-The writers seem to sometimes want to have their cake, and eat it too. It’s obviously deliberate that they’ve made Daniel a hypocrite / single minded and resistant to change, but I wonder if they are aware of just how badly he comes across. Sam, too.
-I hope we don’t get Johnny’s wild Mexico City adventure. I don’t think they can write that in a way that won’t be a massive collar tug.
-I’m sure they had the last scene planned from roughly the get go, but I’m curious if it was always going to be Chozen – he’s great, so no complaints, but you could slot all kinds people in there, from other former Miyagi students to other Silver students who have seen the light…
-And on that note, now that Kreese is behind bars (for a bit maybe?), Silver does need a second in command to match LaRusso/Lawrence. Maybe some kind of bad boy? Silver was great overall, very happy with him. Less so with Kreese’s recruitment tactic, which again had a whiff of have/eat cake. They want Kreese to demonstrate a toxic approach, but they also want him to be able to make fun of a “tofu guy”. Pick a lane, and accept that you don’t need to make that joke, as tempting as it is.
-The major weakness, which the show sometimes capitalizes on, is the melodrama / soap opera bullshit. It only has forward momentum because of petty conflict that could be resolved with a conversation, and a lot of the drama isn’t very interesting. It’s low shelf teen drama. It sometimes manages to comment on it, and use it in a knowing manner, but too often actually just does the thing, and it’s not satisfying. See the first sentence of this post.
-Robby is about the most decent (major) character at this point, maybe Tory or Miguel (the drunk Johnny scene was rough)?
-Absolutely still looking forward to the next season.
Johnny is a Cobra Kai graduate and is a guy that is still toxically masculine, in spite of his student's attempts to deprogram him somewhat. So his training is definitely going to be harsh because he feels like that's what the kids need to "toughen up" cause their parents have been coddling them. (Not necessarily my view, just my read of his) And to his credit, teaching assertiveness in and of itself is not a bad thing, especially in standing up for one's self and setting boundaries with peers, it's just that Johnny's flaw is no moderation, so this pushes past assertive to aggressiveness and bullying first before one becomes the bullied. The law of the school jungle, so to speak.
He's also not a formal teacher, so while he knows parts of a training regimen, he looks for practical lessons to put his teachings into practice, and in typical Johnny fashion, doesn't consider all of the consequences and ramifications beyond that lesson. This leads to him picking fights with Hockey players, pressuring teenagers to leap 3 story gaps or tank beanbag shots in order to get the point across.
Is it reasonable? Not very, but in the madness there is something of a method, and that's why he has the spark of a good teacher, even if he is a dirtbag at it.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Hail Hydra
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
This is very weird trying to see Silver and Kreese pretend to be around the same age when the actors are 16 years apart.
They do an okay job of it, but Kreese is clearly an old man who is not physically intimidating. Silver is a bit better, just from being reasonably spry and pretty tall.
Also, Matev's post reminded me of the most insane thing so far:
Sam actually clearing the roof jump. That distance felt way too far for her to clear it with style. I might have believed it a bit more if she'd hit the edge and scrabbled up
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Whew! What a ride! Another long year of waiting begins...
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
My thoughts
Thomas Ian Griffith, more like Terry Silver Fox...
Also the season was fantastic and after I watched it I started from Episode 1 Season 1 and this whole four seasons has only taken place over the course of like 1.5 years.
It's a sign of good writing where I'm actively rooting for everyone to win, lose, and get better. Tory is the perfect example and I really hope she ends up with a healthy, maternal relationship with Amanda LaRusso before all is said and done. She just needs some help and not to be afraid to ask for it.
Daniel is as frustrating as ever. He's equally right and wrong all the time. Just when you think he's getting it, he falls back into his old mindset. I was really happy for the flashback in episode 10
From part 3 where Miyagi is telling Daniel he'll do karate his own way:
It's such a small line that doesn't seem that impactful or important and they basically made an entire season around learning that concept.
Such a great show!
