Cobra Kai Season 5

Season 5 of Cobra Kai is its biggest yet with Daniel and Chozen teaming up to take down Terry Silver, who has been building up the Cobra Kai brand as he had intended to back in The Karate Kid Part III and using his charm to manipulate anyone siding with Daniel.  

A lot happens in the season so below I will just remark on some individual impressions below.   As always there are spoilers.

Macchio does some of his best work in this season as Daniel faces up to one of his biggest challenges while also in the first half of the season driving his wife crazy with his obsession, which includes an unconventional houseguest on an extended stay.  

Yuji Don Okomoto has a lot of fun playing a more evolved version of Chozen who stills sometimes strikes first and asks questions later but to a much more comedic effect.  Chozen also carries himself with much more gravity and is as devoted to helping Daniel as he was to hurting him in Karate Kid Part II in many scenes.  He also represents a positive Eastern influence in a way similar to Myagi in the films.  I enjoyed anytime Chozen was on screen but two standouts are the moments when he goes to Silver's house and when he trains the Myagi Do students by teaching them to work together.  Chozen's superb fighting skills are useful throughout the season but especially in the finale against Silver.  I really like that the creators have taken this character who was so heinous in Karate Kid Part II and redeemed him in such an interesting way.

Thomas Ian Griffith revels in bringing a more unleashed Silver whose greed and resources seem to be limitless.  Although Silver warns Daniel off, Silver enjoys taking the battle to him just because he wants to watch Daniel squirm.  

Daniel and Silver have two fights.  In the first Silver goads Daniel into attacking him in a fight in which Daniel is fighting on emotion and alcohol.  Although Daniel gets in some good shots, he loses badly.  Silver appears to break Daniel's arm at the end but although the next episode shows Daniel recuperating, his arm seems to be fine (perhaps merely dislocated).  Afterwards Daniel uses similar sunglasses as in the first film to cover his black eye.  Although Daniel is discouraged from his beating he never seems humiliated and accepts his defeat with grace.  In the second fight Daniel has his best fight ever, using Silver's mantra against him but actually fighting more like Myagi, efficiently, with great focus and never even gets hit.  Daniel's finishing of Silver using the crane kick which Silver had mocked so much is a fitting finish.  If the show was ever going to bring it back this was the opponent to do so with.  The moment has extra significance since it is the first time Daniel has fought in front of his family (except for Sam).

However, Silver also had just had a brutal fight with Chozen and Silver, based on the timeline should be over 70 and Daniel being presumably in his mid-fifties is a significant different.  Griffith, who is a year younger than Macchio, plays Silver as if he is his actual age (instead of Silver's).  Because Griffith now has long gray hair he looks older than the perpetually young looking Macchio so we are able to buy it.

In the finale of Season 4 Miguel went to Mexico in what turned out to be a cliffhanger.  However his arc in Mexico is contrived.  He gets invited to stay at his birth father's home through a dues ex machina and the father never picks up on who he is but reveals an awful lot about himself to this stranger.  Xolo Mariduena brings a lot of emotion to these scenes but I was left wondering what the point of whole thing was.  I had never wondered who Miguel's father was and just accepted that Carmen was a single mother who had been forced to raise Miguel on her own.  It does show that Carmen showed incredible judgement and courage to keep Miguel away from him.  

The more interesting moments are Johnny and Robbie's attempts to trail Miguel with Johnny having typical fish out of water moments in Mexico.  Johnny and Robbie's fight with the scam artists is scored to a fun song from the movie "Desperado" sung by Antonio Banderas.  Is it supposed to be a little more PC that the only crook with a speaking part is not Mexican but a white Australian?

Johnny's working with the gig economy leads to some funny moments.  But he shows real growth both in helping Miguel and Robby finally settle their differences and most crucially when he comes to embrace becoming a father again.  Johnny shows real courage in the finale getting up after taking a savage beating knowing that he needs to pull through this in order to be present for his unborn child.  

Robyn Lively makes a surprise return as Jessica from Karate Kid Part III revealing herself as Amanda's cousin.  The two have an entertaining scene in a bar in which a character Jessica referred to in Karate Kid Part III stirs up trouble.  It's both entertaining to see Amanda in this situation and nice to see Jessica again.  I wish we could have seen Samantha fighting a little more to defend her mother than the quick beat we got.  Jessica ends up being the Cupid that allows Amanda to see from a different point of view why Daniel is taking Silver's threat so seriously which feels true to her nature.  This is contrasted nicely with Daniel realizing he again, like in Season 2, has gone too far in trying to take Cobra Kai down and stands down but a little too late.  When Daniel tells Silver he is backing off only to see that Silver won't make it that easy for him, it is reminiscent of a similar scene in Karate Kid Part III

Sean Kanan returns as Mike Barnes, the student Daniel narrowly beats in The Karate Kid Part III, as partial owner of a furniture store.  It's nice to see him in a more benevolent role but the character had been so one dimensional in the film, which I have not re-watched as much as the others, that his presence felt shoehorned in so the series accounts for all of Daniel's old rivals.  Mike does prove helpful in the final sequence in Silver's home.

