Cobra Kai Season One Review

It would be a dangerous understatement to say that the world has a lot of problems: the climate crisis, systematic oppression, political division, a mental health epidemic… the list goes on. Some days it can all feel like too much.

So wouldn’t it be great to escape to a world where all of your problems can be solved with karate?

Broke? Karate. Low self-esteem? Karate. Difficulty trusting others? Ka-ra-te.

I had heard that this show was addictive television, but I was really skeptical. After all, I have no stake in the Karate Kid movies: I’ve never seen them. And a decades-later spin-off show starring the bad kid from the original movie didn’t dazzle me.

But oh, how I underestimated the cobra.

There are popcorn movies out there: simple, fun, don’t-think-just-feel movies. Not everybody loves them, but there’s a broad appeal and it’s easy to digest and enjoy.

Cobra Kai’s first season is a perfect popcorn streaming show. You start off with Johnny Lawrence, the aforementioned antagonist of a film I never saw, living as a complete loser in Southern California. He hates his job, he lives alone in a run-down apartment, and the Karate Kid himself, Johnny’s greatest rival (which apparently people still have in their forties), is a highly successful car salesman with a beautiful wife and loving daughter (also he has a son, but he doesn’t matter at all). Things are looking rough for Johnny. But one badass karate showdown/arrest/bonding with a troubled youth later, Johnny has a mission. He’s going to bring back the karate he learned all those years ago and get a second shot (probably an illegal one) at life.

Here’s the real trick: I don’t like the protagonist of this show. He is a gross, reckless, man-child roundhouse kicking his way through life. I am not invested in his success at all. But the show quickly builds out a supporting cast of troubled kids, jerks who deserve comeuppance, and people trying to do the right thing and failing miserably. And a vast proportion of these characters settle their differences with karate.

This show doesn’t have terrific writing or acting, but it has the kind of easy drama that’s hard to turn away from when you know someone’s about to get kicked in the face (physically, emotionally, or sometimes both).

I watched the majority of this show in one sitting. 4.5 illegal face kicks out of 5. Now streaming on Netflix.