Cobra Kai S1: This show kicks the franchise up a notch

We teach what we learn

Cobra Kai: Season 1 (2018) - Netflix

Full spoilers ahead!

Man, am I sorry I am so late to this party!

Cobra Kai is so much better than I ever thought it could be. Danny Larusso using his karate lingo in car marketing schemes, Johnny having nightmare flashbacks to that fateful day in that tournament championship, when Danny kicked him while in that now-famous one-legged, balanced stance with his arms high in the air. Right from the outset, the nostalgia is brimming. This show knows exactly what it is; it has an old-school charm and holds up with that same magic that makes the original The Karate Kid movie still hold up (rewatching the original The Karate Kid movies prior to jumping into this show is a must). Cobra Kai is a perfect "Where are they now?" continuation of that storyline with its central protagonist and antagonist both grown up and feeling the effects of their childhood in very different ways.

The premise is simple: Johnny Lawrence is a loser dad who can't keep a job and has no money. In a gimmicky moment that merely serves as the vehicle for the story and nothing more, Johnny's stepdad decides to give him a bunch of money so he wouldn't need to keep looking in on him. So what does Johnny do with the money? He opens a new dojo, of course.

Cobra Kai is back! Of course, he has to learn how to market his new business. His first, and only, student is a high-school loser named Miguel, who looks eerily similar to Danny from the original movie; this show embraces its cheesiness in every way possible. Miguel sets up a website for Johnny, though it's a viral video of Miguel stomping all over school bullies that drives other high schoolers to Johnny's dojo (just in time, of course, because his "past due" bills were piling up).

It's a classic teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks story mechanic that totally works here and isn't overplayed. Not only that, but juxtaposing that with this old-school rough-and-tumble dude trying to teach today's younger pansy generation how to be tough is so good. And that's before mentioning how much irony there is in the younger generation trying to act too evolved for that macho tough stuff despite the insane amount of cyberbullying all over social media (hey young kids, your political correctness doesn't justify your idiotic behavior). It's great how out-of-touch Johnny seems with his advice, whether it's teaching kids how to take punches to the face or advising Miguel to take a girl to an old-school mini-golf arcade for a date (instead of some lame observatory); and yet, Johnny's ideas prove to work like a charm (funny how good ideas don't age). Miguel's date with Samantha was basically a vicarious stroll down memory lane of Danny's first date with Ali in the original movie.

Getting the audience behind Johnny being the show's protagonist is a fun twist. I somehow am rooting for him to succeed despite hating him in the original movie (okay, we truly hated his sensei at the time, but still). Johnny's turnaround makes so much sense for the kind of guy he is. He doesn't expect handouts in life (actually, he initially tore up the check his stepdad gave him). He teaches his students how to earn everything. He's trying to make amends with his son and turn his life around. Who wouldn't want to see a guy like that succeed?

And yet, there's still those moments - some subtle, but most just blatantly cheesy - when he reminds us why we didn't like him in the first place. What the writers magically pull off is the rebuilding of a worthy antagonist, yet it's not so black and white. I enjoy stories that change our perspective of villainous characters for whom we didn't previously get enough context to generate sympathy. Disney's Maleficent was a great example of this. Even Thanos from the MCU believed he was taking the right actions. That extra bit of context we get for Johnny truly makes him a compelling character. He's not just teaching kids how to fight. He's teaching them how to stand up for themselves. But how far is too far? That's what makes it all worth watching.

The first scene that Ralph Macchio (Danny) and William Zabka (Johnny) shot together was when Danny comes to Johnny's dojo. There was some awkwardness in that exchange, which makes sense since they haven't acted together in more than 30 years. And honestly, I cringed a few times early in the season because their acting seemed so off. But honestly, it fits perfectly for the type of hammy show it is (their acting never really got much better throughout the season).

Waiting until the fourth episode before the writers truly acknowledged Mr. Miyagi was way too late, but it was cool that Danny still visits his grave every once in a while. It was fun seeing Danny water the same kind of plants and use familiar expressions that Mr. Miyagi taught him, but this wasn't overdone by any means.

Story twists keep the show spicy during the middle portions of the season. Danny wants to get back into karate, so he takes on a student who happened to be his newest employee, Robbie. Little does Danny know that Robbie is Johnny's son! Watching Danny teach Robbie all the same moves (at the start of episode 7) was so simple, yet so fun. The "Wax on, wax off," the handiwork jobs, the pruning of small trees, it was all perfectly handled.

Meanwhile, Samantha and Miguel's relationship starts to blossom until Johnny learns that Samantha is Danny's daughter. He warns Miguel about her since she's a Larusso. Sounds mean, right? Well, once Danny finds out that Samantha is dating a member of Johnny's Cobra Kai, he warns her just the same.

It gets twistier when Samantha sees what kind of monster Miguel turns into, then takes an interest in Robbie; of course, they don't realize the treachery they're committing by mingling with a member of the family's rival. It's so cheesy, and you could've easily predicted these twists would happen; yet it's written in a way that brings genuine surprise to the actual characters, which makes it all work well. If you've ever seen movies like Crazy, Stupid Love, those are the kinds of twists I'm talking about.

As the season draws to a close, the build-up to the finale shifts towards the big All-Valley tournament. Tensions are incredibly high: Samantha watches her two love interests as Miguel and Robbie are on a collision course for the championship match. Johnny doesn't know if he should root for Miguel, who represents his dojo, or his son, who is fighting under Danny's tutelage. And of course, the writers ham up the dramatic ending the same way they did in the movie.

Cobra Kai should not have been so fun to watch. The writing should not have sucked me in the way it did. The callbacks and nostalgia should've been the only cool parts of this show. But for some reason, this show was highly entertaining, incredibly charming, and kept me invested throughout the season. I would rewatch Season 1 multiple times without hesitation if there weren't two more seasons to watch (and apparently a fourth season is on the way). Hopefully the other seasons are as good (the first movie was the best of them all, but I think the show can get better, especially with that MCU-like stinger at the end that brings back one of the movie's characters in brilliant fashion).