Martin Kove makes a reduced appearance as Kreese who was jailed at the end of Season 4.  Kreese's gradual dominance of the other prisoners is amusing, particularly when they start calling him sensei.  Daniel and Johnny's tricking him with a nasty note feels out of character for especially Daniel and probably only exists to motivate Kreese to return as a villain in the future.  Kreese's escape from jail belongs in a different type of story.   

Tori gets better material this time as without Kreese around, and being aware that Silver bribed the referee in the finale of the Season 4, she starts to develop very mixed feelings about Cobra Kai.  Eventually she becomes a kind of spy but this takes a toll on her.

The show wisely stops playing musical chairs with its two young couples and Miguel and Sam find their way back to each other after each of them took some time for themselves.  Their respect for each other and recognition of their need for space showed real maturity.  Robby and Tori do as well as Robby has seen the light on Cobra Kai and wants Tori to free herself from them too. 

Anthony pays a big price for his bullying of Kenny in Season 4, getting on the wrong side of Kenny many times though I wonder why Kenny never targets anyone else in that group of four.  It never seems to break him though and Anthony shows he has matured and recognizes both that Kenny has a reason to target him and that Silver is the one poisoning his mind.  He also learns that skipping the steps on his karate training cost him since he cannot defend himself when he is in trouble.

Alicia Hannah-Kim joins the show as Kim Da-eun who is the granddaughter of Kim Sun-yung who originally trained Silver (and briefly mentioned in Karate Kid Part III).  She is there to get the students ready for the international Sekai Taikai tournament.  Kim Da-eun is just as ruthless as Silver and even participates in the big fight at the end.  Additionally she gives Silver someone to talk to and is being set up to be another antagonist in the future since Silver is arrested.  

Paul Walter Hauser has some fun notes to play as Stingray, who is being both paid off and used by Silver.  Stingray is an adult gamer who is a little immature but good natured and really just wants to belong.  Stingray finds his courage in his own way and gets a redemptive moment when he brings Daniel to the dojo and fights his way in.

The show has more fights than it really needs.  I think every episode has a big throw down showing the bigger budget, though each one is memorable.  The second half of the final episode shows several fights of which my favorites were Chozen vs. Silver and then Daniel vs. Silver.  

I like the characters' growth.  Miguel and Robby, who are both decent people, eventually get over their rivalry after one last showdown of course.  Miguel steps in and helps Robby during the big fight in the dojo.  Sam and Tory come to make peace, and Sam gets a sense of how difficult Tory's life is.  Daniel and Johnny will never be best friends but they have come to respect each other and the friendship that develops between Daniel and Chozen is touching.  I really enjoy the unlikely moment of Daniel and his two worst antagonists from the films singing "Eye of the Tiger" in the limo.  Johnny's determination to fight for his family and bring his two "sons" together has given him a purpose he lacked earlier in the show.

As before when the show visits Myagi it always works well.  It usually comes when Daniel is confused or at a low point and in this case Amanda takes him into his dojo after his defeat to Silver and Daniel, and the audience feel Myagi's guiding hand in a beautiful scene in which all of the Myagi Do students and Daniel's friends become Myagi's angels.

In Karate Kid Part II Daniel and Kumiko were starting to hold hands when Chozen appeared to threaten Daniel.  In Season 3 of Cobra Kai a similar staging occurred though this time Daniel and Kumiko's hands accidentally grazed when Chozen appeared in a nonthreatening way.  I wondered if this meant that Daniel and Kumiko still had feelings for each other but I think it was just a visual reference to the earlier film.  The creators seem to clarify this since Chozen reveals he has feelings for Kumiko and Daniel encourages it.  Although their romance seems farfetched I hope the characters find love and if it is with each other, so much the better.   

The finale seemed to wrap up the Cobra Kai/Myagi Do/Eagle Fang rivalry so other than having key members of both dojos go to the Sekai Taikai tournament and face John Kreese causing trouble it feels like the story has been told.  As of this writing Season 6 has not been confirmed so if Season 5 was the end of Cobra Kai, it's a good finish.  If not, I am happy to see what the creators come up with.  ****

P.S. A few hours after this posted a final season of Cobra Kai was announced.  I am excited to see the conclusion but a little sad that it has a fixed point.  But the best shows usually find the right time to end and it is good for Cobra Kai to leave when the story is still so strong.