Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcast.
Hey, hey, apes, Hey, you see that snickers over there?
No one's looking.
You should just take it.
No, don't listen to him, my son, that would be stealing.
And stealing is.
A sin, Sinchman, it's a freaking snick as may you deserve to have it? Sinning really satisfies you.
Repent my child.
Virtue is the only real snack with saving for that candy body is merely a gateway to Nukeet dumas.
Has this ever happened to you?
Listening to the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and you're not sure what to think?
Then we're here to help.
I'm Pete Wright and.
I'm Tommy Mess and this season on all the Feelings, we're examining the seven deadly sins.
You note, the fun ones.
And the seven heavenly virtues.
Are also a thing. Through personal stories, historical oddities, and way too much embarrassment, we take you on a thrilling journey through all the goods and the bads you hear about in church.
But without all that pesky church stuff. So Come join us for All the Feelings Season nine, a sometimes funny podcast about being human.
All the sins, all the virtues.
All in one place. Go to All the Feelings dot fun to learn more or subscribe to All the Feelings wherever you get your podcasts.
Game over.
Horror movies get a bad rap. They're cheap thrills, mindless scre not cinema blah blah blah.
But we here it sitting in the dark no better. We know that horror is more than.
Just jump scares and chainsaws.
It's a reflection of our deepest fears. Our anxieties are okay, and there's a lot.
Of jump scares and chade sauce.
Join us, Pete right, Tommy Met's the third, Kyle Wilson and Kenan ds as we cut into the dark heart of horror cinema.
Every episode we explore a different facet of the genre, from survival horror to home invasions, from zombies to birds. We tickle the tropes, analyze the angles, and sharpen our own access.
Along the way, we'll introduce you to the classics that shaped the genre than the modern masterpieces that are pushing the boundaries of terror sitting in the.
Dark as your guide to navigating the terrifying.
Thrilling, and sometimes hilariously bad world of horror movies.
We'll help you understand why we love to be scared and maybe even convert you into a horror fan yourself. So turn off the lights, close the basement door. Enjoina inca.
O.
Welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. My friends, the long National Nightmare is over. What started as a dream, what became a nightmare? What became a dream again? What has gone on and on and on and on and on. This is the last time you're gonna hear us do a full episode on Cobra Kai, because Cobra Kai is done, and so some of those repeating, contrived plot lines we're only gonna get to complain about one more time.
In fact, tonight we're actually gonna be talking mostly.
About the actual ethical questions, because we're trying to move away from just doing reviews of these shows. But we have some ethical questions about some of the contrivances and some things we actually quite liked about the last five episodes of Cobra Kai. We are here with myself and uh Taekwondo Master Martial arts knowledge extraordinary, the head of the Ethical Panda Dojo, though I have not had to kill anyone to allow him to take that position, either
here or in Korea. Mister Paul hoppy Paul, how are we doing tonight? Uh?
Doing pretty good tonight. Yeah. Happy to have completed watching Cobra Kai.
You know, it was a journey and I'm glad we want this journey.
And I could have skipped about two thirds of a journey, but we got to the end and it was an end of a journey, and there we are. I will say that I am going to try and bring my normal level of sedate calm attention to important detail. I was under general anesthesia for a unfortunate procedure associated with aging about two hours ago, so I am just a little bit loopy. Not allowed to drive a car. I feel fine, but it might affect this podcast.
Who knows.
We'll find out and drive a car and drive a podcast. There we go, there we go, and if I drive it into a wall, it means we don't go on for two hours, so you know, there's some advantages there. So with all that being said, we're talking obviously about part three of season six, the last part of Cobra Kai episodes eleven through fifteen, And if you're listening to this, you may I watched it, you may not have. We are going to spoil a lot of it, but really
it's not really about the plot as much. I think it's just kind of like an overview of the of the show and the questions it raised and how we feel about it, both in the world of the show, but also I feel like this show, like the creation of it, had a lot to say, and we learned a lot about what happens with shows these days and how long they go on, and how the plots can change and.
Morph and things like that. So we were talking about both those things.
But first, Paul, why don't you just give like a gen like a quick summary of what happened and kind of your feelings on how this wrapped up the story.
Yeah, so I'll start, I guess with the overall summary, which is that as we left it after season six point two, Kwan had died and the tournament the Secai Tai Kai had been canceled, and everybody went back to their corners and of the world and resumed their lives. And then due to some agitating I think by one Terry Silver. The Sekai Tychai ended up being back on, and the overall machinations to make that happen a lot of them there, I think involved a lot of eye
rolling on my part. Once they actually got back into it, I mostly enjoyed it. It was basically, you know a series of fights where there was like who was supposed to fight who, Like Samantha was supposed to fight Toy, and then Samantha ended up being like, I'm gonna bow out because I no longer fee Do you feel like there's any conflict between you and me?
I don't.
Sorry, it's a gross, point blank reference, but basically they had resolved their conflict as friends as people, and so sam was just like, I don't feel like I need to do this, and she was like, Dad, you're gonna be so mad. He's like, no, I'm proud of you. You've basically learned the lesson of Miagi though, which is like,
you know, martial arts are for not needing to use them. Essentially, It's like a big point, right, And that's real by the way, in real life, like I've had experiences where somebody kind of wanted to fight and then like within a second or two they realized they didn't want to fight. And if I hadn't had martial arts training, it wasn't
like I was like trying to demonstrate it. It was just just there's I think something in the way you carry yourself, in the way you react to some sort of sort of implied physical threat, that is real, you know, And.
I want to bookmark that because I think there's We already had the conversation a little bit in previous episodes about the show, of which there have been many about the difference between I am angry at you, I want to use my body to inflict harm upon you, and I am an athlete competing in a competition that involves us performing this martial art which does involve hitting or kicking you. But I'm not doing it because I don't like you. I'm doing it because I want to participate
in this sport. And yeah, I first really didn't like what Samantha did, but then when I saw more how it's framed, I liked it. So well, we'll kind of bookmark that because I think that's an important ethical question about violence versus competition.
But for sure, going on with the story itself.
Yeah, so so basically Tory is gonna fight Zari in the final, except like there is no Cobra Kai kind of,
so it's like what's up with that? And then Robbie's fighting Axel, the big you know, martial arts machine from the Iron Dragons, who are the you know, the other main basically they're the remaining villain because Cobra Kai kind of has removed itself in terms of Master Kim killed Grandmaster Kim and took back her dojang and so, but like they're in the forest in Korea, so they no longer really had it was.
Their student who died, and they kind of want no more part of this.
Yeah, and Crease basically just wants Toy to compete because he's like, you should compete. I'm sorry, but like you don't have to accept my apology. Just know that, like I'm sorry, basically, And there's a whole big thing with Crease that I think is worth getting into. I'm mostly summarizing the tournament, I think, because those are kind of the biggest beats in like a turn, like structurally, I think, you know, although I felt like the heart of this
season really was actually Crease going on like an apology tour. Yeah, and so so where was right, So Robbie's fighting the big dude and he's getting whooped, and then he's making a comeback, and then the wolf, since a wolf who's the head of that dojo, is like, you know, break his leg basically, so he breaks his leg, and so Robbie's leg is broken, so he can't continue, and as a result, you know, Miyagi Do isn't going to like replace him as a fighter, and I kind of thought
that they were going to like have a replacement at the last minute, but they didn't do that, and instead Miyagi Do loses. They're eliminated from the tournament. And Iron what are they their Iron Iron Dragon, right, They're they're going They're there like presumptive winners. But then Johnny takes back Cobra Kai brings Miguel over, and Miguel and Tory both win their fights, but the overall score is hide.
So now Johnny has to fight sense a Wolf and Feng Shao and like, and he wins, and you know, basically everybody loves happy Happily ever after, except for Chrise and Silver, who blow up on Silver's yacht because Chris uses his cigar in a Merc Solis fashion.
