I am so excited that Cobra Kai is finally out and available! FYI the first two episodes are free on YouTube! (Episode 1 is embedded at the bottom of the post).
Early on in the episode we learn that Daniel LaRusso is a car salesman, who uses his Karate prowess to advertise his business. That’s pretty lame, even for a car salesman.
DUDE, ED ASNER IS IN THIS! Was he in the original Karate Kid? It’s been so long that I cannot remember. He’s playing Johnny’s stepdad, so maybe we’ll see more of him.
Anyhow, Johnny isn’t doing too well. He’s an alcoholic with a record and he just lost his job as a handyman. When some teenagers total his car (one of whom we later learn is Daniel’s daughter) he has to head to LaRusso’s body shop to pick it up. (Whoops, just spoiled the hell out of that episode for ya. Sorry, I’m used to working with older material.)
Narratively, the episode is told from Johnny’s perspective. Episode two is told from Daniel’s perspective, while moving forward chronologically.
After his encounter with Daniel, Johnny is motivated to restart the Cobra Kai dojo with his first student being–get this–a bullied teen who is new in town.
William Zabka is GREAT and I’m so glad we get to see a little more depth to Johnny’s character. I think it will be interesting to see how the plot plays out, especially if they continue to switch protagonists with each episode. That said…it will take many a good review to make me consider paying for a YouTube Red subscription just to watch the full series. (Or maybe I’ll free trial it?)
The Very Special Blog 
I’m going to assume Mr. Myagi is still dead?
As far as I can tell!
This reminds me of one of the movie fanedits I worked on last Summer. I made a fanedit of the second and third movies of the trilogy so that they are reversed (meaning the events of the third movie happen before the events of the second movie). It was a lot more work than simply switching the title cards, as I also had to cut out all the references to the second film that appeared in the third film (since they hadn’t happened yet). But it was worth it because it didn’t make much sense to me that Daniel would revert back to being his old self after the events of the original second film.
I’ll probably give this new series a watch. It sounds interesting.
Yes the 3rd was definitely the weakest and his character development would probably make more sense in reverse order!
For all the millenials out there that have no idea what they’re commenting on, with the exception of acting. This show has great dept especially the flow from the genre of film to television. As well as role reversal in the world created by these two actors. If you dont like the saga fine your welcome to your oppinion, but whats been created has depth and is very whimsical for all the real fans of the original movie. It does justice to the brand R.I.P. Pat Morita