Speaker 1: Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy
Speaker 1: in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcast.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, apes, Hey, you see that snickers over there?
Speaker 3: No one's looking.
Speaker 2: You should just take it.
Speaker 1: No, don't listen to him, my son, that would be stealing.
Speaker 4: And stealing is.
Speaker 5: A sin, Sinchman, it's a freaking snick as may you
Speaker 5: deserve to have it? Sinning really satisfies you.
Speaker 3: Repent my child.
Speaker 1: Virtue is the only real snack with saving for that
Speaker 1: candy body is merely a gateway to Nukeet dumas.
Speaker 3: Has this ever happened to you?
Speaker 5: Listening to the devil on one shoulder and an angel
Speaker 5: on the other, and you're not sure what to think?
Speaker 1: Then we're here to help.
Speaker 2: I'm Pete Wright and.
Speaker 5: I'm Tommy Mess and this season on all the Feelings,
Speaker 5: we're examining the seven deadly sins.
Speaker 1: You note, the fun ones.
Speaker 2: And the seven heavenly virtues.
Speaker 1: Are also a thing. Through personal stories, historical oddities, and
Speaker 1: way too much embarrassment, we take you on a thrilling
Speaker 1: journey through all the goods and the bads you hear
Speaker 1: about in church.
Speaker 5: But without all that pesky church stuff. So Come join
Speaker 5: us for All the Feelings Season nine, a sometimes funny
Speaker 5: podcast about being human.
Speaker 2: All the sins, all the virtues.
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Speaker 3: Game over.
Speaker 1: Horror movies get a bad rap. They're cheap thrills, mindless
Speaker 1: scre not cinema blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But we here it sitting in the dark no better.
Speaker 2: We know that horror is more than.
Speaker 3: Just jump scares and chainsaws.
Speaker 2: It's a reflection of our deepest fears. Our anxieties are okay,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot.
Speaker 3: Of jump scares and chade sauce.
Speaker 5: Join us, Pete right, Tommy Met's the third, Kyle Wilson
Speaker 5: and Kenan ds as we cut into the dark heart
Speaker 5: of horror cinema.
Speaker 3: Every episode we explore a different facet of the genre,
Speaker 3: from survival horror to home invasions, from zombies to birds.
Speaker 3: We tickle the tropes, analyze the angles, and sharpen our
Speaker 3: own access.
Speaker 1: Along the way, we'll introduce you to the classics that
Speaker 1: shaped the genre than the modern masterpieces that are pushing
Speaker 1: the boundaries of terror sitting in the.
Speaker 2: Dark as your guide to navigating the terrifying.
Speaker 5: Thrilling, and sometimes hilariously bad world of horror movies.
Speaker 3: We'll help you understand why we love to be scared
Speaker 3: and maybe even convert you into a horror fan yourself.
Speaker 3: So turn off the lights, close the basement door. Enjoina inca.
Speaker 4: O.
Speaker 6: Welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. My friends, the
Speaker 6: long National Nightmare is over. What started as a dream,
Speaker 6: what became a nightmare? What became a dream again? What
Speaker 6: has gone on and on and on and on and on.
Speaker 6: This is the last time you're gonna hear us do
Speaker 6: a full episode on Cobra Kai, because Cobra Kai is done,
Speaker 6: and so some of those repeating, contrived plot lines we're
Speaker 6: only gonna get to complain about one more time.
Speaker 2: In fact, tonight we're actually gonna be talking mostly.
Speaker 6: About the actual ethical questions, because we're trying to move
Speaker 6: away from just doing reviews of these shows. But we
Speaker 6: have some ethical questions about some of the contrivances and
Speaker 6: some things we actually quite liked about the last five
Speaker 6: episodes of Cobra Kai. We are here with myself and
Speaker 6: uh Taekwondo Master Martial arts knowledge extraordinary, the head of
Speaker 6: the Ethical Panda Dojo, though I have not had to
Speaker 6: kill anyone to allow him to take that position, either
Speaker 6: here or in Korea. Mister Paul hoppy Paul, how are
Speaker 6: we doing tonight? Uh?