Which is very very very very very foreshadowed.
Yeah, they really they're like there's yeah, and you know there's there's smaller things like you know, Carbon has the baby successfully without any more intervention from the writers.
And you know, Johnny proposes just before that, and they get married by a former Cobra Kai member right from the Karate Kid. And and you know it's Dimitri and and Hawk like make up and they both go to Caltech together. And this is the whole thing that's like plot related but I didn't care for with computers and stuff, but the fact that they kind of like got along lovely. You know, Moon gets back with Demitri, Okay, fine, everybody
can be happy. Chosen gets together with like Master Kim okay cool.
And they hate I know this, but Moon is with Hawk, Yes, mean is with Dimitri?
Yeah, my bad. I thought I might be watching that.
The part you were most dialed in on.
I'm if I could have chosen to get any one part of that wrong, it would have been that there are not you know, like Chosen's name and and then like Miguel and and uh Deman Sam are going to like schools on you know, twelve hour flight apart, but there's like a nice you know, no, I want what's
best for you. I want you to do what you think is not like oh, stay here for me kind of thing, or oh, I'll go with you, and you know, it's like, no, I'll go with you to visit and then I'll come home and go to my school.
And let's kind of start there.
Because and this is more on the review side, but I think it's kind of a lot of what the conversation on Cobra Kai has been has been a conversation about how you make shows. And I feel like in this last half they kind of pulled themselves back from a lot of the really bad tropy holes and poor decision making in the writing room. I thought that had
been happening for a while now. And one of the first is that there's an awful lot of like low hanging fruit of cliches and tropes and stuff that they chose to break, and especially ones that you and I have talked about that are not just like annoying but are actually kind of like problematic and not great. One of those being like every pregnancy has like massive complications.
You know, someone who's a pregnant spouse. I really didn't want to see that.
But another is this idea that, like, I like high school romances. I think they're fun to watch, I think they're interesting and can say a lot, But often there's this sort of contrivance of oh, therefore, like they fell in love in high school and they survived the plot problems that this movie or TV show threw at them, so they must be true love who will go on to.
Be together forever.
And like I liked that this show never did Like I liked the show both at the very beginning and at the very end, Like it had Danny starts with a wife who is not the girl who was the girlfriend from the original movie.
Yeah you know, although Karate Kid too did that. But but yeah, yeah, but like it could have it could have. Yeah, they could have been.
Like, he was a love interest in all three movies, so it could have been any of those.
Yeah, exactly, but they didn't. They're like, no, he met someone off camera, yea, And.
Yeah, Chosen actually goes after the love interest from the second movie, and that's a whole other thing.
Yeah, but then that doesn't work out either, right, But yeah, and I think.
One of the to me, one of the dumbest things people can do. And like, if any seventeen year older are listening to this and you're getting ready to go to the same college you's your sweetheart, forgive me if I'm calling you dumb, but I'm calling you a little dumb. Like the number of people I think who go off to college with their sweetheart with everything. They're like, oh, I'm gonna put aside everything to go be with where this person wants to be, Like, you cut yourself off
from a lot. Like I mean, you don't have to go to college. There's all sorts of different directions people can go. And you know he's staying. You and I are best friends from high school who have stayed really close.
Yeah, and who didn't go to the same high school even yeah.
We didn't the same high school and we definitely didn't go to the same college. Yeah you went to college, like trying to visit it there, But like the point being that, like I think it's one of the worst cliches. And I like got viscerally angry when Miguel showed up at the airport where Sammy was getting ready to go to Okinawa.
But then he was like, no, no, no, I'm not transferring. I'm going to Stanford, which has been my dream.
I'm but I'm just gonna go with you to like help you settle in and spend a couple more weeks. And what I thought was there was a lot of really bad writing in this season, but in one of my thought the best lines, you know, he said, like, you know, I know we have to break up soon, but like not or we have to.
Like I don't think he said that.
What he said something about something about the words soon of like you know that like soon we're gonna be a part for a long while, right, And what she says is but soon can.
Wait a little bit longer, exactly.
Yeah, it's like that, Like you know, it's like, yeah, we're gonna not be up together this whole time, but that's fine. And where it's having Dmitri and Hawk decide to do it because they're best friends who are working on this business model, which, let me just ask you, in a martial arts fight, my impression has always been
that split second decision making is fairly important. So if there was a computer watching the moves of your opponent calculating it through it like a lightning fast algorithm and then you heard a recording in your voice saying left kick, Like whatever, how do you think that would affect your combat abilities?
Yeah, I mean it's it's I mean making it's like actual unconscious competence of like instinctive reaction. That is most of what actual mark s Art's performance is, you know,
actual fighting. Not that there isn't strategy that that can be composed over a somewhat longer timeframe, you know, but but yeah, having a useful AI would be something like and this is speaks to the coaching that didn't really exist during the tournament, where they're more like, let's just do locker room speeches because kind of a central tenet of Cobra Kai seems to be, you know, the inspiration and the speech that you give someone is like, what's
going to make them a better fighter? Not like they're dropping their right arm, you know, right or like, I mean, the most useful thing I ever got from a coach in a fight, which was between rounds because you can't really do much during rounds, was you know, try skipping sidekick,
backkick and act kick combination. And I did, and I hit the dude in the face multiple times and then the mat was bloody and like that, like because my coach, who'd had decades more experience than me, recognized that, like, yeah, that's something that'll probably work here. It might not work, but it's not like, oh do this do that you know, like or like this like big inspirational thing. You know,
it's like it's you. You can observe things and then make suggestions, but like, you know, unless it's like this
is the counter that we're going to be working out. Okay, we're going to be throwing a back kick, right, it's like now, you know, if I do think it's possible to like receive some signal, some external signal that's like this is the time to do the thing, but it's not time to explain what the thing is, right and have you do the thing like in time for it to be Sighting a bunch of like mid air cartwheels or like like flips isn't generally that useful in fights either, which you.
Know, especially because like the idea of the technology they built is that it allows one person to fight like someone else, so that a person it's kind of like being able to like, Okay, I want my batting practice picture to throw exactly like Greg Matic, so I can practice batting.
It's gragmatics.
Yeah, yeah, the problem is your batting practice picture doesn't have the muscle control and memory to know. And so the idea first of all that Miguel who's wearing this thing, could like change his own instincts. But also yeah, now do those things that you can't do what Axel can do anyway?
Yeah, and like his limbs aren't the same, right, and you know, so yeah, yeah, no, that was preposterous. That was definitely preposterous. You know. Was it more of a contrivance than the fact that just about every storyline wrapped up in a nice bow and everybody lived happily ever after unless they blew up on a yacht or murdered by their granddaughter. Not really, but it's more obviously like a well, that literally couldn't happen, as opposed to like, I guess that could happen, you know, I mean.
Have you ever been to a tournament? Have you ever heard of a tournament.
Where if the students get end in a tie, the senses have to fight each other.
I have not, I have not heard of such a thing. You know, there are tournaments where the instructors will also be competing, you know, And I mean I've done that. I've competed at a tournament that my students were competing at. It was very uncomfortable. Like in general, it's a very awkward kind of thing, you know. Yeah, it's weird. Also
when teachers fight each other. I remember fighting the teacher from another school and you know, we were fighting and like there were some of our students are there, and it's like it was weird. You know, you can't see it.
Well, yeah, like I'm sure that like a lot of people are coaches because they're not Like I'm sure some coaches are still very much in the prime of their physical abilities, but some are also like, yeah, no, I tell you how to do that because my back hurts a lot now, my knees are shot.
Yeah, Or like I mean, having trained with multiple gold medalists in Korea and like when they're in taekwondo competing shape, Yeah, they're super thin and very fast and not like they can't hit hard, but they they don't have like a ton of muscle, right, because there are weight divisions and height and reach and speed are like the primary decisive factors.
