Despite all the positive reviews, and the recommendations from my friends, I still let "Cobra Kai" slide when it was on Youtube. Elevated to Netflix, I finally decided to give it a try and, truly, the show is better than it has any right to be.
Over three decades after his defeat in the final of the All Valley Karate tournament, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) has barely moved on in life. Divorced and estranged from his teenage son, Lawrence find some measure of redemption when, after saving his teenage neighbour Miguel (Xolo Mariduena) from being beaten up by his school bullies, he re-establishes the Cobra Kai Dojo. With blunt talk and strict rules he builds confidence in some of his misfit students. But the return of Cobra Kai does not sit well with Danny LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), now a successful businessman he and Johnny begin to clash again.
Honestly, "better than it has any right to be", is the term I always use when trying to describe the show to people. It could have lived alone on the nostalgia pops and, to be fair, it does lean into them heavily. There are plenty of flashbacks to the movies and revisits to locations seen before. But the show does a great job of moving one foot forward, whilst keeping the other back in the 80's. So Johnny and his music, car, attitude and language is distinctly "retro" whilst his new students deal with contemporary issues like cyber bullying.
Whilst the plot is a little predictable, and the conclusion of the All Valley 2018 tournament you'll see coming a long way off, it's a wonderfully written and funny show. Outwardly humorous and with some tremendous inside jokes. The characters are honest and layered (although what they're going to do in Season two with the character who reappears in the final moments is going to be really interesting, can they humanise him too?)
Exceeded expectations more than I could have hoped possible.