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
For real the entire thing about this is balance, and I love that they've stuck with that, which conveniently makes for great episodic cliffhanger format that has worked for decades in Wrestling.
I fucking love it. I love the winners and losers, character growth through high school, and the fact that a bunch of 50-80 year old Actors are still in that level of shape.
Everything about this show is great and if you like it, I recommend any of you watching the Saved by the Bell Reboot
One of the interesting thing about this season is that we still haven't seen Eagle Fang do what Eagle Fang do best. Both because it's a brand new school finding it's own identity, and because I assume that's going to be a setup for next season (I assume that's where the new student he recruited will come in).
Miyagi-Do is all about defense through balance and repetition. Cobra Kai is all about offense through physical dominance and dirty tricks. But where does Eagle Fang fit in? Sure, there are some Miyagi-Do students who learn to be more aggressive, but what do they learn which they couldn't have learned from those other schools that I listed?
Johnny's training isn't really about winning (Cobra Kai), and it's not about movement (Miyagi). It's about training people for the worst so they learn to over come it. Learning to fight while blind, learning to fight with one arm, learning to take a punch to the face, learning to put your fear of death aside and jump across a building, etc. But in the series, we've only really seen three students really demonstrate this mindset: Miguel in general, Hawk when he first learned to become Hawk, and Bert when he keeps going despite being completely overwhelmed at tournaments.
I think this provides a good setup for next season, because everyone will be thoroughly discouraged from the tournament. Johnny spent most of his adulthood as a total loser, and that's a perfect foil for Silver who's a billionaire sociopath.
I think the most likely outcome is that the students will continue to learn karate on their own after being terrorized by the Cobra Kai kids, while Danny and Johnny go on their own personal journey before they're ready to become sensei's again. Chozen's main role will probably be to teach Danny how to forgive and put the past behind him. We also see the consequences of Danny turning a blind eye to his son becoming a total asshole up until the principle called him on it, so hopefully we see some follow-up there. Johnny will go to Mexico to chase Miguel and find a new inspiration for their own form of Karate before coming back.
Cobra Kai won on a surface level, but they set up numerous weak points: Tory/Stingray can testify against him, though I assume that's a red herring. His best student left completely, and Tory is hanging on by a thread.
They setup Silver breaking his agreement with Kreese, so it's thematic karma if Danny breaks his agreement with Silver. OTOH, this can also be an opportunity for Danny to prove that he's a better man. But more importantly, even if Danny does break his agreement... what good does that actually solve? Running his own dojo doesn't stop Silver from running his. There's additional missing steps here.
But that brings up an additional question of Silver's real goal. What does he actually need at this point? The only thing I can figure is that he wants to create his own personal army, but to what end?
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Finished season 4 last night and enjoyed it, although I don't know where I'd rank it just yet. The melodrama, while it's always been present in the series, has been irritating me a little more lately.
I love this show because my favorite thing in fiction is a villain turned hero. I just wish Johnny would progress a bit faster as a teacher. He's like the anti Miyagi. He teaches a lesson and has no idea there is a pearl of wisdom in there. If he'd just articulate that he's teaching assertiveness and standing up for yourself, he'd have a point. Instead, he teaches cool shit and his students craft it into the pearls of wisdom post hoc. Otherwise, I'm still having a blast.
I just want to say that I love this show and I knew literally nothing about Karate Kid before watching it. I've heard people say "Mr. Miyagi" before but didn't know what it meant. Mostly that's pretty cool! Except when he went to Japan and spent like 5 episodes just randomly running into nostalgia-bait characters, that was lame. I like that they show you the stuff that happened in the movies if it's relevant.
I just want to say that I love this show and I knew literally nothing about Karate Kid before watching it. I've heard people say "Mr. Miyagi" before but didn't know what it meant. Mostly that's pretty cool! Except when he went to Japan and spent like 5 episodes just randomly running into nostalgia-bait characters, that was lame. I like that they show you the stuff that happened in the movies if it's relevant.