Speaker 4: Doing pretty good tonight. Yeah. Happy to have completed watching
Speaker 4: Cobra Kai.
Speaker 2: You know, it was a journey and I'm glad we
Speaker 2: want this journey.
Speaker 6: And I could have skipped about two thirds of a journey,
Speaker 6: but we got to the end and it was an
Speaker 6: end of a journey, and there we are. I will
Speaker 6: say that I am going to try and bring my
Speaker 6: normal level of sedate calm attention to important detail. I
Speaker 6: was under general anesthesia for a unfortunate procedure associated with
Speaker 6: aging about two hours ago, so I am just a
Speaker 6: little bit loopy. Not allowed to drive a car. I
Speaker 6: feel fine, but it might affect this podcast.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 6: We'll find out and drive a car and drive a podcast.
Speaker 6: There we go, there we go, and if I drive
Speaker 6: it into a wall, it means we don't go on
Speaker 6: for two hours, so you know, there's some advantages there.
Speaker 6: So with all that being said, we're talking obviously about
Speaker 6: part three of season six, the last part of Cobra
Speaker 6: Kai episodes eleven through fifteen, And if you're listening to this,
Speaker 6: you may I watched it, you may not have. We
Speaker 6: are going to spoil a lot of it, but really
Speaker 6: it's not really about the plot as much. I think
Speaker 6: it's just kind of like an overview of the of
Speaker 6: the show and the questions it raised and how we
Speaker 6: feel about it, both in the world of the show,
Speaker 6: but also I feel like this show, like the creation
Speaker 6: of it, had a lot to say, and we learned
Speaker 6: a lot about what happens with shows these days and
Speaker 6: how long they go on, and how the plots can
Speaker 6: change and.
Speaker 2: Morph and things like that. So we were talking about
Speaker 2: both those things.
Speaker 6: But first, Paul, why don't you just give like a
Speaker 6: gen like a quick summary of what happened and kind
Speaker 6: of your feelings on how this wrapped up the story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'll start, I guess with the overall summary,
Speaker 4: which is that as we left it after season six
Speaker 4: point two, Kwan had died and the tournament the Secai
Speaker 4: Tai Kai had been canceled, and everybody went back to
Speaker 4: their corners and of the world and resumed their lives.
Speaker 4: And then due to some agitating I think by one
Speaker 4: Terry Silver. The Sekai Tychai ended up being back on,
Speaker 4: and the overall machinations to make that happen a lot
Speaker 4: of them there, I think involved a lot of eye
Speaker 4: rolling on my part. Once they actually got back into it,
Speaker 4: I mostly enjoyed it. It was basically, you know a
Speaker 4: series of fights where there was like who was supposed
Speaker 4: to fight who, Like Samantha was supposed to fight Toy,
Speaker 4: and then Samantha ended up being like, I'm gonna bow
Speaker 4: out because I no longer fee Do you feel like
Speaker 4: there's any conflict between you and me?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: Sorry, it's a gross, point blank reference, but basically they
Speaker 4: had resolved their conflict as friends as people, and so
Speaker 4: sam was just like, I don't feel like I need
Speaker 4: to do this, and she was like, Dad, you're gonna
Speaker 4: be so mad. He's like, no, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 4: You've basically learned the lesson of Miagi though, which is like,
Speaker 4: you know, martial arts are for not needing to use them. Essentially,
Speaker 4: It's like a big point, right, And that's real by
Speaker 4: the way, in real life, like I've had experiences where
Speaker 4: somebody kind of wanted to fight and then like within
Speaker 4: a second or two they realized they didn't want to fight.
Speaker 4: And if I hadn't had martial arts training, it wasn't
Speaker 4: like I was like trying to demonstrate it. It was
Speaker 4: just just there's I think something in the way you
Speaker 4: carry yourself, in the way you react to some sort
Speaker 4: of sort of implied physical threat, that is real, you know, And.
