Cobra Kai – Series Review

So yes, Cobra Kai aired three months ago on Youtube Premium. But I watch stuff when I can watch it, and it wasn't on my radar for awhile.

If you're not familiar with the 1984 movie The Karate Kid, go out and watch it on DVD or cable or wherever. It's both a glorious collection of everything in the 1980s, and a halfway decent movie by the director of the first Rocky movie. Like Rocky, it features an underdog who is drawn into a fight and ends up proving the virtues of integrity, honor, and personal balance. The Karate Kid features the late Pat Morita as the wise old mentor, and lots of karate. It gets to show lots of karate moves and violence, while preaching against violence so that it gets to have its cake and eat it too.

Daniel's rival is Johnny Lawrence, played by William Zabka. Johnny trains at the Cobra Kai dojo run by John Kreese (Martin Kove), a sadistic ex-soldier who trains his students in a "no mercy" style of fighting.

Don't confuse the 1984 movie with the 2010 remake starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. The latter being actor Will Smith's son. Although Smith is apparently an executive producer of Cobra Kai.

The series is basically a ten-episode reimaging of the ending of the How I Met Your Mother episode where Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) wants to meet the Karate Kid. His friends set up a surprise party, complete with a clown, and have Ralph Macchio (who played the original Karate Kid, Daniel Larusso) show up. It turns out Barney considers Daniel's rival, Johnny the real Karate Kid. At which point the "clown" whips off his costume and makeup, reveals that he's William Zabka, and says that Barney is the only one who gets what the movie is really about.

If you haven't seen the episode, check out the ending.

Anyhoo, Cobra Kai spins that in the direction that the movie is "real", and now Daniel runs an auto dealership while Johnny is a down-and-out repairman doing work for the rich and famous. Johnny is the epitome of every 80s high school bully: he sits at home, drinks beer, watches 80s movies on DVD, and doesn't understand how the Internet works or how to address women and the handicapped.

Johnny's stepfather Sid (Ed Asner) finally gives Johnny a check to get him out of his life. After Johnny beats up some high schoolers picking on another student, Miguel (Xolo Mariduena), Johnny decides to turn his life around, and reopens the Cobra Kai dojo using Sid's money. Miguel is his only student until Miguel's second fight with the bullies goes viral. Then the students come pouring in.

Meanwhile, Daniel discovers Johnny has reopened Cobra Kai and is dismayed to see his high school bully back. This leads to him trying to get Johnny kicked out of his dojo. Daniel has a daughter, Samantha, who is involved with one of the bullies but eventually dumps him and links up with Miguel.

Also, Johnny has a son, Robby. Robby hates Johnny (since Johnny is a dumpster fire of a human being) and goes to work for Daniel without telling Daniel who he really is. Daniel eventually teaches him Miyagi-style karate. Johnny convinces the karate championship board to let Cobra Kai enter the tournament. It all comes down to Miguel vs. Robby in the tournament finals.

In the end, Miguel wins and Daniel sets out to open a new harmonious karate dojo. Meanwhile, Johnny is torn over seeing his son defeated. He returns to his dojo and finds Kreese waiting for him. Kreese figures that now they can put Cobra Kai on top of the map and rule... the world of karate training in Southern California. Oh no!

Like I said, Johnny is a dumpster-fire of a human being. He's not the hero, he's not even really the anti-hero. Most of the comedy comes from Johnny still being suck in the 80s, and he's basically a stereotype of all those scenes you see that feature high school reunions where the nerd has become the rich Bill Gates-type, and the school jock is now some beer-guzzling jerk who works for his father's car dealership.

Johnny doesn't even have that. When he's not doing maintenance work for rich people--and he gets fired from that job in the first episode--he's sitting at home drinking cheap beer and negotiating with the convenience store clerk over day-old pizza slices. Once he gets the dojo going, Johnny isn't much better. He sticks his first student, Miguel, with janitorial duties around the dojo and claim that he's training him as a martial artist. When Johnny finally gets some students, he drives two-thirds of them away by insulting the woman, the kid with the harelip, the undersized kid, and so on.

The funny part is they actually become better because of Johnny's teaching. Eli, the kid with the harelip, gets a mohawk and loses his nerd shyness. The girl, Aisha, lets loose with a lot of bottled rage, gets her revenge on the school's mean girl, and calls out Samantha since they used to be friends until Samantha abandoned her for the school's mean girls. Even the undersized kid, Bert, gets his moment when he's telling the other students that he saw Johnny drunk in a parking lot but didn't think anything of it because they're always seeing Johnny drunk in parking lots.

