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Cobra Kai
Consequences
Season 3
Episode 1
Editor’s Note
Photo: Netflix /
I’m old enough to have seen both The Karate Kid and Karate Kid II: Cultural appropriation in a movie theater, so I’m exactly middle-aged enough to fully understand this show about the regrets of our youth, a missed opportunity, and a fickle blow to redemption. The best part about this movie franchise update is something Daniel-san didn’t get the first time around. It’s a delicate balance of sincerity and irony, flashing humor and dry hope, martial arts fantasy and the deadly reality of crushed dreams. Cobra Kai has her cake, eats it too, then puts it in a sleeveless black gi and sells it like 80s nostalgia.
This is perfectly evidenced by the first moments of season three, when we deal with the aftermath of the giant karate melee between Cobra Kai’s sidekicks and Miyagi-Do followers. One presenter explains the event as follows: “What can only be described as an all-out karate riot.” I find this statement to be a total riot (karate). First of all, that a fight in a high school would be the nightly news, and also that we live in a world where there are enough students who are elite martial artists for such an event to happen. happen. What if, instead of karate, it was yo-yo tricks or cardistry?
But the show makes us another. Then we have a parent who says, “Now do I have to worry about karate gangs at school?” No, no, because karate gangs are not a thing except in this twisted universe. The writers know this and so the line hits with the laughter it deserves, but the best part comes from a bunch of high school hippies protesting the big fight. “We don’t have to hit and hate. Let’s go have brunch and meet some friends, ”the eventual Burner Moon sings to her guitar in a circle in the schoolyard. How can a show kick so much butt and make me L-ing My AO at the same time?
So where is everyone after the big fight? Miguel has been in a coma for two months, which apparently consists of him in an endless karate fight where he can’t get his hands or feet on his opponent. Robby took off from the police as soon as the fight was over and no one has seen or heard from him since. Hawk tries to impress every new freshman girl in school, but now everyone knows he’s a bedwet who’s been beaten up, so his bad boy charm isn’t as effective as it once was. Aisha’s parents were so worried about the karate fight that they moved her to another school and wouldn’t let her talk to any of the Cobra Kai kids. Is this how the show writes it for good?
Things at school have gotten really hectic and there are metal detectors at the front door and every child who enters the building has their backpack searched. Um, guys. Karate is not made of metal. It’s not in a bag. What will they do? Forbid the child’s arms? Stop them from making their hands too rigid? There is no way to stop karate. It is a silent invader, like radon and Canadians.
Daniel’s daughter, Sam, has the worst of all. Over the summer, she hasn’t spoken to anyone, and now that school is back in session, she’s worried about the claw scar Tory gave her during the fight. When she goes to school, she thinks everyone is watching her. It’s clear she has PTSD from the bout, but PTSD is usually triggered by something like loud noises or dark alleys. Sam’s is triggered each time she approaches a railing. Yes, a balustrade. Damn, loud noises are hard to find, but the railings are literally all over.
As for the adults, things haven’t been going so fast for Daniel since the big fight. He says, “It turns out ‘We’re kicking off the competition’ is not a good slogan when your karate student is literally kicking the competition over a railing. No! Daniel! Don’t bring the railings! Eventually, he discovers that one of his 1993 vans is missing and deduces that Robby has kidnapped it and fled. He tracks the GPS and finds it abandoned in a park like a used Whip-It cartridge. He’s going to have to think of something else to find Robby.
He goes to look for him in Miyagi-Do, but he’s not there. Sam eats in-and-out because it’s the only fast food restaurant within a ten mile radius that certainly won’t have a single railing in the building. Daniel tells Sam that he blames himself for all this mess because it was his fight with Johnny that really started all this rivalry with the kids. “I thought we were the right ones,” Sam asks, although it’s not really a question, it’s more of a statement, but anyway, this girl can’t go to school because there are ADA compliant safety devices on the stairs. Give it a break.
“We are. At least we try to be,” he told her with some of that sweet, sweet Cobra Kai sincerity that we love so much. “There is one thing I know for sure and that is that you cannot run away from your problems.” With that, Sam goes to school, stands up to her bullies, shows her scar on her right arm like she’s Padma Lakshmi in a sleeveless dress, and walks up those damn stairs. Take that, balustrades!
The real focus of the episode, of course, is Johnny. It starts with a TGIFriday scam getting drunk on Coors because Johnny is going to Johnny. After choosing a fight with baseball fans who don’t want to let Johnny watch the karate fight news, he finds himself not only with his ass beaten up, but in jail. “Hey! Applebee guy!” Said the arresting officer. “What’s up with you and the crappy restaurant chains?” Crappy restaurant chains? Excuse me. Me? Has that asshole had a TGI Friday Chicken Finger or Applebee’s Triple-Chocolate Meltdown?
Once out of the ringing, Johnny tries to go see Miguel, but the nurse at the reception won’t let him see him because Miguel is in intensive care and only the family can see him. “Come on,” Johnny, with a killer minnow, purrs at him. “Be a bad girl.” Oh girl. Call your home insurance because the basement is flooded. Just the way he says it’s no wonder every waitress on DUI probation in Reseda has a crush on him.
Johnny decides to steal a doctor’s gown to pass himself off as a medical professional, but with his face resembling one of Whack-A-Mole’s plastic rodents, he hardly looks like it. ‘have taken the Hippocratic Oath. (Hypocrite oath, perhaps.) Instead, he has a brilliant idea: he bangs the head of the towel dispenser to get admitted to the emergency room. That’s what I like about Johnny, he’s always looking for extra credit. He probably could have gotten in on the base of the gnarled bruise that covers almost his entire back, but no, he had to go play with his slot machine just so he could get in and give Miguel a pep talk.
Johnny comes home and Daniel is waiting for him near his apartment and he tells Johnny that he has a lead over Robby and that they should go find him together. Is this where the fiction part of the series begins? Will our favorite guys over 50 fall in love and materialize the homoerotic tension that has plagued them for decades? Probably not, but you know there will be a corner of the internet dedicated to this.
Whatever Johnny said to Miguel, all of his talk about never giving up must have helped, because as soon as he leaves the room Miguel begins to connect with the karate opponent in his brain. His kicks strike, his punches trip the opponent, and just like that, against all neurological science, Miguel’s eyes open and he’s completely healed. That’s all we needed folks. A good old-fashioned karate riot can heal a multitude of ailments. It’s like faith healing, but with more broken planks.
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