About two weeks ago, the third season of Cobra Kai was finally released on Netflix. If you’ve been active on TikTok for the past few weeks then you’ve probably seen a lot of videos about the show up in your feed. That’s the way I found out about Cobra Kai, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. Since I had all the time in the world last week, I decided to spend it binge-watching the entirety of Cobra Kai, from start to finish. 

Cobra Kai is set in California, 34 years after the events of the iconic 80’s movie series, Karate Kid. Although I watched the Karate Kid movie series as a kid, you certainly don’t need to have watched it to understand what’s going on in Cobra Kai. Throughout the show, certain flashbacks from Karate Kid are shown to give context or reference to the current events. To sum it up, in Karate Kid, the main character, Daniel, learns karate in order to defend himself from Johnny, who is already very experienced having learned from a merciless sensei, Kreese, at the Cobra Kai dojo.

The first season of the show starts with Johnny Lawrence, whose life has gone downhill ever since he lost the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament in Karate Kid. He lives in a run-down apartment, barely making ends meet. He is shown being drunk most of the time because he hit rock-bottom. For a little spoiler, he fights a group of bullies attacking his neighbor, Miguel, which then inspires him to reopen the Cobra Kai dojo. Robby, Johnny’s son whom he abandoned, also takes a big part in this show and even ends up going through a lot of turmoil towards the end of Season 2. A lot of the show also gives us Daniel, who just so happens to live near Johnny. His daughter, Sam, ends up becoming interested in karate and has a big role in the show. The second and third seasons definitely explore the characters’ relationships a lot more than the first season did. The real villain is introduced and we even get to see their backstory. There’s so much more than just fighting: there are relationships, betrayals, and an extremely tense feud between dojos. 

Basically, you can expect to see a lot of intense fights, emotional moments, lots of comedy, and bad trash talking. Some moments even made me cry because of how amazing they are. You see a lot of character development and become attached to the characters as the show goes on. I would give this show a solid 10/10 and definitely recommend it to everyone. It’s a comedy and teen drama. If you’ve ever watched Kickin’ It, it’s basically a more mature version of that. What makes this show so likable is its realisticness. When you watch a teen drama show like Pretty Little Liars, you’ll often find plot holes in the show’s main purpose and ask “Oh, why couldn’t the characters just have done this? Then they wouldn’t have this problem.” and you’ll get the response, “That’s why it’s a TV show.” That always makes me angry, when I know that there could’ve been another way to the solution. You really don’t get that when you watch Cobra Kai. The big dilemmas and issues faced by the characters can’t just be handled by the authorities; it’s all about bullies, feuds, a competition between 2 dojos. Anyways, Cobra Kai is an amazing show and has something for everyone. There are only 30 episodes total (for now) and each is about 25 minutes long—so what are you waiting for?