m going to give you my full recap, so stop here if you really care about Cobra Kai spoilers… it’s gonna be a doozy!
yeah, that’s what i thought! the first thing we must discuss is that one of the main actors, Tanner Buchanan, looks like a long-lost Sprouse brother. my sister and i both agreed though that he looks more like Dylan than Cole. does that make sense? moving on.
in the TV reboot, Johnny Lawrence reprises his role of bully while also becoming a Mr. Miyagi type for his neighbor Miguel. Johnny’s “unique” pedagogy is reminiscent of his own karate upbringing under John Kreese, who once attempted to murder Johnny as punishment for only winning second place at the 1984 All Valley tournament.
while not as extreme as his former “sensei,” Johnny teaches his students to “strike first, strike fast” and show “no mercy.”
the re-opening of the Cobra Kai dojo, which Johnny really only did to spite his former bullying victim and karate rival, Daniel LaRusso, does not go unnoticed by Daniel. the audience quickly learns that Daniel, like Johnny, is still haunted by the past, so much so that the mere sight of a 16-year-old boy in a skeleton costume causes him much distress.
(for those unfamiliar with The Karate Kid, Johnny wore a skeleton costume to the high school Halloween dance once upon a time, and unbeknownst to Daniel, encourages Miguel to wear one as well in the present-day.)
a feud erupts between Johnny and Daniel, who eventually opens his own dojo, Miyagi-do, to counteract the toxic influence of Cobra Kai’s teachings. much to Johnny’s surprise and disappointment, one of Daniel’s students is actually Johnny’s son, Dylan Sprouse. he initially enters Daniel’s life to get back at his father, who had little interest in being a parent to him but is now parading around town with his star pupil and quasi-son, Miguel. later, he learns karate from Daniel using the same techniques Mr. Miyagi once used on Daniel.
though tensions continue to escalate, nothing veers into the territory of illegal (that comes later) and culminates with Miguel defeating Dylan Sprouse at All Valley by targeting his shoulder, which was injured by Hawk, another Cobra Kai.
the season ends with Johnny realizing maybe his teaching methods are bad, but then immediately allowing John Kreese to re-join his dojo at the start of season two. Johnny attempts to balance impressing Kreese and reforming “no mercy” to “sometimes mercy” while Kreese double downs on Cobra Kai’s aggressive approach.
on the other side of town, Kreese’s return understandably instills a new sense of urgency to Daniel’s quest to rid the Valley of Cobra Kai once and for all. in The Karate Kid Part III, Kreese and his wartime pal, Terry Silver, devised a plan to get revenge on Mr. Miyagi and Daniel, who at that point was still not old enough to vote. tactics included but were not limited to Kreese faking his death and Terry “training” Daniel to covertly inflict psychological and physical pain.
a true witness to the depths of Kreese’s depravity, Daniel embezzles his car dealership’s marketing budget to run YouTube ads for his newly-opened dojo and desperately tries to recruit new students by offering free lessons. a few Cobra Kais, disillusioned by Johnny and Kreese’s dishonorable teaching style, even join Miyagi-do along the way.
i should mention that during season one, Miguel and Sam, Daniel’s daughter, have a rather boring Romeo and Juliet-esque forbidden teen love subplot. their relationship ends when Miguel accidentally hits Sam while trying to attack Dylan Sprouse, causing Sam to see that her father was right about all Cobra Kais being bad.
Miguel spends most of season two pining after Sam but later starts dating Tory, a new Cobra Kai, who learned at an early age that there is no point in showing mercy in a world that has shown her none.
this all becomes relevant in the season two finale when the students of the two warring karate dojos engage in an intense all-out brawl. Tory, furious at Miguel and Sam sharing an illicit kiss at a party the night before, instigates the fight by attacking Sam.
her anger is beyond that of high school jealousy and quite literally borders on homicidal. Sam survives but is scratched by Tory’s makeshift Wolverine-claw bracelet while Miguel “redeems” himself by showing mercy to Dylan Sprouse. in return, Dylan kicks Miguel over the edge of the second floor and onto the staircase below.
if there were any other severe injuries (which there definitely should have been), they are not addressed and the school merely institutes a “no physical touch” ban the following season.
season three starts with Miguel in a coma and Dylan Sprouse on the run from the police. Miguel eventually wakes up, in part thanks to Johnny, but finds himself unable to walk and fearful that he may remain paralyzed for the remainder of his life. he later regains his ability to walk, and more importantly, fight!
