Like I was saying, we love an underdog, and Johnny, who was the bully, is now the one down on his luck. At this point in the new series, his step dad pops in (btw, played by Ed Asner who still witty and sharp at 90+ years old), he has just bailed him out of jail for the umpteenth time and only does it because he promised his late wife he would take care of Johnny. He declares that he can't do it anymore and is "buying him out" by writing him one more large sum of cash check. Johnny is pissed at this and throws it away, but then after a motivation moment decides to try and open a Cobra Kai dojo to teach the new kid how to defend himself.
This would normally be where the old bad guy starts redemption and maybe cleans up his act, but wait. Daniel gets wind of this, their lives still seem very much intertwined somehow and Daniel starts doing everything in his power to stop the Cobra Kai message to come back into existence. The city comes in telling him he needs insurance and the building needs to be up to code. Daniel tries to buy the strip mall in a ploy mostly to raise the rent by manipulating the landlord. When all else fails he comes into the dojo and demands he shut it down, that the evil cannot exist in his world. As Javalina kept saying, how was Daniel the good guy in the original movies, he seems like an out of touch douchebag who wants to have everything his way or he is going to whine. He thinks Daniel already won at life, live the poor guy alone to figure stuff out. I have to agree with my kid, Daniel does seem petty considering he owns a huge dealership, has a happily married wife and kids (well, a shitty younger son, but the girl is ok), and the community seems to love him.
Before long, the kid Johnny is training, and the training is vicious ( he is using a mechanical pitching machine to shoot the kid with baseballs so he can learn to take a hit, and basically kicking the shit out of him so he toughens up), but the kid, as most kids today, needs a good ass whooping. He starts a training montage, which got Javalina jacked up and saying "Yes! Finally!" Javalina noticed he too was a soft boy and noticed that working out has made him stronger and more confidant (little F'er is already benching 225 pounds and has left me behind), but I like that. We see the kid in the movie getting more confidant too and he starts falling for the daughter of Daniel, who was being stupid and trying to date one of those empty headed douchebag guys that beat him up earlier.
I didn't want to give a whole series synopsis, but every episode just gave you a little morsel of nostalgia and debate over who or what is good or bad, like unwrapping a gift within a gift. I could not stop watching, each episode was 30 minutes long and we saw the whole first season in one sitting, about five hours worth. Then Javalina and I watched the original Karate Kid so he could see that Daniel was originally the underdog that we cheered for because my son wasn't sure he bought into that.
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