MovieChat Forums > Cobra Kai (2018) Discussion > Absolutely fantastic show. My only compl...

Absolutely fantastic show. My only complaint is it leaves you feeling very conflicted

posted 4 years ago by kuatorises (7467)
10 replies | jump to latest

at times.

I don't mean Johnny being the main character either. Unless you're one of those dorks who can't let the internet joke (the original YouTube video) go, you can see he's still kind of a prick, but grows and is trying to become a better man. He's a deadbeat dad and a jerkoff, but grows and learns and begins to care about his students like Alisha and Miguel. Especially when Kreese comes in. You see that Johnny is not about what Kreese is teaching and will have none of it anymore. You can be a badass without being an asshole. Johnny gets it. He's trying to grow and improve his life. We even see that despite being a shitty father, his ex partially sabotaged his relationship with Robby.

That's not what I mean. It's a lot of other stuff. It's Miguel and Alisha being Johnny's students, Robby being villainized in the finale, and Daniel being made to look like the bad guy when he breaks into Johnny's place.

Miguel and Alisha were being bullied, so them learning self defense and learning how to stand up for themselves is something you do and want to cheer for. But they change and turn into assholes. Not as big of assholes as Hawk (hate that little prick), but in a pretty major way. Miguel starts shit with Robby at the lake party and technically started the brawl. Robby is trying to break up the fight between the girls and Miguel literally comes flying in and tackles Robby; turning it from a 1-on-1 into a brawl. Then fast-forward to the end of the fight and Miguel tries to put an end to the madness - because the brawl was ridiculously out of hand at that point - and Robby naturally fights back because they'd been fighting for like 10 minutes.

Robby didn't mean to try and break Miguel's neck, but he's suddenly the most awful kid in town. Robby had turned his life around and was a legit good kid who was ATTACKED for trying to break up a fight. This is AFTER he hears Sam cheated on him and he still cared enough to try and save her. But Sam, Daniel (when he fought Johnny at Johnny's place), and pretty much everyone turn their back on Robby because of what inadvertently happened to Miguel; who started it. Miguel starts out the asshole, legitimately does the right thing for a tenth of a second, but I'm supposed to feel bad for him and hate Robby because of how it ended? It's a weird and unsatisfying feeling. This was a bizarre writing decision. All the characters hate Robby now and I don't feel that way at all.

Then there's the whole Sam getting trashed thing and Daniel rightfully being worried about his kid. Robby tries to take the heat, Johnny doesn't just outright tell Daniel what happened gets pissed when Daniel breaks in. Daniel has no idea why his kid is missing at this point and finds out she's passed out in his rival's apartment. It's awesome that the two of them are finally having their rematch, but Johnny is acting like Daniel is being unreasonable when Daniel has no idea why his kid is missing. Instead of just explaining the situation, Johnny just slams the door in his face. That was a pretty crappy writing decision.

The finale was tremendously entertaining at times too, but also borderline goofy. Tory doing what she did was psychotic, but it starts out ok. Doing what she did over the PA system was bold and unbelievable, but not completely over the top. It was a little over the top, but fun and entertaining. The fight starts off fine (for a fake over the top fight) but by the time the fight is reaching it's climax, she's actually trying to kill Sam. I'm not saying no human has never tried to kill one another over a love triangle or jealousy, but this show is essentially like an ABC Family show. It's not THAT deep. Plus, after the whole brawl throughout the school, it was waaaaaaaaay too much.

But the brawl itself was fun. Or started out that way. I mean, I'm watching it and thinking, "Wow, this is ridiculous...but fun....but ridiculous." It went back and forth. It was like a Power Rangers episode (the fighting style, I mean). It was over the top, but fun. Then became a cartroon. I went back and forth on it. It started fun, was fun several times throughout, but also really ridiculous at times. It was very conflicting.

[–] warrior-poet (1369) 4 years ago

I don't see feeling conflicted as a complaint, but a strength of the show.

You've actually summed things up here quite well, but why do you think you're "supposed" to hate Robbie? You're not "supposed" to do anything. How you feel is entirely up to you. Plus, "all the characters hate Robbie now" isn't an accurate statement. Far from it.

The entire premise of this show revolves around the idea that nothing is black and white. Good people can let their emotions get the better of them, or let power and privilege to go to their head, which leads them to do crappy things. "Bad" people who weren't raised correctly can start to change their ways and become a better member of society, or can have people they care for.

In my view this is the show's greatest strength, and is a quality very few shows ever portray. No one person is good or bad. Everyone is both. It all comes down to individual and distinct circumstances, and how a person reacts to each circumstance.

This is what being human is all about. It's messy. It's chaotic. And it doesn't follow any rules.

[–] kuatorises (7467) 4 years ago

"The entire premise of this show revolves around the idea that nothing is black and white."

