Nevanna's Forest of Stories

This probably won't be a weekly feature, but I'll try to revisit it from time to time.

pastrylikewolf and I recently finished watching the first season of Cobra Kai, the sequel to/spinoff from the Karate Kid franchise, which I’d seen before but she hadn’t. Our other housemate introduced me to the show a few years ago, and our goal is to catch up to the last season so that all three of us can watch it together. The series finds Johnny Lawrence – the antagonist from the original movies – adrift in middle age, estranged from his teenage son, struggling to hold a job, and drowning his self-doubt in alcohol and misanthropy. When he rescues his young neighbor from bullies, he decides to bring back the karate dojo that gave him meaning in his youth, and also crosses paths with his former rival, Daniel LaRusso, who’s achieved financial success and a loving nuclear family but still has his own ties to their shared past.

I went into the show with no particular expectations, and certainly didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I hadn’t seen The Karate Kid in many years and have yet to watch the sequels, I never had any particular interest in martial arts films overall, and my attachment to “plucky underdog learns to do a sport real good” narratives had faded long ago. (I was a Mighty Ducks girl, in case anybody was wondering.) I also don’t have a lot of patience for the current pop culture trend of nostalgic reboots and remakes. But Cobra Kai is one of the rare examples that really works for me, possibly because it is clearly made with a lot of love for the original franchise but also tries to tell a new story… or several new stories, really, since Johnny’s and Daniel’s journeys unfold alongside the story of a new generation of karate students. High school drama — dating, shifting social dynamics, and some horrifyingly authentic depictions of bullying — takes up a significant amount of narrative space. Although the star-crossed romance between Sam, Daniel’s daughter, and Miguel, Johnny’s first student, is a throughline throughout the first season, I was much more invested in the dynamic between Sam and her childhood friend Aisha, whose friendship fractured when Sam started hanging out with the popular crowd, and was further tested when Aisha started learning karate from Johnny. Although the girls share a moment in the season finale that seems to point to a reconciliation — and Sam owns up to some of her mistakes — it’s unclear whether they’ll find their way back to each other.

I think I realized that the show was doing something interesting when it refused to portray the resurrected Cobra Kai as either the straightforward villains that they were in the movies, or purely misunderstood underdogs. Arguably, The Real Villain is Toxic Masculinity, and central to Johnny’s arc in the first season is his slow understanding of which lessons from his teenage years will be helpful to him and his students, and which ones really, really won’t. Among a talented cast of new and returning actors alike, William Zabka sells every emotional beat perfectly, inviting audiences to sympathize with this character even when it’s very difficult to like him. (“Goddamnit, Johnny” is a frequent refrain from us as viewers.)

That said, despite those sincerely dramatic twists and turns, and genuinely compelling performances, Cobra Kai is fundamentally about an increasingly complicated and intense competition between rival sports teams, and if you can’t buy into that, you probably won’t have a good time with this show. I bought into it more easily than I expected, and I’ve been having a great time with this rewatch so far.

Which shows have you found yourself liking more than you expected? What was it that surprised you?