Speaker 6: I want to bookmark that because I think there's We
Speaker 6: already had the conversation a little bit in previous episodes
Speaker 6: about the show, of which there have been many about
Speaker 6: the difference between I am angry at you, I want
Speaker 6: to use my body to inflict harm upon you, and
Speaker 6: I am an athlete competing in a competition that involves
Speaker 6: us performing this martial art which does involve hitting or
Speaker 6: kicking you. But I'm not doing it because I don't
Speaker 6: like you. I'm doing it because I want to participate
Speaker 6: in this sport. And yeah, I first really didn't like
Speaker 6: what Samantha did, but then when I saw more how
Speaker 6: it's framed, I liked it. So well, we'll kind of
Speaker 6: bookmark that because I think that's an important ethical question
Speaker 6: about violence versus competition.
Speaker 2: But for sure, going on with the story itself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so so basically Tory is gonna fight Zari in
Speaker 4: the final, except like there is no Cobra Kai kind of,
Speaker 4: so it's like what's up with that? And then Robbie's
Speaker 4: fighting Axel, the big you know, martial arts machine from
Speaker 4: the Iron Dragons, who are the you know, the other
Speaker 4: main basically they're the remaining villain because Cobra Kai kind
Speaker 4: of has removed itself in terms of Master Kim killed
Speaker 4: Grandmaster Kim and took back her dojang and so, but
Speaker 4: like they're in the forest in Korea, so they no
Speaker 4: longer really had it was.
Speaker 6: Their student who died, and they kind of want no
Speaker 6: more part of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Crease basically just wants Toy to compete because
Speaker 4: he's like, you should compete. I'm sorry, but like you
Speaker 4: don't have to accept my apology. Just know that, like
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, basically, And there's a whole big thing with
Speaker 4: Crease that I think is worth getting into. I'm mostly
Speaker 4: summarizing the tournament, I think, because those are kind of
Speaker 4: the biggest beats in like a turn, like structurally, I think,
Speaker 4: you know, although I felt like the heart of this
Speaker 4: season really was actually Crease going on like an apology tour. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so so where was right, So Robbie's fighting the
Speaker 4: big dude and he's getting whooped, and then he's making
Speaker 4: a comeback, and then the wolf, since a wolf who's
Speaker 4: the head of that dojo, is like, you know, break
Speaker 4: his leg basically, so he breaks his leg, and so
Speaker 4: Robbie's leg is broken, so he can't continue, and as
Speaker 4: a result, you know, Miyagi Do isn't going to like
Speaker 4: replace him as a fighter, and I kind of thought
Speaker 4: that they were going to like have a replacement at
Speaker 4: the last minute, but they didn't do that, and instead
Speaker 4: Miyagi Do loses. They're eliminated from the tournament. And Iron
Speaker 4: what are they their Iron Iron Dragon, right, They're they're
Speaker 4: going They're there like presumptive winners. But then Johnny takes
Speaker 4: back Cobra Kai brings Miguel over, and Miguel and Tory
Speaker 4: both win their fights, but the overall score is hide.
Speaker 4: So now Johnny has to fight sense a Wolf and
Speaker 4: Feng Shao and like, and he wins, and you know,
Speaker 4: basically everybody loves happy Happily ever after, except for Chrise
Speaker 4: and Silver, who blow up on Silver's yacht because Chris
Speaker 4: uses his cigar in a Merc Solis fashion.
Speaker 2: Which is very very very very very foreshadowed.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they really they're like there's yeah, and you know
Speaker 7: there's there's smaller things like you know, Carbon has the
Speaker 7: baby successfully without any more intervention from the writers.
Speaker 4: And you know, Johnny proposes just before that, and they
Speaker 4: get married by a former Cobra Kai member right from
Speaker 4: the Karate Kid. And and you know it's Dimitri and
Speaker 4: and Hawk like make up and they both go to
Speaker 4: Caltech together. And this is the whole thing that's like
Speaker 4: plot related but I didn't care for with computers and stuff,
Speaker 4: but the fact that they kind of like got along lovely.
Speaker 4: You know, Moon gets back with Demitri, Okay, fine, everybody
Speaker 4: can be happy. Chosen gets together with like Master Kim
Speaker 4: okay cool.
Speaker 2: And they hate I know this, but Moon is with Hawk, Yes,
Speaker 2: mean is with Dimitri?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my bad. I thought I might be watching that.
Speaker 2: The part you were most dialed in on.