Right, because in that it's the competition. Your goal is to physically make contact, not to hit with enough force to like knock someone down or something like that.
Yeah, and then a lot of these former gold medalists, I mean, I guess you're a gold medalist for life. But like people who won gold medals maybe a decade prior and now are purely instructors. They're like built, you know, in a different way where they've like put on twenty thirty pounds of muscle and they couldn't compete effectively anymore, probably because they because somebody lighter and thinner, somebody of their weight is going to be much tall and be
able to score points really fast. But they will break you like they like, you know, able to do like flying pushups, like still really able to fight, but not in the same sort of competitive way. So it's you know, as bodies change, I mean, and then yeah, once you get to be fifty seventy ninety, you know your body's
going to respond differently. But like even just from like the late teen's early twenties, which might be the build for one sport version of a martial art getting into this is kind of something I was saying in the first third when we were talking about I was like, Yeah, these kids are not going to do well in a But it turned out the whole thing was under eighteen, which I didn't understand at that point when I was
making that statement. I still stand by the fact that the people right exactly, the people who had been training since they were like three, probably would have had an advantage over the kids who start when they're like sixteen. You know, but yeah, I forgot the question.
Well exactly, that's what you said. It's the same way.
So let's stay on this idea of the competition, because this was another thing I thought the show wound up doing quite well, and we've talked a lot about how it seemed like all the way back to the movies.
The show has kind of tried to meld two ideas, which is, two people who have a conflict want to settle it physically with violence, and two people want to compete in a sport in which an act that is construed as violent in other contexts is the act by which the sport is decided, you know, like boxing or in this case, you know, Rodny, or mixed martial arts.
And I think that's been a frustration for surely for myself and I think for both of us, is that sometimes it's been kind of like assuming that one always has to be the other and all this kind of stuff, and that so often it was like, oh, I hate you, I hate We're gonna have our karate fights like in school.
And you know, all this kind of stuff. And so when it got to.
The point where it said that, Sam was like, I don't hate Tory anymore, so I don't want to fight her.
And first I was gonna be really bothered by that.
Because it especially because we no longer had anyone who was not cartoonishly evil on the other side. You know, Zara just dials up the I am an influencer in the most misogynistic view of influencers that you've ever seen, and I'm gonna be terrible and say, like the most mean girl, mean girl that could instagram a mean girl. And then Axel is like, no, I want to be a nice guy, but I'm gonna snap people's legs like it's just you.
Know, and it's well, I'm gonna do it and then feel and feel conflicted and then feel bad about it later. And not because there was a thing where his.
Right, he doesn't do it later, but yeah, but like it just so it felt to me like, are you really saying that, like in a competition, your enemies have to all be terrible people or else you don't want
to compete with them. But where it got to actually was very much the opposite, I thought, because what I at least took from it and tell me if you feel the same, was it was basically saying like, look, no, and that Danny was this is part of what Danny was saying that he had learned from Miyagi is that it is totally fine to compete if you want to compete.
That going into a competition because you're mad at someone is the opposite of what Miyagio was supposed to be all about, because Miaguido is supposed to be about defense when it's not like competition. And so he was kind of like helping her get to a point and being like, yeah, I don't want to fight Tori. And then if she still wanted to be a competitor, she could have been like, Okay, cool, now I feel really great about wanting to just compete
against my friend. But that the place she got to was like, oh, I never really wanted to be a competitor.
I just wanted to beat up all the people who were mean to me and you know, fight alongside, you know, protect my father's legacy at all this kind of stuff, and that, you know, it felt, especially given that there'd been this kind of like Tennis mom aspect to some extent with her relationship with Danny, her being able to be like, yeah, I don't the reason why I would be in this competition is either to make my dad proud of me or not make him mad at me, because I don't want to do what he wants to
do in order to hurt someone who don't want to hurt anymore. So I'm just not gonna be in the competition. And I thought that was actually remarkably healthy.
Yeah, I agree. I think you know, her her journey like throughout the series, started from a point of she had trained in karate from a young age, really loved it for itself, right, not so much like as a competitor, not as a fighter, but as as an artist, really
as a martial artist, you know. And you know, and she grew up with Miyagi like as practically her grandfather, right, I think, yes, And oh, By the way, the as much as I hate the like hole bringing up the whole miagi thing, Like, the one moment that I like teared up in this season semi season was when they were talking about his backstory and that when he beat up that one guy, it was because that guy had
taken something from his wife was in an internment camp. Yeah, and then she had died in the intern I was like, uh, because like, that's not that's not about this story. That's just about the the horrors of the world we live in.
Yeah, he was a Japanese American in the forties. That's back going to be a part of his experience exactly.
And so but so, Sam like she was a reluctant participant in all this, But I think when she was really motivated, a lot of it was for some pretty bad reasons, right, And that doesn't mean it was necessarily the wrong thing for her to do, but just like there were there. It was kind of motivated by a lot of negative emotions, right. It wasn't like I want to achieve this, or that I want to demonstrate this, or that I want to compete for the sake of competition.
But it was like, you know, the dynamic with with her and Tori and and you know, the whole weird thing with her and Robbie and Miguel early on, which I'm happy that they like really just kind of left that behind, you know. And and so I think her you know, circle, like she really her circle is complete, like she really comes around full circle. And like she's going to Okinawa, right, and like that's very tied into karate, Like that's why she's going there, because she you know.
And it felt like like to my sense was like she might take a karate class or two, but more she's going to study at this like university in Okinawa or was gonna learn about basically her grandfather's cultures and life and yeah, for sure, and karate is a part of that. Yeah, She's not going to like go to a karate academy. She's going to go to a you know college.
Yeah yeah, yeah. But I mean like culturally, it's like, you know, culturally, she's like a quarter Okee Nolin kind of you know, like or like her grandfather is you know, her sort of adopted grandfather is Okay Nolin, and you know, she misses him and and she wants to know more about like where he came from basic right, and and where the art that she's practiced for like a decade
and a half comes from right. And so so I thought that was a nice way to kind of close off her character arc because it and not arc like really circle, kind of like where in a way, she comes back to where she was in the beginning, except with a different understanding kind of of who she is and what she's interested in. Okay, it's an arc.
I mean I think I think it's both because to me, what she basically does is she gets caught up in this cycle of violence, and I think the show has this cycle go around a few too many times, and she becomes very repetitive.
Yes, but in the end she's able to break the cycle.
And I feel like, I feel like that is kind of my best way of explaining how I feel about a lot of the main plot points is that it felt like seasons one and two and maybe a little bit three set up these really interesting dynamics that were leading in certain places, and then it was kind of like, and I don't I'm kind of getting here into the behind the scenes stuff and I don't know actually what happened, But yeah, a lot of reports that I've read has
been that like LaRusso wanted to get or no, what's that actor's name, Ralf Maccio wanted to get a lot more involved in the show. But on that like there were like, you know, polls and stuff that showed that he was the most popular in the show or whatever, and like it became a lot more about his character and we and also just you know, Netflix had a
really popular show. They didn't want to end it, and to me, it felt like what could have been a two or three season show became a six season show, and along the way, we got tied into a lot of like, wait a minute, wasn't the point that Sam was gonna break this cycle? And wasn't the point that
the other things are gonna happen? It wasn't also part of the point that this was mostly Johnny's redemption in the end of the day, right, And it really did feel like the end of the season they were like, oh, right, okay, and like, so what you said about like how Johnny becomes head of Cobra Kai again and Robbie and Miguel and Tory fight for Cobra Kai completely and utterly contrived,
and the dialogue. We both separately came up with the idea that chat GBT might have written part of the dialogue to get so bad, But then it gave us the two or three episode like no, here's Johnny's full like the end of his arc and the end of his Students arc.
I thought those were really well and I think Sam same with Sam.
You know, it just kind of got like you could have had Sam had that exact same revelation four seasons ago, but it still was great to get it now.
