Netflix’s silly-smart Karate Kid reboot gets a lot better when everyone agrees to do karate again.
Most sequels are prisons, locking characters and actors into old familiar rhythms.
The unlikely power ofCobra Kailies in its topsy-turvy approach to the source material.
TINA ROWDEN/NETFLIX
Back in the ’80s, Cobra Kai was the preferred brand for well-funded Aryan beach jocks.
His students have to be aggressive: The world struckthemfirst.
Daniel builds his own dojo in serene homage to his late master, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita).
NETFLIX
Miyagi-do preaches defense and breathing exercises from a lush garden HQ.
At its best, though, thatthingkeeps getting complicated, shifting your allegiances and challenging the characters' self-image.
Season 3 is not the show’s best.
But the new episodes (streaming Jan. 1 on Netflix) ultimately form a satisfying expansion.
Last season ended with a blood-and-bone brawl at West Valley High.
That shocking cliffhanger risked breaking the show, bringing genuine medical-legal stakes to a saga about righteous kick-punching.
No surprise, I think, that the new season has a rough start.
Both senseis swear off teaching, while various high schoolers work through post-traumatic action-scene disorder.
“I’m not doing karate anymore, okay?”
says Danny’s daughter Sam (Mary Mouser).
That makes sense as a human decision.
It is not what you want to hear from the Karate Kid’s karate kid.
It is also, frequently, a self-aware comedy about its own impossible existence.
The mix is off here.
Mariduena is very charming, and does his best with material that seems to demand a medical miracle.
Buchanan is rather blank, a problem now that he has to act angry at everyone all the time.
There is swirling melodrama around feuding car dealerships.
Runtimes average three minutes longer than season 1.
And therearenifty fights in a chop shop and a laser tag arena.
Daniel takes a detour to Okinawa, where he excavates memories ofKarate Kid Part II.
Tamlyn Tomita and Yuji Okumoto return as, respectively, his old love interest and enemy.
into its revival mythos about time passing.
And time isCobra Kai’s best special effect.
In the Reagan era, little Danny was the sweetest shrimp in a steroid-pumped movie culture.
Macchio is still babyfaced, but his big eyes simmer.
When he’s mad, he looksmad.
(Check out his gleefully corrupt cop onThe Deuce; check outThe Deuce!)
Age has hardened Macchio and softened Zabka.
Johnny remains a committed jerk.
But even when he’s supposed to be mad, Zabka always looks a little sad.
It’s a great performance, quieter and more resonant as Johnny’s life spirals further down.
Season 3 doubles down on John Kreese (Martin Kove),Karate Kid’s original Darth Sensei.
Kove is having a ball, but his looming diminishes the central rivalry.
“What did you think would happen when you summoned that devil back to Earth?”
Danny asks Johnny, and Kreeseispretty much a demon.
Flashbacks complicate his backstory; if he’s the Valley’s Sauron, then we finally meet his Morgoth.
That origin features some janky production design, though: Vietnam as an eighth grade video project.
But that plot thread pays off in a big way.
And Kreese foregrounds the show’s culture-wars gap.
Conversely, a lot ofCobra Kai’s teens seem pretty forgettable to this millennial.
I miss Aisha (Nichole Brown), another formerly bullied Cobra Kai.
Brown’s absence isalready a source of controversy.
On screen, her disappearance contributes to an uneasy representational tilt.
Dudes of all ages carry the weight of years on their shoulders.
Meanwhile, Sam is mostly locked in a not-all-there blood feud with Tory (Peyton List).
Season 3 was filmed when the show was still a standout on YouTube Premium.
(Full credit tomy brilliant colleague Kristen Baldwinfor calling out season 1’s cheeky magic back in 2018.)
Since production wrapped,Cobra Kaimoved to Netflixand earned an early season 4 renewal.
The ensuing popularity boost could suggest a long run ahead but the finale points toward an endgame.
It reaffirmsCobra Kaias one of the cleverest reboots in our nostalgia-drunk era.
The series crafts a moral fable beyond any obvious definitions of irony and sincerity.
“Being a badass doesn’t mean being an a–hole,” Johnny explains.
It’s a goofy line, and a real evolution.
Like all the best teachers, he’s still learning.Grade: B
Related content:
