'Cobra Kai' succeeds in its fourth season in spite of itself

I've spoken before about what a gravity-defying franchise "The Karate Kid" films already were, even before they became the foundation for the ongoing "Cobra Kai" Netflix series, and that's never been more true than now, in the wake of the show's fourth season.

"Cobra Kai" continues to thread the needle between empathetically reflecting the minefields of modern adolescence and sharing the Marvel Cinematic Universe's ability to whistle past what would happen if certain events occurred in the real world.

It's a world where cyberbullying exists, and well-intentioned but inattentive parents can be blindsided by the realization that their own kids, whom they assumed to be victims, are instead victimizing other kids. It's also a world where no one calls the cops and none of the kids involved in what essentially amounts to gang wars become internet-famous outside of their schools.

At the same time that "Cobra Kai" has continued to delve into the complex drama of its teen (and tween) characters' shifting-sands relationships and alliances, the show has fortunately evolved past most of its earlier tendencies toward generating strife through stupid miscommunications, allowing both the kids and their adult mentors to grapple more fully with the conflicting ideologies that have divided them.

Because this is a show that stems from a grudge borne between two middle-age men when they were teens themselves, resolving those differences means that a couple of stubborn old guys from the '80s have to do something that members of my generation are not known for doing especially gracefully, which is get over themselves and admit when they're wrong.

As our rival senseis prepare their respective students for the second All-Valley Karate Tournament since this show started - the first season of "Cobra Kai" premiered in 2018, and the All-Valley is meant to be an annual event, but time has slowed in this reality enough to allow it to predate the COVID era entirely - the underlying lesson of the fourth season of "Cobra Kai" is that no one style is right for everyone.

Daniel LaRusso learned that martial arts should be purely defensive through Miyagi-Do, while Johnny Lawrence adopted Cobra Kai's ethos that one should always go on the offense. Both senseis learn, from their students, that balance means applying aspects of both styles as they're needed.

With as much as the preceding seasons have focused on the romantic entanglements and personal struggles of Daniel's older daughter Samantha, it's appropriate that this season should finally pay attention to Daniel's privileged younger son Anthony, as Daniel, a former victim of bullying, realizes that he's turned Anthony into a spoiled jerk by trying to give him everything Daniel never had growing up.

While it makes sense that "Cobra Kai" would invest in an up-and-coming cast of younger kids, since not even the time dilation that allows this show's fictional reality to predate COVID is going to keep its older kids in high school forever, I feel like we're reaching the point when "Cobra Kai" is going to run out of elements from "The Karate Kid" films that really require any sort of decades-later postscript resolution.

It's impressive enough that the fourth season, while stretching out the buildup to the All-Valley, also managed to bring back John Kreese's old Cobra Kai buddy, Terry Silver, from "The Karate Kid Part III." Until relatively recently, the name "Terry Silver" was to "The Karate Kid" films as "the planet Zeist" was to the "Highlander" franchise.

Thomas Ian Griffith takes a character who was cartoonishly evil and renders him with a haunting multidimensionality in his old age, while still retaining the joie de vivre that made the admittedly goofy Terry Silver so much fun to watch, even in a film as flawed as "The Karate Kid Part III."

The tragedy is that, when John Kreese finds his fellow Vietnam veteran, "Terrance" Silver actually seems to have grown up and gotten his head screwed on straight since we saw him last, back when he was amped up on coke and his company was dumping toxic waste just for kicks.

When Terry finally gives into his inner nature and ties his signature ponytail back into place, it's like watching the Darth Vader mask descend onto Anakin Skywalker's face, especially when Terry flashes his killer grin.

As fascinating as Terry Silver crossing back over into the dark side, though, is the faint glimmer of what could almost be called ethical compassion on the part of John "No Mercy" Kreese, as he begins to sense that Terry, whom he's manipulated for years with survivor's guilt from their shared traumas in Vietnam, might have learned how to manipulate John in turn.

Terry Silver and John Kreese's simmering mind games with each other come to a surprising conclusion, thanks to the return of former Cobra Kai member "Stingray," played both buffoonishly and with a touch of pathos by the always watchable Paul Walter Hauser.

Another welcome, albeit all-too-brief return is Nichole Brown as Aisha, a former bullying victim who turned the tables against the mean girls by joining Cobra Kai. As much as I wish she could have remained part of the show's social dynamic, it was good to catch up with her and see her history acknowledged.

Then again, "Cobra Kai" is all about its own fictional history (sometimes too much), culminating in the fourth season's shocking last-minute cameo, which both whetted my appetite for the fifth season and made me think it's best if this show finds a way to wrap up its loose ends without extending into a sixth season.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]