I've never thought much of William Zabka as an actor. His main claim to fame is playing teenagers, typically bullies and/or snobby rich kids, back in the 80s: Karate Kid, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Just One of the Guys, Back to School. He's surprisingly good here, whether he's just playing the generally unlikable Johnny, the clueless stuck-in-the-80s Johnny, or the more human Johnny in moments like when he gets together with his ex, who is even more unlikable than him. In the end, Johnny "wins" the tournament via Miguel and Daniel sarcastically congratulates him. Zabka makes it clear Johnny has got exactly what he wanted... and lost everything. His son Robby is with Daniel, his surrogate son Miguel is as bad as Johnny was when he was in high school. And Kreese has swept in to pick up on the reputation Johnny has created for Cobra Kai.

That brings us to the real hero of the piece: Daniel. Played by Ralph Macchio, who played Daniel in the '84 movie and is back here. Daniel has been cashing in on his reputation as the karate champ ever since, giving out bonsai trees to customers and doing karate in his commercials. His mentor Miyagi is dead, he's lost his personal balance, and he's still harboring a lot of anger toward Johnny and Cobra Kai even though he won the tournament back in '84.

Supporting Macchio is Courtney Henggeler as his wife Amanda, who loves her husband and doesn't understand his anger over being bullied over a tournament over 30 years ago. And Mary Mouser as Daniel's daughter Samantha, who is torn between Miguel and Robby. Samantha goes through the typical 80s movie arc of high school girls who learn friendship and a "real" guy are better than hanging with the popular clique and the BMOC.

Cobra Kai is a strange mix of 80s high school movies and send-up of same. It's both retrospective and tells a tale of modern-day high school. And the Easter eggs... If you think that Castle Rock has a lot of Stephen King Easter eggs, you ain't seen nothing yet. We get references to Miyagi, with Daniel visiting his grave. The fifth episode is dedicated to Pat Morita, who passed away in 2005.

Daniel's mother, still played by Randee Heller, shows up for no particular reason. There are references to Daniel's crane kick, and the car that Miyagi gave to Daniel, and bonsai trees, and the '84 movie's two sequels. Johnny gives Daniel his skeleton costume to wear to the school's Halloween dance. Daniel and Johnny both have repeated flashbacks to scenes in the original movie. And in the last episode, Reese shows up to cast his Martin Kove-ish spell of evil over the whole thing.

The series is billed at least partially as a comedy and the comedy parts are funny. Zabka often sneaks in a little smirk, whether he's forcing Miguel to play janitor at the dojo or when he sics attack dogs on his students as part of their "training". Or when he's telling Miguel his version of the 1984 events.

The funniest part is in episode 9, when Daniel takes Johnny for a test ride and the two of them end up bonding. They sing along with Speedwagon on the radio, go to a bar to drink, and commiserate over the fact that they both lost their fathers and ended up with martial-arts-teacher/mentors/father-figures. We also get Bret Ernst as Daniel's buffoon-ish cousin Louie, who works at the dealership and consistently manages to make things worse for everyone.

It's also fun in that a lot of the characters get their little moment, not just Zabka and Macchio. Aisha as the fat overweight former friend of Samantha's. Moon as the mean girl who falls in love with Eli. Eli as the school nerd who morphs into a mohawk-wearing bad-ass. Anthony as Daniel's video game-obsessed son who just wants to see his father kick ass. Carmen as Miguel's long-suffering mother. Rosa as Carmen's mother who cheerfully admits that she smoked a joint to relax before Miguel's tournament. Lynn the homeless woman who hangs around the strip mall where the dojo is and likes to play up her homeless appearance. Sid the cranky stepfather. The befuddled tournament committee board ("I didn't know we could ban people"). Patricia the overly enthusiastic mother whose son is the reigning tournament championship. Armand Zakarian the real estate guy who Daniel tricks into raising the rent on Johnny in return for getting his membership renewed at their country club.

Tom Cole, Daniel's rival dealership owner who does 1776 Founding Fathers commercials and subtly implies that there's something un-American about Daniel's bonsai tree giveaway and karate skills.

Overall, I'd recommend Cobra Kai to anyone looking for five hours to kill (10 30-minute episodes). It homages the original movie, it extends the story in a way the sequels never quite managed, and even with all of the Easter eggs it manages to stand on its own. And it's been picked up for another season, so the story ain't over yet.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?