The Karate Kid Saga Continues with Cobra Kai

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One of the best TV shows I’ve watch so far during the Pandemic is Cobra Kai on Netflix. Originally airing on YouTube Red for seasons 1 and 2, the show moved to Netflix for its upcoming season 3. Fans of the original Karate Kid movie series will enjoy reminiscing while newcomers will most like easy “binge” through the series in a couple of days.

The plot, according to its Wikipedia page: Thirty-four years after his defeat in the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament,  Johnny Lawrence, now in his 50s, works as a part-time handyman and lives in an apartment in  Reseda,  Los Angeles, having fallen far from the wealthy lifestyle in  Encino  that had been enabled by his verbally abusive step-father,  Sid Weinberg. He has a son,  Robby Keene, with ex-girlfriend  Shannon Keene, but he abandoned them both when Robby was born and Johnny’s mother  Laura  died on the same day. Johnny, admittedly, has never recovered from his breakup with then high school girlfriend,  Ali Mills.

After losing his job, a down-and-out Johnny uses  karate  to rescue his teenage neighbor  Miguel Diaz  from a gang of bullies. Miguel, an  asthmatic  child raised by his  Ecuadorian  single mother  Carmen, asks Johnny to teach him. Initially reluctant, Johnny finally agrees and decides to reopen the Cobra Kai karate  dojo  as a chance to recapture his past; however, this act reawakens his rivalry with  Daniel LaRusso. Daniel, now the owner of a highly successful car dealership chain, is married to  Amanda  and has two children:  Samantha  and  Anthony. Daniel is finally living the wealthy lifestyle he envied as a child when he lived in Reseda. However, after his friend and mentor  Mr. Miyagi  died, Daniel’s struggle to meaningfully connect with his children has disrupted the balance in his life. Meanwhile, his mother  Lucille, his other source of support, has a complicated relationship with his wife Amanda.

Johnny’s dojo attracts a group of bullied social outcasts who find camaraderie and self-confidence under his tutelage, a marked contrast to the kind of students  Tommy,  Bobby,  Dutch,  Jimmy  and Johnny were when training in the original Cobra Kai run by  John Kreese. Johnny develops a bond with his first and best student, Miguel, in a manner that resembles the relationship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. Cobra Kai’s philosophy, however, remains mostly unchanged, though Johnny tries to infuse it with more honor than Kreese did. Thus, Miguel develops into a very different kind of student than Daniel, or even Johnny, was; he also begins dating Samantha. Johnny’s efforts to reform Cobra Kai are undermined by the unexpected reappearance of Kreese, who hopes to bring the dojo back to its originally ruthless form.

As a means of revenge against his estranged father, Robby convinces Amanda to hire him for a position at the LaRusso Auto dealership and develops a close friendship with Daniel (although Daniel is unaware of Robby’s lineage). He even studies Mr. Miyagi’s form of Karate with Daniel and becomes friendly with Samantha. She eventually joins her father’s dojo, which ultimately leads to her breaking up with Miguel. Miguel later begins dating another Cobra Kai student, Tory, who is Sam’s rival.

The developing story revolves around these primary relationships, which lead to conflicts that are ultimately the product of Daniel and Johnny’s inability to move away from the past.

According to creator Jon Hurwitz , the new season has already been filmed and edited and will be available on Netflix in 2021.

Filmed. Edited. Ready to go. Look out for it on @netflix in 2021. #CobraKai #CobraKaiOnNetflix #Netflix https://t.co/77RPBRp3eF

— Jon Hurwitz (@jonhurwitz) September 6, 2020

You might want to dust off the VCR and head down to your local Blockbuster for a copy of Karate Kid II (or I guess stream it, if it’s easier) as the rumor is season 3 will follow the story line from that movie in the series.