Cobra Kai is back and just as awesome as before in season four.
Picking up where season three left off, season four finds Miyagi-Do (led by Daniel LaRusso) and Eagle Fang Karate (led by Johnny Lawrence) teaming up to train for the All-Valley Under 18 Karate Championship, where they will face Cobra Kai (led by John Kreese). The tournament will decide which dojo will remain open and “take over” the Valley.
The season opens with Kreese (Martin Kove) reaching out to his old friend Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), the co-founder of Cobra Kai. Terry, however, rebuffs Kreese, even hanging up on him when he realizes who’s calling.
Kreese goes to recruit Terry back into Cobra Kai and finds a much different Terry than the one we saw in The Karate Kid Part III. However, Terry can’t resist the call of returning to his karate roots, so he agrees to train the students of Cobra Kai.
Meanwhile, Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny’s (William Zabka) teaching methods clash from the get-go. Daniel wants to focus on the Miyagi-Do form of defensive karate, while Johnny favors a more aggressive style of karate (though less so than Cobra Kai).
Eventually, Daniel and Johnny decide to learn each other’s style of karate, and it seems that they have a better understanding of each other through this way. Each sensei takes the other’s students for a lesson in the opposite style of karate. This leads Sam (Mary Mouser) to start to embrace Eagle Fang’s style of karate). But, Daniel and Johnny’s personalities continue to spar, culminating in a fight that will determine which style their combined dojos will practice.
The season adds further character development to many of the already seasoned cast members. Aside from Sam learning a new form of karate, Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) loses his confidence after an encounter with Cobra Kai and Demetri (Gianni DeCenzo) has a heart-to-heart with his binary brother and helps inspire Hawk to take up karate again.
Robby (Tanner Buchanan), meanwhile, continues practicing Cobra Kai karate, and takes under his wing a boy named Kenny (Dallas Dupree Young), a new kid to the valley who has been bullied by, among others, Daniel’s son Anthony (Griffin Santopietro). Robby helps Kenny learn the style of karate, but it could turn Kenny into someone he’s not.
Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) has probably the most interesting arc of the season. She confronts Tory (Peyton List) at work and demands Tory leave Sam alone. This meeting ultimately leads to Tory’s firing from work. After an encounter with Kreese, Amanda learns of Tory’s situation and does what she can to help.
The season culminates in a two-part finale at the All-Valley Under 18 tournament. Kreese and Silver’s training of Cobra Kai proves as aggressive as ever, but Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang both hold their ground against Cobra Kai.
This year’s tournament is different, though, in that there will be a boys and girls champion, and whichever dojo has the most points from the tournament will be declared the winner.
The tournament episodes do run a little long and there’s a rather random performance by Carrie Underwood that plays over a montage, but it’s important to get through the tournament for the surprising finale.
Season four of Cobra Kai relies less on memories from the past as the previous seasons did (especially season three). It makes for a more interesting season as the show focuses on the present and seeing what ultimately will happen when these dojos confront one another at the tournament.
Cobra Kai has been renewed for a fifth season, and according to Wikipedia, has already wrapped filming of season five. The show is available to stream on Netflix.
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