Cobra Kai (2018– ) TV Series Review

Johnny Lawrence finds himself adrift with a broken marriage and a teen son who can't stand him decides to reopen the Cobra Kai studio to turn his life around.


Cobra Kai is a nostalgic success in terms of interestingly intertwining call backs and twisting character beats of the original film series including The Karate Kid, part II and The Karate Kid part III. If anything Cobra Kai surpasses its source material (although an essential platform for the series to work).
The fight scenes are well choreographed but to be frank Cobra Kai works best when it's dealing with the adult story lines rather than the teenage angst and conflicts.


Non PC Johnny starts out as almost technophobe and this makes for some memorable lines including, Oh, and put one of those hash browns at the end. You know, like, "Hash brown. Team Cobra Kai," or something. And then send it to the Internet." His character arc is interesting, as he wakes up to the 21 century while reducing the alcohol, showing the good and bad of then and now. Actor William Zabka is outstanding here (possibly, hopefully, there's an 80's Equalizer TV show in the works, where Zabka's Scott returns as the son of McCall) he gives a solid performance.
It's also great to see Ralph Macchio back in the role of Daniel LaRusso once again along with surprise original cast appearances. It also has some fantastic callbacks to the late Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi.

What is great is that Cobra Kai is refreshing, it doesn't just rely on nostalgia, the writers don't just bring characters back in a bland predicable way, clearly some thought has gone in it and the character flaws and twists are what makes this series stand out.
It does cater towards its intended younger audience and to its credit has plenty to say about bullying, morals, loyalty and first love. That said, there's enough to keep fans who saw the Karate Kid films the first time around hooked with plenty of call backs to the 80s, capturing the feeling of what it means to get old, looking back on life choices when you're middle aged.


With some impressive production values, solid writing and cast, Cobra Kai, to paraphrase an old theme song, ‘It's the best! Around! Nothing's gonna ever keep it down.’ A must see.