TV Review: Cobra Kai Returns With Bigger Daddy Issues
Cobra Kai has to be one of the most consistently good shows I have ever seen, and that has been to the surprise of many. Thinking a Karate Kid reboot would be good, let alone on its 4th season, felt random and even impossible. Yet, if there is one thing Season 4 confirms about Cobra, Kai it is that Life is your sensei, and you better stay humble or her lessons will get tougher.
Watching Johnny (William Zabka) further dive into paternal existentialism has been fun for these last few seasons, but this go-around got pretty sentimental thanks, oddly enough, to the addition of Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith). If there is one recurring theme, that gets notched up in Season 4, it is the idea of fathers not knowing how to love their kids better or, at the very least, teach them how to love themselves. Terry, in some ways, becomes a brilliant juxtaposition to Johnny as the “two sons” of John Kreese (Martin Kove). Both were doing well without him, but Kreese has a way of getting back into someone’s life and upending it. Yet, this season, you see him pine for Johnny like the latter does Robby (Tanner Buchanan), and the result is a surprising softness to Kreese that, in some ways, made me see a ideological common-ground he shares with Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio): the belief that tough love is a compassionate choice.
Yes, I find Daniel a tough-lover. For all he preaches about peace and the Miyagi-do way, his union with Johnny and his students, to form a “super dojo,” reveals how rigid he can be in his perspective of right and wrong. For me, if you are not open to other, new things but still try to be kind… well…. you kind of fall into a “tough love” trap; believing that only your way is the best way to make people better. That mentality amplifies Kreese’s genuine hurt that Johnny could not see his “love,” and pushes Sam (Mary Mouser) and Anthony (Griffin Santopietro) to rebel from their dear dad. Yes, the son of Danny is back, and has one of the better storylines of this season because of how much more he is like Johnny. Ugh! This show really knows how to make Johnny and Daniel Endgame!
One thing I loved about this season was the times Johnny and Daniel actually got along to reveal they need each other. They have a “ying-yang” quality to their dynamic that makes for a really good friendship and pushes both to grow in how they analyze life as either on defense or offense. While both worry for Robby, I was happy to see Buchanan get separated from both parties to witness his character grow, along with Tory (Peyton List) and Hawk (Jacob Bertrand). This “Big 3” have kind of been the charming, annoying “rage teenagers” that we both love and encourage, while also wanting to shake into better life choices. Yet, that is the odd point Season 4 makes; it is, at times, the pressure our parents put on us to make their version of “better choices” that pushes us to make our own version of bad ones.
While I cannot truly argue with the idea that parents know better, I will say do not always know how to get better. In essence, it is always easier to see car about to crash into a wall when you are a bystander watching from the outside, but that does not, necessarily, make you a better driver. You watching someone crash does not mean you know how to avoid your own walls, and that fracturing, fragile truth pulses through a surprisingly sentimental season. which confronts how “parenting” truly is a rough endeavor. Still, if there is one character that always shines and steals my emotional heart it is Xolo Maridueña’s Miguel.
I cap Season 4’s theme on “how to father” with Maridueña giving one of the best performances of the show and having one of the most heartbreaking scenes I have ever seen on it. UGH! I just wanted to hug Miguel, and call Netflix to understand how this actor does not have a film with them on deck when he is the fan-fave. Miguel’s general sweetness and sincere loyalty to Johnny is like a bright light this season that gets crushed as he realizes: Johnny is not his dad. He may be LIKE a father, and is dating his mom, but he is not his dad. Seeing Miguel’s optimism go from joy to pure, depressing identity crisis was so intriguing, in part, because it solidifies that whether you are as bad Kreese or a “goody goody” like Daniel, how you relate to love, especially parentally, can affect how you relate to yourself. Cobra Kai comes out December 31 on Netflix.