This isn't true tho.

In the context of the show, what Tory did in the finale is unabashedly wrong. No debating that. Same about Johnny bullying Daniel in the original.

Stories need protagonists and antagonists. You need characters to get invested in, care about, etc., and you need people who oppose them. It's fine that no one is perfect, but this show is obsessed with creating unnecessary "gray" moments. This show gets so caught up in creating them. They "have to" knock a character down a peg.

The villainization of Robby is a perfect example.He turned over a new leaf. It was done. He was a new man.His girl cheated on him and he still tried to protect her from psycho Tory. He was ATTACKED by Miguel. He defended himself from that attack and they just HAD TO make Miguel the victim and Robby the villain in the climax. Now if they wanna make Miguel learn something by trying to end the fight, that's fine. That's character development. But then they have to frame it like he's a victim of evil Robby who threw him over a railing; which is attempted homicide. The way Daniel and Sam just turn their back on him without knowing details was just unnecessary.

Or the way the show tries to make Daniel look insane for trying to keep Cobra Kai banned from the tourney or kicking down Johnny's door in the finale. Cobra Kai literally tortured him and it's all presented like he's just irrational for wanting them banned. I thought they handled Johnny well in that part, but they were hell-bent on making Daniel looking insane. And his teenage daughter was MISSING and Johnny wouldn't let him in, LOL. Of course Daniel is going to be livid, but he's the dick in this situation. And this is after they bonded. They HAD TO move that relationship backwards. They should have never made them friendly (yet) at that point.

Or Miguel's mom blaming Johnny for something that happened (the brawl) when he wasn't there? Miguel, along with Tory and Hawk STARTED the brawl.

Everyone makes mistakes, but this show is just so damn obsessed with making sure "no one is perfect" and creating unnatural gray moments. They're not organic and often go against character development.

[–] millsey72 (10666) 4 years ago

Just wait till season 3 starts. Rumors swirling around the show will delve into the sci fi universe. We know Daniel goes to Okinawa and meets up with Chozen, who has a secret about Miyagi. The secret may be that Miyagi is still alive and faked his death. Miyagi created some kind of immortal elixir formula that causes him to look younger. Obviously a new character is casted as Miyagi. This special forumula, made on the island of Okinawa does have side effects and Miyagi is now evil. He returns to LA and forms a bond with Kreese. This could be the most exciting action packed season yet of Cobra Kai. Also they can do a spin off series featuring Miyagi of when he discovered this secret and his life on Okinawa, all while Daniel thought he was dead

[–] Galactus03 (4381) 4 years ago

[deleted]

[–] DrRed (545) 4 years ago

Speaking of going sci-fi. I heard Season 10 will be Cobra Kai vs. Tom Cruise in Space.

[–] millsey72 (10666) 4 years ago

That would be awesome. Just sucks we have to wait till season 10 for it

[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

I'm only on season 1, so I'm a little vague on which characters you're talking about yet, but so far I think this show is about fatherhood, so I think all the bad things that the kids do are about the fathers (biological, adopted, role models, etc) in the show seeing the consequences of their choices play out in how their children have been hurt by their failures.

So far, I'm on the episode where Robby decides to do the right thing and doesn't let his "friends" steal from the LaRusso dealership, but you can tell that Robby is still on a morally compromised path because Johnny has been a terrible father.

Likewise, Miguel currently (mid season 1, for me) is doing fairly well, but he never even knew his father, and that is bound to show up in his behavior at some point.

Likewise, Johnny is helping Miguel, but Johnny himself is very damaged (by his own lack of a father and his bad relationship with his selfish stepfather) and you can already see in Season 1 that the way Johnny helps Miguel is based on a very shaky moral framework. So I would expect to see that play out in further seasons as Miguel internalises Johnny's flawed way of managing conflict.

[–] kenburke (2386) 4 years ago

Feeling conflicted, as you put it, is what makes the show so good.

[–] kuatorises (7467) 4 years ago

The show is good because it's funny and nostalgic. Not having a steady character to root for is wholly unsatisfying.

[–] avortac4 (3754) 4 years ago

I think it's brave and cool to not give the audience 'easy answers', and it's realistic, as in life, you can't always divide things to black-n-white good-n-bad, but there are grey areas, colors, dimensions, subtleties, and a lot of messy confusion.

The show conveys this very well.

However, I sort of agree a little bit, because when things become too messy and fluctuate too much - everyone is a good guy and a bad guy and in the end, you can't root for anyone anymore, and nothing makes sense - this show also took it a bit too far. They should've at least had a steady direction and ended up with some kind of closure, but they just kept the chips in the air until it became tiring to wait for the gravity to work, and this diluted the whole thing.

Maybe Season 3 will fix things, who knows, the trailer makes some interesting promises.