Yeah, And I mean I think what I don't know what happened in the writer's room, Right, This was a YouTube spec TV series, right, it was YouTube bread or whatever it was called for the first two seasons, and then it got acquired by Netflix. He ran it on Netflix and then and then made I think season three forward were Netflix, So it was actually different studio essentially. Yeah, I may need to look that up to make sure I'm not just like.
Man, I'm not doubting you did about it one the other.
Yeah, but like I I completely agree that this is something that it was. It was the sort of thing where basically you had an idea like the first the first two seasons, I think introduced some yeah, YouTube bread, YouTube premium, It introduced some interesting ideas. It basically took a couple of characters decades after they'd been left off, which I think very very rarely works, and I think it totally made it work in the beginning, you know.
I mean, I'm not saying it was always brilliant writing, but I think it had there was a lot going for it, and it was kind of a small show, you know, that was successful, but it was like it was small in terms of its scope. And then once they started introducing a bunch of people from before, and you know, and there was a big gap actually between the second and third seasons, like almost two years, and you know, you've got the pandemic and everything, but also
you've got the switch from YouTube to Netflix. I think what happened is they're like, oh, we have a franchise, you know, and I mean, you know, Karate Kid was already you know, started this franchise, right, but like Cobra k Kai basically turned into like, now we can have this like you know, cobraverse or Karate Kid verse or put you know, Miagi verse. I think that's the word
they use. And like somehow it crosses over with it Mon four also, But you know, but like what happens I think is you have an idea in the beginning of like here's the overall idea of what we want, what we want to do with these characters and this story, right, and then as a show gets more successful, it gets harder and harder to not make more of it. Yeah, right, because it's making money. All the people involved in the show are making money. It's selling marchandise. You know, nobody
wants to wrap it up. I mean my understanding is that a show like Breaking Bad, it took like effort to be like, no, this is the end of the show. And then you know it wasn't because there's spinoffs and whatever, but like you know, but it was like, no, this is this is the end. We're actually going to end
it here, you know. And I think like this show suffered from from its own success a little bit where it's like, yeah, they could have had a lot of what happened in this third of a season happen in say a season four or five, that all the seasons were normal length, and you wouldn't have just like been going in circles and circles and circles, you know, And so I think there was an idea of here's where we want to end up, but like, in order to get there, we need to maintain a level of conflict
that just made it feel like things were just like people weren't growing like they would, right, and then they would revert to saved form basically.
You know, I think that's a perfect way to put it, because we often talk about the trope of the will they won't they not like we specific and superherotics, but in the immedia discussions, and that's most oftenly phrased in terms of a romantic thing of like these two characters of tension, and a lot of times some of the worst things is where it's not just that they can't let the show end if they can't imagine what the
show would look like if they resolve that main tension. Yeah, and like Chuck is one of my favorite examples of both sides of it, where for a couple of seas they kept letting them almost get together, and then for more and more contrived reasons, they didn't, and then finally they did and they realized, oh wait, we.
Can actually still have a show where they're just together. And that's okay.
And then they split them up again, and then they wiped someone's mind and oh my goodness.
You know, but like I feel like the season of them being romantic together and it just okay, sure, and I think this remind like I've kind of known this, but I think this was a good reminder, Like this had a very specific will they won't they, but it wasn't romantic.
Although I know a lot of fan fiction is written about Johnny and Danny and that's totally legitimate interpretation too, But it was like the can these two high school rivals see past their rivalry, recognize the growth in each other, and also kind of recognize that they've been so kind of balkanized by this feeling of like my way is the only way that they can come to a place of both accepting that the other is a legitimate form of karate but.
It's not their own. And that's okay too.
Yeah, And it took a while, and there was like a number of times I think we've said on this podcast, like oh, look, Johnny and Danny are just what you said, are back to factory defaults.
Like yeah, yeah, exactly.
But I really like the place because the place they get to is that they're no longer trying to have one united dojo, that is two different schools of karate. But there's a sense of like, yeah, you can primarily study cobra kai, but go learn some miyagi do and vice versa, because once more offense focused and once more defense focused, and you can focus in one direction, but having a blend of things, you know, like, you know, any good guitarists like you might be like, I'm gonna
be the best, you know, punk music punk guitarist. Ever, learning some jazz isn't gonna hurt, you know, learning some classical, learning some heavy metal.
Just it's more tools in your repertoire.
And I kind of had that feeling at the end with martial arts, and I really appreciated where that got to.
Yeah, for sure, And I think I think really high percentage of serious Marshall artists do at some point study something else, you know, I think, and I'm sure that in the past I've mentioned that, you know, the taekwondo that I studied came is, you know, in terms of lineage, is certainly closer to cobra kai in a lot of ways.
I mean, it is literally Korean as his cobra kai, and that that my teacher trained with someone who did go touate, and then that's basically what miagi do is I think representative of And when I when I learned this later, I was like, oh, yeah, that that makes sense,
you know. Yeah, And and like my teacher would teach us some of that stuff, even though it wasn't really in the core curriculum of taekwondo, and even though most martial arts have like a lot of kind of ancillary stuff that like you don't learn early on, but it's like, oh, we actually do have grappling in this, we're just not in the sport version. But like the martial art often does encompass a lot more than most people think of
from the outside. But having said that, like there's there's arts that focus more on circular motions, that focus more on straight line motions, that are more soft styles, hard styles, and you know that that are specialized in kicks and high kicks and flashy kicks and ones that are mostly
hand based. And I have a friend who was from my taekwondo school went and started doing krap maga, and I went and traded with him in Krav Magath for a while, and it made so much sense because it was like, oh, here's a bunch of ways of getting out of grabs, out of chokes, stuff like that, and then I could just use my taekwondo to hit people after that, you know, as opposed to like learning a
whole grappling art. But then I have another friend, another master in taekwondo, who came up together, and she learned judo, and like did judo for I mean, it's probably going on twenty years now almost, you know, yeah, because like she saw a fight that went to the You're like, oh, well I need to know what goes on then, right, And so learning multiple styles, you can still have a primary style where like no, this is my main style, but then I'm going to take from this, take from that.
I mean that's basically you know Bruce Lee's philosophy, right, He's not the only one, but like ge kundo is essentially like you take what works and you leave what doesn't. You know, you try a lot of things and they're like, oh this is working for me, I'm going to keep this. I'm going to refine this, you know, and I'm going to take something else from over here and just put it together right.
And it feels like it's both like that buffet style, but also it's the idea of like abandoning the idea there's one true way that like the best martial art for you may not be the best martial art for me, and the best martial art for someone else and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah, and like the best martial art for you now might not be the best martial art for you in ten or twenty years, you know, and like your body changes,
like your perspective changes. A lot of things change, and what you want to get out of a martial art can change, and and so yeah, I really do feel strongly that they did ultimately a great job of wrapping things up and letting, you know, Danny and Johnny accept each other for who they are, appreciate, you know, the other person's perspective while and like learning from the other person's perspective some while also maintaining their own perspective, maintaining
their own character. I think, you know, and this culminates to me in the last fight scene where Danny's coaching Johnny and like Chosen's like, you know, you should try something else, So Danny tries coaching Johnny in like a Cobra Kai Johnny type style. Yeah, and it works. And there's a moment where it feels like the last kick, like Johnny's going to do a crane kick. Oh god, yeah, and then he sweeps the leg.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, I was like, oh, He's going to do a crane kick. That's I'm like, oh no, that was better.
Yeah.
There had already been the foreshadowing of the cigar, and there were two different moments where we saw them training the crane kick was no stop foreshadowing that.
So give them something that is not.
Exactly exactly And all right, here's the weird analogy tying up a whole bunch of different media together. And you can tell me if you think I'm nuts here when I was watching all that, because because one of the things that I'm struggling with, and I think the writers are struggling with, is is Cobra Kai fundamentally bad? You know?
