TV REVIEW

Cobra Kai formula starting to get tired, but hints at change for next season

Cobra Kai | Net ix | 10 episodes

For those who didn’t go out on New Year’s Eve

(remarkably I wasn’t one of them this year), Netfl ix dropped a nice little surprise: A fourth season of Cobra Kai.

As someone who watched the series when it was still only available on premium YouTube, I immediately turned on the fi rst couple of episodes upon returning from a party that night.

When I fi rst watched the two seasons of Cobra Kai at a time when hardly anyone was talking about them, the show was an absolute delight. How often do you get to see characters from your childhood come back to life as their 40-something selves?

And it was a delightful surprise to suddenly be rooting for Johnny Lawrence, who previously was the bad guy of Th e Karate Kid movies. For those who haven’t caught the Cobra Kai buzz, the fi rst season fi nds Lawrence barely eking by in life, living in a beat up apartment, alone, drinking his favored Coors while listening to the 80s hair metal music he never tired of.

Contrast that to Daniel LaRusso, who is now employing all that Mr. Miyagi wisdom at this chain of car dealerships along with his beautiful wife. Th at both Lawrence and LaRusso are played by their actual actors from that era really adds to the show’s nostalgia.

LaRusso is none-too-happy to discover that Lawrence has started up Cobra Kai again, after helping out a neighbor high schooler out of a jam with his karate moves. Th at gets LaRusso back into karate, along with his daughter. Also, there is drama with Lawrence’s estranged son who starts training under Miyagi-Do Karate.

Well, I won’t give too much away, but essentially throughout the series you’ll shift loyalties, root for Lawrence and cringe at his self-defeating behavior, think LaRusso both a wise advancer of Miyagi wisdom and a stuck up snob. All while the kids seem to essentially have formed karate gangs constantly getting into karate fi ghts at a variety of locations. Add in old Cobra Kai leader John Kreese and things really ramp up.

Without giving too much away, LaRusso and Lawrence have teamed up again, except, surprise surprise, that turns out to be a disaster.

Watching the fi rst two seasons of Cobra Kai energized me. It made me want to take up karate again. I laughed at Lawrence struggling to understand modern things like Facebook and “hashbrowns” (what he calls hashtags). His 80s machoism stands in stark relief to the trauma culture language employed by his students. He’s a fi sh out of water, and many who grew up with Th e Karate Kid and its sequels probably felt a kinship with Lawrence even when they cringe at many of his behaviors.

But I couldn’t help but wonder: At this point, is the idea played out? Th e teens are all once again prepping for the All-Valley Tournament, and this time Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do/Eagle Fang karate schools’ existence is on the line. (I’d explain further but it would be impossible without a ton of spoilers.) And once again, the karate gangs who vowed not to karate are ganging up on each other again.

Th e introduction of Terry Silver is one of the few interesting introductions in this season — caught between his loyalty to Kreese and his putting karate behind him for a life of running a successful business, beach houses and catered lunches. You can guess which he ultimately chooses; wouldn’t be much of a show if he told Kreese to get lost and went back to his millionaire lifestyle.

At points during the series, at times I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this was all getting a little played out. As someone who’s spent plenty of time in the martial arts, I can tell you there isn’t usually nearly this much drama. At one point, you just wonder if they shouldn’t all just move.

Th e season fi nale made me rethink that a bit. Obviously I won’t give away what happened, other than it holds promise for a very diff erent set of confl icts and alliances in a season 5, which the series is defi nitely setting up for. Looks like they’ve spinning hook kicked me in for another, because I will have to watch.

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