Earlier this month I got the thirty-day trial of YouTube Red and watched Cobra Kai. The show takes place thirty-four years after the events of the first Karate Kid film, from the perspective of the story’s bully, Johnny Lawrence, who is introduced in the show as being a washed up loser reduced to working various menial, often temporary jobs, while Daniel Larusso, the original film’s protagonist, enjoys success as a car salesman exploiting his karate as part of his gimmick.
Johnny is given the opportunity to re-open the Cobra Kai dojo in the form of money from his grumpy stepfather, played by Ed Asner, who is tired of bailing him out of trouble and offers to buy him out of his life. After initially refusing, an incident with a bunch of teenage bullies ganging up on a hapless high school outcast inspires him to take the offered money and go into business teaching karate the way he was taught: Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy.
As he struggles to get more students than the one he starts out with, and deal with his lingering anger and resentment at Daniel, who has in the years since the events of The Karate Kid III become a social bully himself abusing his influence within the community to pull dick moves like convincing his friend who owns the strip mall wherein the Cobra Kai dojo is located to jack up everyone’s rent, Johnny must find redemption, try to come to terms with his past, and mend his relationship with his teenage son Robbie.
Going into this, I admit I had some trepidation, because the previews sort of deceptively promised a comedy-drama. There is indeed a fair share of humor, particularly in the way Johnny reacts to life in 2018—he’s basically stuck in the 1980s, driving a red Pontiac Firebird and listening to 8os music while living an analog lifestyle unaware of the existence of social media like Facebook. But that takes a back seat to the drama, and that is handled in a refreshingly deep manner that not only plays to nostalgia for that 1980s cinematic franchise, but also shows a great deal of respect.
William Zabka and Ralph Macchio, and indeed most of the surviving original cast members from the original trilogy of films, reprise their roles—even Randee Heller comes back as Daniel’s mother Lucille, and (spoiler alert) Martin Kove, who played Johnny’s sensei John Kreese, are back making cameo appearances.
Rounding out Zabka’s and Macchio’s stories are those of their characters’ teenage children, who have their own problems and relationships to deal with. The writing is clearly geared toward younger viewers, so there are a number of storytelling shortcomings that otherwise would not go unchallenged by yours truly, but for what it is, I found the narrative has been told rather well, on a deeper, more nuanced level than one might expect given the previews. Johnny Lawrence isn’t the two-dimensional bully he was over three decades ago. He’s fallen far from grace, drinks beer pretty much constantly although whether he is an all-out alcoholic in the show is left ambiguous, and is both haunted and driven by the past to try and pick himself back up to start over.
There’s real character development and growth in Cobra Kai. Both Johnny and Daniel are forced to confront what they’ve become over the course of their lives, and when they do, they have to learn from the experience and try to be better men. When they finally have their reckoning with each other, forced by the hot-headed actions of Daniel’s cousin and the stern scolding of Daniel’s wife, they realize they have far more in common with one another than they thought, and form a tenuous bond that is challenged by the parallel plots taking place in the series. Johnny, for his part, must come to terms with how he was taught karate and in the final episodes of the season, realizes the bankruptcy of those teachings and how hollow they render the fulfillment of his goal to redeem Cobra Kai’s philosophy. The result of this adult-level writing is truly remarkable in this age of shallow, one-dimensional storytelling that insists upon itself because at its core there just is no real meat and potatoes.
My primary issue with Cobra Kai has nothing to do with the content of the show itself, rather, I take offense to the method of exhibition: it’s behind yet another pay-wall that most viewers probably won’t bother to shell out more money for, due in large part to the ever-fracturing nature of competing streaming services. Aside from Cobra Kai, there is no real reason to subscribe to YouTube Red, which seems to be doing what CBS did with STD in using an older franchise to launch its pay-for service. The difference is that YouTube lucked out in nabbing a project that, unlike STD and Disney Star Wars, respects its source material and fans of the titular 80s coming-of-age story. There’s no pandering to the lowest common denominator, just good writing and acting. But the limiting of viewership to only those who can afford or are inclined to pay money to yet another streaming service, means that we may only get two or three seasons before YouTube is compelled to dump it in favor of the next flavor of the month in pursuit of revenue. So the writing team for Cobra Kai will need to wrap up the story in a satisfying manner in that time frame, unless the show can find its way to network television or perhaps cable/satellite.
Score: 8/10
The Wilk Report 