Like that's one thing that Danny believed for a long time was that because by teaching offense, because by teaching attack, that that's inherently going to become problematic and overly violence,
that it's basically the way of being a bully. And while I think there was like a lot of truth to that, honestly, a lot of what I heard in that, because I think it's it's grappling with a Simil issue, is a lot of the I think sometimes dogmatic approach that the Jedi can have to the dark side of like you know, the whole like always defend, always defend, you know, and like some of the stuff that I've liked most in more recent Star Wars stuff, but it
goes all the way back to Revenge of the Sith also, you know, with like you know, only a Sith deals in absolutes, which is itself an absolute like that, there's often a lot of hypocrisy there, And to me, where where some of the stuff that I've really liked has come out is like, yeah, maybe like that the dark side is a path to all sorts of terrible things. But like we've seen Ray use powers that are thought
of as dark side. We saw Canaan Jerris considered like one of the greatest Jedi, act out of emotion all the time, act out of attachment all the time, and it not necessarily be the terrible thing. And in the end, one of the last scenes is Johnny kind of like starting off his dojo again and he's still being a bit of a jerk and a bit of a bully, and I kind of wish it wasn't, but it's just
kind of who he is. But he's getting it and kind of like you get the sense that he's doing because he wants to help people, even though he's you know, probably gonna make some kid cry at some point pretty soon, but but putting that aside, like he basically he points to the stuff on the wall, you know, strike first, strike hard, no mercy, and he reinterprets it someone yeah, he and he talks about like yeah, he specifically says like you could hear these things and use it as
justification to become an asshole. And that's a specific words use. And he said that that's what he did for an
awful long time. But it doesn't have to be. No mercy can be about like not stop like pushing yourself to the limit, you know, And like one thing I remember you talking about a competition is like you know, when the other person's doing their best to hurt, to hit you, it's okay to do their best to hit them back when they're doing their best to take your money at a poker table, it's okay to you know, within the rules.
We've all agreed to try to take their money back.
Yeah, And like if you're if you're in a spot where it's like I don't think this person should be fighting, Like you should tell your coach of the ref like, hey, that person shouldn't be fighting like they're they're clearly hurt.
Like call the fight, Yeah, call the fight.
Like you and I have both talked about like someone sitting down at the poker table who's clearly drunk and being like, I know I can take all this person's money. This person should not like they cannot consent to playing voca right.
Now, right right now. And yeah, so I did the dark sid analogy.
I know is a little bit of a stretch there, but like because it's a little more genocidal than Cobra Kai is you see what I'm getting with this.
Well, the point is like there's a path of violence and aggression and you know, and maybe anger and that doesn't always have to stem from or lead to hate. Yeah, you know, sometimes violence is the only effective response to violence basically, and it's It doesn't mean it's always the only effective response to violence. It doesn't mean it's a
good response to nonviolence. But I think if you're going to be training in violence, because that's what it is, right, you know, you need to acquire an understanding of you know, the purpose of that violence, Like what are you planning to use this for? You know, are you planning to
use it for defense, which is basically violence against violence? Right, like counter violence or you you know, and strike first can be not like I forgot exactly what Johnny said, but like it can be not like, you know, just go around punching people in the face, but like when somebody's like lining up to do you harm and and they're clearly like intent on doing that, Like you know, preemptive violence is often the most effective way of you know,
striking first can also be like a counter attack, like somebody's attempting to strike you, and you hit them first, you know, you're first to the ball, essentially.
I think at the end there he also has someone is also just a general life philosophy and like be aggressive, take action, like go after the thing you want, you know, ask the person out, like don't be a thick about it, but you.
Know, basically don't get run over in life. Yeah, it doesn't mean you have to push everybody around, but it means, you know, advocate for yourself, advocate for other people who are maybe unable to do so for themselves. You know.
Yeah, I think it does a good job of kind of showing that.
I think, like Cobra Kai has a lot more potential to lead to like really bad problems. Yeah, but like there's an extent to which both Samantha and Danny both sometimes are kind of like letting life pass the may and are not you know, striking for they're not taking action in their life and they need to both like on the mat but also just life in general. But also and I think this is especially tru a Samantha,
but also someone of Danny. There are moments in the show, and these are mostly going back a couple of seasons, but where they're pushed to that breaking point where it feels like, you know, when instead of like having a healthy outlet for negative emotions or even just like difficult emotions, you oppressed and you oppressed and your oppress and then you snap right and that like I think at one point, like they have Sam go to Cobra Kai for a while,
particularly while she's feeling jealous about this whole like love multi polyhedral thing that happens. But she talks about like it gave her a better because she acts really badly when you know, it's like teenager would do teenager things. I'm not like saying she's a bad character, but like, sure she has no context for how to deal with being really angry at someone and wanting to lash out.
And and I just really like that. It was like that, like, yes, these are these two schools, and yes, Cobra Kai's is maybe a little more playing with fire, but it's not inherently bad. And and that like Crease was really bad and Silver was really bad, and Johnny was taken to that place, but as a student, then he came back from it, and that's that's what we're celebrating.
Yeah, as a teacher, he came back from it. Yeah, And that's that leads us to something that i'd really like to talk about. I don't know if you have something directly lined up next.
But I was going to talk about Crease, which I think is maybe where you're going.
But absolutely, yeah, I feel like Crease learning a lesson from Johnny basically and then supporting him after realizing that he's failed him, and like realizing that Silver is basically his greatest failure in terms of creating something dangerous in the world, and then kind of closing off that loop and like essentially setting Johnny up to move forward in Johnny's own way. You know, I thought was really powerful because learning through teaching is a central tenet of martial
arts practice. So it was really nice to see not just Crease but the other senses as well, but especially Crease and and Johnny actually learn so much from their students that they they kind of became different people, or
that they became like the best versions of themselves. Yeah, because like especially like when when you're a teacher, it's really easy to get into this, Like, Okay, you're a student, you have a teacher, you train, maybe you get to a point where you're near your teacher's level, and like maybe then you have another teacher and you ladder up and at some point, you know you've got some colleagues, you know you've got some peers, but at some point
you're not going to have a teacher. You know, whether whether you've only had one teacher, and the teacher dies or they retire, or you leave and go off on your own, and you just don't have a teacher. So it's like but it's not like you don't have anything to learn anymore, right, And so if you're a teacher and most of your time is spent with your students, it's like, who are you going to learn from? You
learn from your students. That doesn't mean they're telling you how to throw a punch or a kick, right, But like, just like as a as a person, and also sometimes as you know, people can ask questions. People who know the least can ask some of the most surprising questions. That's like oh yeah, or like, well I'm trying to explain it this way and that's worse worked the last
ninety nine times. But then this person is an understanding it that way, So like I have to improve my understanding of the thing to find a way to explain it to that person or to teach that person or to see it another way.
In judging for mantic gathering other card games, it's the exact same, and like there are certain like levels of achievement that you have to have taught others in order to get at. Yeah, it's the same philosophy. And I know that, like one thing we talk about a lot is that like a new student hasn't learned bad habits, and like right now in the judging world, so many of the practices that we do were based in a paper world where we had to hand out matchlips to everybody.
And there've been a couple of times where like we've been shifting over to like handling all the like running of a tournament electronically, but we still did some things just out of habit, and then like a new person would be like, who'd never done the paper system would be like, wait, why are we doing this? And someone in charge'd be like, I have no idea why we're doing it, because we.
Did it because this is as been done.
No I I but pulling it back to Crees, I totally agree with that, and I love it. I think it's a very martial arts and learning kind of thing that he learns like that. And for me, it also puts paid to what was one of my biggest concerns about the end of last the last part of the season, which is that, like you know, as we've talked about, it's been constantly upping the stakes and up the stakes not being the stakes. And what is the higher steak than putting a student into a coma. It's having a
student die. Yeah, Like that is the penultimate steak, you know, other than like starting a land war in Asia because of the martial arts. But like you know, like that's that's where we're gonna go. No Princess Bride reference is needed.
