‘Cobra Kai’ review: Netflix’s ‘The Karate Kid’ series delivers plenty of new hits in its fourth season
The main conflict once again concerns Cobra Kai, the karate dojo now run by not only John Kreese (Martin Kove) but his old friend Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), both of are ardent practitioners of the “No Mercy” code.
Their involvement has also forced Daniel and arch-nemesis Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) to try to put their differences aside, but the couple’s personalities and styles don’t get along easily, and they mostly like not working from mutual trust.
The series also avoids dumb teen syndrome, introducing new characters and unexpected wrinkles associated with existing characters that, in theory, like Johnny’s part, that being a villain. does not automatically mean stay forever.
As usual, tensions built over the inevitable valley karate tournament, but the real strength lies in getting there, with Zabka delivering plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as the dinosaur was about to put his way, caught between his old rival and one-time mentor.
Johnny is equally annoyed (often hilariously so) pursuing a relationship with Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) while training her son Miguel (Xolo Maridueña).
At the same time, both Daniel and Johnny continue to have complex interactions with their own children, while performing the function of substituting fathers for others.
Honestly, topnotch revivals are rare so it seems inevitable that the “Cobra Kai” will crash or simply run out of gas. Happily, that’s certainly not the case with season four, – which spawned a pop culture breakthrough and Emmy Award nomination with graduate work from YouTube to Netflix – catering to everyone from the elderly to teenagers. Just making Kove’s 70th Kreese the central heavyweight has a certain boldness to it in a show that spends half as much time as “Dawson’s Creek”.
Despite the dojo’s familiar “Never die” slogan, “Cobra Kai” cannot live forever. For now, however, it remains an example of how to take a known title and breathe life into it, without taking yourself too seriously. Even if the karate actions get a little tedious, in terms of deftly squeezing a concept, it’s hard not to admire its form.
“Cobra Kai” begins its fourth season on December 31 on Netflix.