Dylan Sprouse ends up in juvie, where keeping a low profile results in getting beat up by other kids. Sam, like her father and in part due to her father, is now traumatized by high school, specifically Tory, who is angrier and more violent than ever. all the Cobra Kais are. Hawk even breaks the arm of his old friend and Miyagi-do student, Dimitri.
again, how more of these kids don’t get severely injured (or in trouble) from throwing each other into glass tables and beating each other senseless is beyond me, but that’s just how TV shows work, i guess.
Kreese is still around, enlisting “natural athletes” to join Cobra Kai to turn them into ruthless fighting machines. it’s unclear to me throughout the series why this 70-year-old man is so invested in training a group of children, but we do learn through flashbacks that Kreese became the merciless man he is today during the Vietnam War when he was taken as POW and forced to fight to the death. rather, he was in the midst of being forced to fight to the death when he was saved by his compatriots but then decided to kill his captain anyway by kicking him into a pit of cobras. perhaps he is still bitter toward Daniel for humiliating his dojo in the mid-80s or upset that Johnny, once his protégé, has become soft and turned against him.
in any case, he ousts Johnny from Cobra Kai and takes Dylan Sprouse under his wing to Johnny and Daniel’s chagrin.
meanwhile, the backlash the karate community receives following the season two fight results in Daniel almost losing a key business partnership until he goes to Okinawa (the show even filmed on location!) to resolve the issue. attempts to involve the police are futile, and Kreese once again tries to murder Johnny in a fight. Daniel intervenes, so Kreese attempts to kill him instead. Daniel overpowers Kreese by rendering him incapable of fighting (similar to how Aang defeats the Firelord in Avatar) and after receiving tacit permission from Johnny, prepares himself to deal a (fatal?) blow to Kreese.
i’m not sure if the show is implying that Daniel crossing the line into “no mercy” territory means killing Kreese or just severely injuring him, but luckily Sam calls out his name just in time to remind him that this is not the man Mr. Miyagi taught him to be.
after the fight scene that involves two, potentially three attempted murders, the season ends with the three adult men agreeing to “settle this the old-fashioned way,” which really just means forcing their students to fight at the upcoming All Valley tournament. if Cobra Kai loses, then Kreese will leave town.
despite everything that has happened over the course of three seasons, Johnny and Daniel (who claims karate should only be used for self-defense) arrive at the conclusion not that karate is tearing lives apart and a ceasefire is needed but that they must join forces and train their pupils to fight better and physically defeat Kreese’s.
and that’s how the season ends. all this because of the events that transpired at an under-18 regional martial arts competition three decades ago.
at its core, Cobra Kai is equal parts a retelling of the original movie and an unsettling examination of how men deal with trauma by re-living and inflicting that trauma onto each other and those around them.
it’s entirely conceivable that Johnny and Daniel are still traumatized by their high school experience 30 years ago (and Kreese over 50 years by Vietnam), but they refuse to heal and actively choose to fight each other instead. they even go the extra step of using minors as pawns to fight their battles. literally.
when i said the show was not good earlier, i really meant to say it’s my new favorite show. hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for season four.
thank you for reading approx. 1,700 words of Cobra Kai commentary you did not ask for. while i ragged on the show a lot, i did want to include a few positive miscellaneous thoughts:
i liked how many original cast members returned at various points, including Johnny’s old Cobra Kai buddies. apparently, the actors are still friends in real life! sadly one of them, Rob Garrison, passed away shortly after filming.
the show has moments of self-awareness. in season two, one of the characters mentions that the comments on Miyago-do’s YouTube ads claim that Daniel is appropriating Japanese culture and refer to him as Daniel LaRacist. in season three, another character claims that Daniel was the “real bully,” a s/o this hilarious video.
i wanted to make today’s playlist 80s themed in honor of The Karate Kid but i do not listen to 80s music so i asked a few people (e.g., my parents) who were teens at the time to share their favorite songs.
bye for now,
stephanie💜
Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears
Can’t Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon
You’re the Inspiration - Chicago
Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode
Hotel California - Eagles