Yeah, just don't go against the Sicilian with death on theline.
Yeah, And like I was really worried that they weren't going to give that event the attention that I thought it needed. And I thought the fact that the Sai Tai Kai was canceled felt very earned and very real, and that a lot of people didn't want it to continue. The speed with which it went back on was a little silly, but fair enough.
I think it was months. I think it was supposed to be months though.
Well, but in terms of the speed of like, it looks like it was one phone conversation and then you know turns.
Yeah.
But I do think, very very intentionally, the person who was most affected by it, and I think cold broken by.
It was Crease And we're fixed by it.
Yeah, I mean that too, like.
And and for those who don't haven't seen it or remember, like the student dies because like a major brawl breaks out. Crease, like, while all the people are fighting, gets his knife and brings it into the situation, planning to stab Silver. I believe, yeah, because those two have been kind of a war for all these reasons. And then the knife gets knocked out of his hand, and Crease's young student grabs the knife
and tries to kill someone. And in what I've coined is the new version of jumping over, the shark falls on his own knife.
And in what let's just remind people was like an atrocity of a plot point, like those are just that whole sequence of dropping the naife.
It's so contrived, was so badly done.
But I feel like at least they paid it off because like what happened was, I feel like you're right. For Crease, there are three key students in his life. There's Johnny, who he has always seen as a failure in that like Johnny, he thinks quit but eventually comes to understand like, no, all the bad things about Johnny were things that Chris taught him, and that Johnny has now overcome that and become the better person. There's Silver, as you said, who's the one who became even worse
than Crease? And then there's the kid who he killed, like who or he took action? Because as I saw it, it was never really spelled out too much. But I think that's good because I think it was subtle enough that I can still get it. I don't think Crease was like, oh my god, I brought in the knife and thus this kid died. I think it's that he was like, I taught this kid hate your enemy, no mercy, whatsever
kill or be killed? And so of course this idiot kid took a knife into this fight and died, and like that that's the way.
He feels responsible for his death.
I think, very like legitimately, and I feel like that's the thing that kind of pushes him into seeing like and he spends this last season on an apology tour that at first I kept waiting for the shoe to drop of like what's his seat plot, but once you realize, like, no, he really means this. I think it was very much
about what happened with Kwan. Lets him really understand what happened with Johnny and thus want to apologize to Johnny, want to apologize to Tori, want to apologize to all these people who's hurt.
What do you think about the none of his apologies were really like accepted, Like he didn't really have that kind of like redemption. Yeah, I know, it just feels like it fits in with kind of things you've said about, like you know, somebody does all these horrible things and then they like say they're sorry and do like one nice thing, and like everyone's like, oh okay, everything's great, Like how did that feel to you? In terms of it felt much better?
You know, like especially Johnny's response because and he his apology to Johnny is so heartfelt because we saw from the very beginning and like if you only watch the
first Karate Kid movie, you never see this. But the second Karate Kid movie starts literally minutes after the end of the first one, where Danny is in the parking lot going out to celebrate his great victory, and he sees like sixteen seventeen year old Johnny being abusively attacked both like verbally and physically by his coach Crese in ways that are like, oh okay, go directly to therapy.
This is going to fuck you up for your entire life, especially with what a fucked up daddy also had and all that kind of stuff and like and then a lot of Johnny's Johnny's own drama was learning, I think again, to end the cycle of violence of either wanting to please Crease or wanting to prove that he's better than Crease and being able to just put Crease aside totally.
And to me, it perfectly lined up that Crease gives him this apology, explains that he knows just all the way he hurts him, but also because Johnny's gone through that, Johnny no longer needs Cris's approval and Johnny's like he's not mean to him necessarily was like, Okay, I gotta go take care of a fight, you.
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah. It felt right to me, you know, like I wanted them mostly it was it was Tory and Johnny right. Silver wasn't so much of an apology, more apologizing to the world for for having created Silver or led him in that direction. But I I wanted them to like listen to him because like, not that I expect I felt like they should in terms of like where they're coming from their history with him, but that he wasn't asking for forgiveness, you know, he just
wanted them to know that he was sorry. He wanted them to know that he had come around to understanding, yeah, like their point of view and what he had done
that had caused harm. And like, to me, that's something that like I really wish we had more of that, you know, where where it's not like the person apologizing shouldn't be trying to gain something out of the apology, you know, it's like it's no, it's an apology for the sake of the apology, because it's it's true, it's honest, and it's what needs to be said because it's true.
And and so it did. It just felt right to me, you know, And I do think that they probably appreciated it on some level, and over time probably would more, but that he didn't need them to appreciate it, and they just now they know kind of you know that that's like where he ended.
And to me, there's two real points there. One just on this idea of like not needing some thing. I've been rewatching er recently because it's kind of like just like fun background TV and watching the Pit got me
into it. And there's a scene early in I think, like part way through season one, where one of the young doctors has a situation where a woman is dying and he kind of like blows off the husband's concerns and the husband's like desire to better understand the situation, and like, it's not that he could have saved her life, but he makes the experience of like her death a lot worse for the husband, and he like the husband yells at him about this, and he feels really guilty
about it, and so he goes to her funeral and then like as they're walking away from the grave site, he goes up to the husband and gives this apology that is clearly heartfelt. And I was feeling myself getting mad at the show because I was like, I feel like the show is saying he's doing a nice thing here,
but this feels really inappropriate. And instead he gives his whole apology, and the guy just looks at him and goes, you know, doctor, today isn't about you and walks right off, And I was just like that, no, that actually is perfect, and I don't think I put it together and listen to what you're saying. I think, what the thing is that what Chris does is it's not just that he says he was sorry, it is that he said he's wrong.
Yeah.
With both Johnny and Tory, he told he said terrible things to them about who they are that have clearly haunted them for a long time. And I think with Johnny he's already kind of overcome it. Tory actually realized. I think he does have a big effect on because I think it's his speech to her largely that convinces.
Her to go back and fight and participate.
In the competition, and and and.
And and but he and he's basically like, you should do this for you, right, you know, like, don't do this for me, don't do this for anybody else. You should do this for you because it's something you've put in so much work in, right, you know. And like that, I'm pretty sure you do actually want to do so, like you know, right, I think.
Where Sammy is like she wants the competition, and I will say to kind of well, actually, is there anything else you want to say about christ Thanks? I want to say something about how that competition played out.
No, I think that that's pretty much yeah, you know, yeah.
I do on some level, I like the idea that, like Robbie and Sam don't need to fight anymore, but Tory and Miguel do. But it also felt a little weird and how it was kind of set up, And I one thing we talked about a lot last week.
You mean, Robbie and Tory do need to fight more?
Let me take the whole thame. Yeah, so, and just go a little more on the Tory thing. I will say that I really liked this idea that, like, you know, Sam doesn't want to fight, Tory does want to fight, Robbie does want to fight but gets beaten, and then
Miguel wants to fight and wins. And like they they've set up a lot of things about like Robbie versus Miguel and how they're like each of them is like in some way a son to Johnny, Like one is much more of an adopted son and he's kind of closer to in some ways, and the other is a biological son and all this complexity, and yeah, we've had a lot of it, and the fact that Tory is kind of the opposite of Sam there like no, she wants to compete, and they set up something nice also
of like one of things we talked about a lot last season. Was this idea that like, you know, Stanford was only going to let him in if he wins this tournament. Yeah yeah, I love that, Like he gets the letter of acceptance before the fight is over, you know, like which was a really nice like, No, Stanford's not going to care about like this one specific competition, you know.
I mean they definitely could like particular things, particularly on like a high level, like this is supposed to be some internationally televised you know thing like.
But I think like if you came on second place, you're out, but if you come in first, you're in.
Like that that level of like I have.
