Cobra Kai never dies! Okay so that doesn’t really rhyme, but maybe it can be an acceptable blooper since the video of the bloopers is kind of funny but also shows that the cast do know how to have fun on occasion and that accidents are bound to happen. It’s a show about people kicking the hell out of each other every now and again so yes, the choreography notwithstanding there are bound to be a few ‘oopsies’ here and there. Thus far Cobra Kai has been one of the absolute best returns from the 80s and it’s brought back a couple of characters in a way that you can’t help but think is great since it furthers the original story and allows us to see it move forward in a way that might not have been expected in this day and age. To see Johnny as a more likable character, kind of, and Daniel as a jerk was not what a lot of people were thinking might happen, but it’s been rolling forward in a big way and a lot of people can’t get enough.
The first season showed us Johnny being down and out, seemingly as a result of being kicked in the head three decades ago to lose the tournament. You might think that it’s a stretch that the one incident would affect him so greatly but a big part of Johnny’s problem was that once karate was no longer a thing he seemed to gradually fall apart until he was drunken handyman that had a teenager who hated him and an ex-wife that he barely spoke to. He was a mess, a wreck, and didn’t seem to have much going in his life until he stood up for a kid that was being picked on relentlessly (yes, let the irony flow through you) and regained a bit of the spark he’d had until John Kreese took it away with one instant of savagery. You could say, as Carter Lee from the Inquistr has taht the script has been flipped since Daniel went on to success and fortune as he’d become rich and quite popular in town, basically everything Johnny was not. But Daniel’s life wasn’t perfect as his kids had grown up to be entitled brats and his life was upended by the sudden emergence of Cobra Kai once again. Now a reasonable, rational person might have at least gone to Johnny, asked him what was going on and what he was planning on doing perhaps, and then let it be. But nope, we’re talking about a story in which Daniel is just as traumatized by the thought of what Johnny and the Cobra Kai put him through, DESPITE the fact that he’s got a pretty good life at that point. So the struggle begins, and Cobra Kai is back on the board, much to Daniel’s chagrin.
If the first season showed things heating up though the second season was the ignition and subsequent fireball that people were waiting for as Cobra Kai continued to gain members, and even worse, were now under the tutelage of John Kreese alongside Johnny. While Johnny was attempting to change things and pull away from Kreese’s teachings, the old dog was bound and determined to push his style of karate yet again, which only led to ruin as in the final fight of the second season Robby, Miguel, Samantha, and Tory sparked a battle that took place throughout the halls of the school and saw Miguel unfortunately get kicked over a balcony and sent to the hospital where his condition is at this moment unknown to the fans. The series has reached a critical point as Kreese is now in control the Cobra Kai again, Johnny has been ousted, and Daniel and his wife are watching their marriage fall apart as a result of their daughter getting injured and the whole mess finally starting to disrupt their business. Hanh Nguyen of IndieWire has gone on to state that season 3 has been approved and will involve a great deal of reflection as it sounds as though Daniel will be making a trip to Okinawa to retrace the roots of Miyagi-Do karate and possibly remember what it’s all about, while Johnny will be doing some soul-searching as well in order to discover what’s really important to him.
What’s great in this clip is to see that the actors appear to be having a pretty good time with one another and manage to keep it loose and playful since it’s bound to happen that a little too much force will be used or someone’s timing will be off. It’s a great story to tell and one that has been a long time coming, but it’s also something that is great to pass on to another generation as the Karate Kid was without a doubt one of the best stories ever told.
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