I'd recommend watching at least the first Karate Kid movie. It's total 80s stuff, but Mr. Miyagi is the truth. Plus you get a deeper connection to the Cobra Kai show. The second and third movies aren't as good, but they have some moments in each.
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Yah, the first movie is absolutely worth watching still as an emblematic coming of age movie that has several big pop culture moments, and yes, Mr. Miyagi lives up to his hype. The other 2 are more YMMV.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Wait... Does Danny think that sais do slashing damage?
Wow Johnny is taking Robby to Mexico?
And I wonder if the Sam vs Tori scene is intentionally misleading, I was thinking this season would have them reconciling with each other, especially without Miguel and Rob around to come between them.
If Hillary Swank ever shows up, she better have an army of trained birds of prey. ( and it wouldn't even be the most ridiculous thing in the show by far!)
Today I learned that Martin Kove's son played the switcheroo young Kreese in the flashback diner scene in season 3. They said they wanted Kove's son since he looks so much like his dad and wanted to trick the audience into thinking young Kreese was the jock instead of the bus boy.
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
If Hillary Swank ever shows up, she better have an army of trained birds of prey. ( and it wouldn't even be the most ridiculous thing in the show by far!)
I think I said back in S1 when it was still a youtube RED show, that if Hillary Swank shows up, she'll be a military general (since that was her background) overseeing the National Guard as they're sent in to break up the Valley Karate Riots of 2025
are YOU on the beer list?
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Just finally got around to watching S4.
Best line of the season: "Not manly enough"
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
I liked Season 4 overall, but I think there's plainly too many characters, too many separate drives of who is fighting for which dojo and why. It just got a little over the top and confusing.
I absolutely loved it myself. Just a dumb story about a small town plagued by roving karate gangs. I really want a season 6, but at least this offers a decent ending if not.
I know marathoning it today was better for the metrics, and also a wonderful way to spend most of my day, but I think there were some sections where a break would’ve been good. Doing it all in basically one session I think may have made the pacing feel off.
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-I hope we don’t get Johnny’s wild Mexico City adventure. I don’t think they can write that in a way that won’t be a massive collar tug.
-I’m sure they had the last scene planned from roughly the get go, but I’m curious if it was always going to be Chozen – he’s great, so no complaints, but you could slot all kinds people in there, from other former Miyagi students to other Silver students who have seen the light…
-And on that note, now that Kreese is behind bars (for a bit maybe?), Silver does need a second in command to match LaRusso/Lawrence. Maybe some kind of bad boy? Silver was great overall, very happy with him. Less so with Kreese’s recruitment tactic, which again had a whiff of have/eat cake. They want Kreese to demonstrate a toxic approach, but they also want him to be able to make fun of a “tofu guy”. Pick a lane, and accept that you don’t need to make that joke, as tempting as it is.
-The major weakness, which the show sometimes capitalizes on, is the melodrama / soap opera bullshit. It only has forward momentum because of petty conflict that could be resolved with a conversation, and a lot of the drama isn’t very interesting. It’s low shelf teen drama. It sometimes manages to comment on it, and use it in a knowing manner, but too often actually just does the thing, and it’s not satisfying. See the first sentence of this post.
-Robby is about the most decent (major) character at this point, maybe Tory or Miguel (the drunk Johnny scene was rough)?
-Absolutely still looking forward to the next season.
He's also not a formal teacher, so while he knows parts of a training regimen, he looks for practical lessons to put his teachings into practice, and in typical Johnny fashion, doesn't consider all of the consequences and ramifications beyond that lesson. This leads to him picking fights with Hockey players, pressuring teenagers to leap 3 story gaps or tank beanbag shots in order to get the point across.
Is it reasonable? Not very, but in the madness there is something of a method, and that's why he has the spark of a good teacher, even if he is a dirtbag at it.
Also, Matev's post reminded me of the most insane thing so far:
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Also the season was fantastic and after I watched it I started from Episode 1 Season 1 and this whole four seasons has only taken place over the course of like 1.5 years.
That's crazy
They wrapped filming on S5 in December 2021.