To win or I won't get in, right, But they have kind of set it up as like mcguel and Sam are going to get to go off to college and have this really nice life, and then Robbie and Tori are like, well, they're high school dropouts, and clearly if they're not good enough to get into an IVY league or Stanford school, there's no other options for them.
I think the.
Most contrived moment of the entire show, we're just saying so much that's it.
That's a high bar and I'm not going to agree with this one, but go ahead. Okay.
Someone comes up to them and it's like, hey, I liked how you fought. Can I offer you the fame and fortune contract that the muppets wanted. Sign here, and you'll be our new influencers and have lots of life changing money and you get to go around the world and basically do all the things that the woman of Myron Dragons you didn't like was doing, but not be
a mean girl about it. It just felt so like, well, they don't go to college, They're going to do this other thing instead, and like there's nothing wrong with that, but just the split of like college or a job or i'm sorry, best colleges in the world or a job, and it being.
So contrived the whole job a career, a career, a career.
Right yeah, because that company will stick with them for years and years, right up to the moment they make a single like badly Understood tweet.
I mean, okay, in terms of the dichotomy between either you get into like an Ivy League school or a top tier school or like you know, you're working at the Cinnabon or whatever, I mean, I agree with you on that point, in terms of it actually being that contrived, I don't like there are there are, you know, multi million dollar sponsorships for people who do things that other
people like to watch, Like that's very real. And if this completely contrived tournament that really doesn't exist existed the way that they're putting it forward as existing, there would absolutely be not just like one random person like that, there would be like multiple companies being like, you know, do you have representation? You know, there'd be like agents
and managers and whatever trying to get in touch with them. Now, they probably would have done that before they won whatever fight or whatever, you know, But I don't find that contrived in the larger sense in terms of you know, beat by beat storytelling. It was a little you know, yeah, I.
Mean I feel that, but there are people who have that contract form magic the gathering, Like right, totally things exist, but like all of those people probably got like one sponsorship gig, you know, and then like sponsored to like have their social media, Like there's a process generally, not like you go from zero to life changing career numbers. It just the way it was set up felt so very like here's the here, here's the happy ending with one quick signature.
Didn't actually say what the amount is, right.
They didn't. They said it was life changing career numbers.
Sure, which I don't just be like six figures. That could be like low six figures to a high school kid, you know.
Yeah, no, yeah, I think that. To me, I think it was about like fifty to one hundred thousand, Like I think it's.
Yeah, that seems completely credible to me in terms of what they built up this tournament to supposedly be internationally televised event, and in a world that supposedly there are martial arts events like this going around, Like, yeah, I that doesn't strain credulity with me the way it seems too with you.
I think it's it in part because they're like, very much we want you to be a personality for us, We want you to be on so and they have no idea if people are any good at that, you know, and like, the ability to be a social media influencer based on your ability to do these things really well is very much not the same as your ability to
do those things really well. That's just the way it was offered instead of like, hey, we want to give these opportunities and see how it goes, and like, you know, if things go well, we could bring you on in a full time basis, Like that would have made a lot.
It just felt very like complete, you know, if you had like again, like to me, I think if the character of Zara had been less like cartoonishly bad sure to the point where she like drunk, you know, takes advantage of Johnny when she's drunk like Robbie and then like rubs her face in it, and you know all this stuff, Like if Tori had a conversation with her about like what is that, like you know, and like you know, they you saw that like plant the seed
of interest and like you know that I think they could have set it up a lot more rather than it just being the end of the Muppet movie, here's your fame and fortune contract that it felt like.
Yeah, yeah, I guess, I just I still don't find it as I'm sure it's not any more realistic to how a situation like that would play out than you know, any of the martial arts fights were you know, but like you know, I mean I know a lot of people in the poker world who have like sponsorships and a lot of them. You know, it's not necessarily like these people are you know, highly skilled social media experts.
You know. It really is a lot of the time like somebody is not so much that somebody is just so good at the thing, but like they're known for being so good at the thing, you know, and it's like they had that moment or whatever, you know, on camera and whatever. So I could definitely see some companies whatever trying to you know, cash in on something. But like you know, also there, you know, we didn't see the fine print.
You know, it's a dumb thing to get upset about, but it was just but no, it was much more. How do you feel about the overall idea though, of like two of our people go off to these top man colleges and the other two like go off and thus have like karate is their career going forward?
Yeah, that seems fine to me, you know, I don't. I'm a little disappointed that none of the students clearly became teachers, you know, because I think that would have been a much more I kind of thought Miguel would maybe because of the way he was coaching Robbie in Robbie's fight. I kind of thought Miguel was maybe going to become a teacher, like a martial arts instructor, you know, and if he didn't, you know, obviously, like you know,
Stanford isn't the only college. And I mean, you know, my opinion of the education system is not particularly flattering. You know. I I'd certainly agree with the ridiculousness of well, either you get into one of these schools or like, you know, your prospects are dim, Like people get into these schools and their prospects are dim after they graduate. You know, that's the world we live in. Speaking of which, like did you here?
Was?
Here was my biggest thing?
Okay, let me just one more thing on what you were just saying then, Yeah, but yeah, I like a scene of Miguel, a scene of Miguel like starting a student chapter at Stanford of Cobra Kai.
You know, yeah, that would have been cool. Yeah, yeah, but then I feel like I didn't need like a den human like that long you know, yeah exactly, but but that would have been a cool scene. You know, you could have just gone like cut, cut, cut, like montage type deal, right, yeah, because you know, they showed they showed Danny doing stuff, right, and he's still teaching and whatever. Here was here was my thing that I
thought was the least believable in this season. Do you really believe that in today's economy, Tory, with all of her final struggles, could really afford a dozen eggs.
Pre Trump? Yes? Post Trump? No, okay, not in the world we're going.
I guess this was filmed a while ago. So yeah, I was just like, she can't afford eggs. Also, like one vegan event, only one vegan vendor? No? I yeah, no.
I specifically wrote to Paul when I'd see all that.
I know he's they'd seen it already, and I was like, come on, yeah, that is actually a legit fight.
There should be multiple.
I will say, if I had ever had a vegan vendor at any of the martial arts events I gon too, I would have been thrilled.
So yeah, but New York twenty years ago, thirty years ago versus Southern California today.
Yeah, anywhere twenty years ago, to be honest, compared to South California.
The last thing I'll just say is because I think actually reminded me of kind of what I was trying to get at.
They did kind of it did feel a little bit.
All, like Robbie and Tory connected in part because they came from much more like lower class, broken home kind of situation. And say that like phrase like probably much better phrase than broken home. It's not that, but like both of them had parents who are addicts or were like really having a lot of problematic behavior. And like clearly Danny Samantha and her brother grew up in a
much more affluent situation than Miguel did. But Miguel had like, you know, a mother who was helping him with his homework and was like, you know, at least like middle class of some degree or an other, you know, and in a.
Much better situation.
So it kind of would have liked it if like Tori or Robbie had also gotten to go to college or something like you know, oh sure, Yeah.
I think it was part of it. Is that stratification that also made it feel kind of weird.
Yeah, And I mean it doesn't mean they can't go to college necessarily. You know, they can take a year off and do their thing and then they can go to college. And I mean I think colleges often have.
Martial arts.
I mean they'll have martial arts clubs for sure, but they might have competitive you know, competition teams or whatever. So that certainly seems like, you.
Know, especially in the fantasy world where people in bars are around all over the world to watch.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Oh my goodness, it was like world Cup level event like this. But here's the thing, Like people watch boxing the pay per view whatever. You know, it's not absurd to think that that's something that could happen. It's just not something that does happen.
I mean, like.
To watch like adults do it. Yeah, totally believable, but like very few people watch the like sixteen year old Golden Gloves like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah no, But I mean like Olympics, people certainly watch teenagers in the Olympics, you know.
Yeah.
Sure, So I do think sort of one off event like that that was actually literally supposed to be the best in the world, right, I think I think there's a lot of things that could be broadcast and promoted in a way that people would watch them that aren't, you know, I mean we I don't want to like diverge a long tangent about like women's sports or whatever, you know, but like I think that's something where you know, twenty years ago, a lot of people thought, oh, nobody's
ever gonna watch that, you know, and like some people did obviously, but like where you know, depending on something, how something's marketed, how it's promoted, what the access is like to it, you know.
I think later the women's rugby league in the United States is getting started in Minnesota has one of the first six teams, and I'm probably planning to buy season tickets because like, I love rugby and women's rugby is awesome.
Yeah, And and so my point is mostly just like we never really know what the market for something is until there's a legitimate effort made to market it, right, and there's there's always conjecture, but a lot a lot of times the conjecture is dismissive, right, and then a lot of times that dismissiveness is proven to be wrong, you know. And so do we live in a world where something like this is currently getting televised and tons
of people are watching it? No? Is it that hard to envision a world where something like this did actually become a big thing and like a ton of people watched it. I don't think it's that hard, you know, It's just it's not the world we live in, you know, but this is a world where Tory ken of four aches, So you.
Know that's fair. That's fair. All right, we've gone on for a while.
There's tell you two of the last quick things I'm gonna do, so everyone, I'm basically getting all the bonus content.
Now.
We're not gonna have bonus content the other this episode necessarily, but because there's two other quick quick hits that I want to bring up. One just again on the they
avoided the low Hanging Fruit. One of the things you and I talked about earlier this season was this hope that like the fighting was all gonna be on the mat, that we're gonna get away from these like sword fights in people's homes and like mass melas in schools, and so as we get set up that the final fight is gonna be Johnny against uh Sensi Wolf since a lawrence for sense Wolf and all that, and then we get you know, Silver on his boat being wahaha, he's
plotting this like, oh yeah, kidnap Johnny's wife and daughter.
And I was like, oh my god, don't do this.
I was not here for that.
And then like nope, we're just gonna have our fight now, and I was like, oh, thank god, Like I was so happy for that.
But then the last one, I.
Kind of want to ask you about this because I think it's you were saying earlier that, like, you know, a coach can't do much, but one thing a coach can do is be like, hey, like this person's like favoring their left side, or like when they do like this kick, they kind of pause for a second and like this part of their body is exposed, and I like, I know enough about sports to know that that's how
it works. And so I was really annoyed that the only time a coach did that, the coach was like, yeah, there's this one moment where his back is exposed, break his back, yeah, like and it was like and so as a result, the kid doesn't do them, doesn't take advantage of the vulnerability in the slightest and winds up losing.
And this is axl against Miguel.
And again that was to me where it was like, if you want to compete, if you really want to compete, you're evil, right, Yes, trying to intentionally do harm to their spine is horrific, but like if the backs of the legitimate target, and they're leaving their back vulnerable to an attack. A coach pointing out to a kid and the kid taking advantage that seems completely legitimate, right, Well.
You're not allowed to hit to the back, okay, okay, no, but that doesn't mean you can't take advantage of it. You know, like there would be a more nuanced like, well, he's got a back injury, so you know when he does this or that, you know his body doesn't move quite the same way or whatever, you know, or just like a bunch of body shots might hurt the back. You know. It's I completely agree with the overall point though.
That's like, so the only actual strategic coaching or like tactical coaching right where it's like try this technique that really was ever brought was like, you know, us an illegal attack to permanently injure your opponent. It's like, well that's no that yeah, you know, but to.
Me, like even and even if like the person's going in with an injury, like okay, let's say like your opponent's right elbow is was you know, hurt a month ago. As a result, they're not getting the right hand high enough to defend their head the way they are left. Focusing on attacking the right side is not considered cheating. You're not not at all kicking the elbow to hurt specifically. It might not be the greatest, but like, hey, they have an injury, that's meaning they're not doing their best.
I'm going to focus on that. Yeah, that's that's that's legit.
Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I mean and causing an injury even that's not through illegal techniques, like I mean in taekwondo, like you can just sidekick someone in the art like if blocking hurts the blocker a lot of the time, a hard block, right, I mean, it can hurt the person who's who's striking, depending on how you're doing the block, and it can be a soft block that doesn't really
cause any impact to speak of. But you know, you can hit someone's guard over and over and over and either cause bruising that like they're not gonna want to block in the same way anymore, or is going to cause fatigue and they're going to drop their guard and then you know you clip them in the face or whatever, and and that's not you know, or like you have an opponent who's like got a broken right foot and you're like, oh, well they're not going to kick you with that foot, you know, or like.
That side and not.
Yeah, I mean the like people who know boxing know about like Muhammad Ali, one of his biggest strategies when he went want to against some bigger opponents was the whole like ropodope, but like let them hire themselves out punching you in the arms exactly. And I remember I got an argue with someone about this once was like, oh so Muhammedli wasn't a good physical fighter, just mainly out thought and I was like he had twelve rounds of being punched in the arm.
I know that that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really impressive.
Yeah yeah, that's not some random person just trying to do that sort of ropodope, Like their arms are gonna get pummeled, they're going to drop their arms that they're gonna get punched in the face eventually, that's what's gonna happen. Yeah, for sure, for sure. But so yeah, I think taking advantage of someone else's injury is not It could be
viewed as sort of a dishonorable whatever. There's a scene in Iman for where Donnie n Iman is like injured, and the other guy's like, oh, I see you have an injury there, so I will also put that hand behind my back now and then they fight sort of on even ground. But like, if you're in a competition, you're not doing that, you know, that's like that's and and so yeah, taking advantage of an injury, not by using illegal striking, but just playing within the rules is generally, you know.
Clearly, the part that I was missing was that kicking them in the back in general is not allowed.
And I guess exactly you know.
That that if the strategy is, hey, do this thing where you might get like docked a point because you accidentally kick them in the back, but you also end their ability to fight, Yeah, clearly that's not that's not yeah yeah, yeah, So all right, well, I think this is a good conversation. I am glad we went on this journey. I could have had enjoyed this journey if it was a couple of stops shorter.
I think a three season.
If I go back to Cobra Kai and probably watching like seasons one and two and the second and the end of season seven.
Yeah yeah, one, two, and like six point three.
Basically, right, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I feel like it could have been a nice three or four season arc, you know, I mean probably four. I think you could get four good seasons. Yeah, you know, you can do a lot of the stuff you did once. You know. The problem was just how many times they went to the same Well the last notes, just like I had a thing an argument about red mats, blue mats. I won. We got the red mats.
They were great.
The musical cues were on point.
Oh yeah.
And I thought it was funny seeing Kevin Burkhart and Ryan Clark where Kevin Burkhart was on the you know, the Mets Baseball channel back in like two thousand and six, as like in the crowd, reporter in the crowd, like you know, secondary kind of announcer, and like now he's like a big he's a big enough international or national broadcaster that like he has a cameo in Cobra Kai. Yeah.
It gid be a little bit of proud, like you guys know that.
Yeah, it's like, oh he made good, you.
Know, exactly exactly. Yeah.
Last thing I'll say was, well, two last of the things I do wish we'd gotten the Neil Patrick Harris cameo for those who don't know, like part of how this all started, was it and How I Met your Mother? The character of Barney played by Neil Patrick Harris was obsessed with john and like thought that Johnny was the
hero of that movie. And like the actor William Zabka like showed up in that as Johnny, and that kind of like sparked this a cultural moment of like, yeah, Johnny Lawrence, we loved him, why don't we hear about him more often? And the writers of the show, I've said that that moment led directly to this show, right right right. I would have loved to have Barney show up as like one of the people cheering Johnny arms up.
For sure, and then.
Yep, don't remember the last thing, so lips sent off there. Thank you Paul so much for me to PARTI this, Thank you everybody pleasure, The Larman prosper.
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The Darkly Federation would not allow that