Yeah, but adding all the karate in post production takes time.
Sam is the worst.
It's a sign of good writing where I'm actively rooting for everyone to win, lose, and get better. Tory is the perfect example and I really hope she ends up with a healthy, maternal relationship with Amanda LaRusso before all is said and done. She just needs some help and not to be afraid to ask for it.
Daniel is as frustrating as ever. He's equally right and wrong all the time. Just when you think he's getting it, he falls back into his old mindset. I was really happy for the flashback in episode 10
(:30-:45 seconds)
It's such a small line that doesn't seem that impactful or important and they basically made an entire season around learning that concept.
Such a great show!
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I fucking love it. I love the winners and losers, character growth through high school, and the fact that a bunch of 50-80 year old Actors are still in that level of shape.
Everything about this show is great and if you like it, I recommend any of you watching the Saved by the Bell Reboot
Miyagi-Do is all about defense through balance and repetition. Cobra Kai is all about offense through physical dominance and dirty tricks. But where does Eagle Fang fit in? Sure, there are some Miyagi-Do students who learn to be more aggressive, but what do they learn which they couldn't have learned from those other schools that I listed?
Johnny's training isn't really about winning (Cobra Kai), and it's not about movement (Miyagi). It's about training people for the worst so they learn to over come it. Learning to fight while blind, learning to fight with one arm, learning to take a punch to the face, learning to put your fear of death aside and jump across a building, etc. But in the series, we've only really seen three students really demonstrate this mindset: Miguel in general, Hawk when he first learned to become Hawk, and Bert when he keeps going despite being completely overwhelmed at tournaments.
I think the most likely outcome is that the students will continue to learn karate on their own after being terrorized by the Cobra Kai kids, while Danny and Johnny go on their own personal journey before they're ready to become sensei's again. Chozen's main role will probably be to teach Danny how to forgive and put the past behind him. We also see the consequences of Danny turning a blind eye to his son becoming a total asshole up until the principle called him on it, so hopefully we see some follow-up there. Johnny will go to Mexico to chase Miguel and find a new inspiration for their own form of Karate before coming back.
Cobra Kai won on a surface level, but they set up numerous weak points: Tory/Stingray can testify against him, though I assume that's a red herring. His best student left completely, and Tory is hanging on by a thread.
They setup Silver breaking his agreement with Kreese, so it's thematic karma if Danny breaks his agreement with Silver. OTOH, this can also be an opportunity for Danny to prove that he's a better man. But more importantly, even if Danny does break his agreement... what good does that actually solve? Running his own dojo doesn't stop Silver from running his. There's additional missing steps here.
But that brings up an additional question of Silver's real goal. What does he actually need at this point? The only thing I can figure is that he wants to create his own personal army, but to what end?
One thing I'm looking forward to in season 5:
My Backloggery
What a fun group of young adults.
His aggrieved
Season 5 drops in September. Hype!
I'd recommend watching at least the first Karate Kid movie. It's total 80s stuff, but Mr. Miyagi is the truth. Plus you get a deeper connection to the Cobra Kai show. The second and third movies aren't as good, but they have some moments in each.
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Wait... Does Danny think that sais do slashing damage?
Wow Johnny is taking Robby to Mexico?
And I wonder if the Sam vs Tori scene is intentionally misleading, I was thinking this season would have them reconciling with each other, especially without Miguel and Rob around to come between them.
Amanda continues to be the best part of this show.
After Daniel explains who Terry Silver, she asks if there are any other karate guys out there who want to ruin his life
He's like "No. Well... Okay I can't guarantee that."
Her eye roll is sublime.
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I think I said back in S1 when it was still a youtube RED show, that if Hillary Swank shows up, she'll be a military general (since that was her background) overseeing the National Guard as they're sent in to break up the Valley Karate Riots of 2025
Best line of the season: "Not manly enough"
September 9th! 3 and a half weeks left to go!!
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That's crazy.
Also, the attacker is the one who's supposed to roll for damage, not the person receiving it.
Worst dm ever