Speaker 4: I'm if I could have chosen to get any one
Speaker 4: part of that wrong, it would have been that there
Speaker 4: are not you know, like Chosen's name and and then
Speaker 4: like Miguel and and uh Deman Sam are going to
Speaker 4: like schools on you know, twelve hour flight apart, but
Speaker 4: there's like a nice you know, no, I want what's
Speaker 4: best for you. I want you to do what you
Speaker 4: think is not like oh, stay here for me kind
Speaker 4: of thing, or oh, I'll go with you, and you know,
Speaker 4: it's like, no, I'll go with you to visit and
Speaker 4: then I'll come home and go to my school.
Speaker 2: And let's kind of start there.
Speaker 6: Because and this is more on the review side, but
Speaker 6: I think it's kind of a lot of what the
Speaker 6: conversation on Cobra Kai has been has been a conversation
Speaker 6: about how you make shows. And I feel like in
Speaker 6: this last half they kind of pulled themselves back from
Speaker 6: a lot of the really bad tropy holes and poor
Speaker 6: decision making in the writing room. I thought that had
Speaker 6: been happening for a while now. And one of the
Speaker 6: first is that there's an awful lot of like low
Speaker 6: hanging fruit of cliches and tropes and stuff that they
Speaker 6: chose to break, and especially ones that you and I
Speaker 6: have talked about that are not just like annoying but
Speaker 6: are actually kind of like problematic and not great. One
Speaker 6: of those being like every pregnancy has like massive complications.
Speaker 2: You know, someone who's a pregnant spouse. I really didn't
Speaker 2: want to see that.
Speaker 6: But another is this idea that, like, I like high
Speaker 6: school romances. I think they're fun to watch, I think
Speaker 6: they're interesting and can say a lot, But often there's
Speaker 6: this sort of contrivance of oh, therefore, like they fell
Speaker 6: in love in high school and they survived the plot
Speaker 6: problems that this movie or TV show threw at them,
Speaker 6: so they must be true love who will go on to.
Speaker 2: Be together forever.
Speaker 6: And like I liked that this show never did Like
Speaker 6: I liked the show both at the very beginning and
Speaker 6: at the very end, Like it had Danny starts with
Speaker 6: a wife who is not the girl who was the
Speaker 6: girlfriend from the original movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah you know, although Karate Kid too did that. But
Speaker 4: but yeah, yeah, but like it could have it could have. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they could have been.
Speaker 2: Like, he was a love interest in all three movies,
Speaker 2: so it could have been any of those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, but they didn't. They're like, no, he met
Speaker 4: someone off camera, yea, And.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Chosen actually goes after the love interest from the
Speaker 6: second movie, and that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but then that doesn't work out either, right, But yeah,
Speaker 4: and I think.
Speaker 6: One of the to me, one of the dumbest things
Speaker 6: people can do. And like, if any seventeen year older
Speaker 6: are listening to this and you're getting ready to go
Speaker 6: to the same college you's your sweetheart, forgive me if
Speaker 6: I'm calling you dumb, but I'm calling you a little dumb.
Speaker 6: Like the number of people I think who go off
Speaker 6: to college with their sweetheart with everything. They're like, oh,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna put aside everything to go be with where
Speaker 6: this person wants to be, Like, you cut yourself off
Speaker 6: from a lot. Like I mean, you don't have to
Speaker 6: go to college. There's all sorts of different directions people
Speaker 6: can go. And you know he's staying. You and I
Speaker 6: are best friends from high school who have stayed really close.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and who didn't go to the same high school
Speaker 4: even yeah.
Speaker 6: We didn't the same high school and we definitely didn't
Speaker 6: go to the same college. Yeah you went to college,
Speaker 6: like trying to visit it there, But like the point
Speaker 6: being that, like I think it's one of the worst cliches.
Speaker 6: And I like got viscerally angry when Miguel showed up
Speaker 6: at the airport where Sammy was getting ready to go
Speaker 6: to Okinawa.
Speaker 2: But then he was like, no, no, no, I'm not transferring.
Speaker 2: I'm going to Stanford, which has been my dream.
Speaker 6: I'm but I'm just gonna go with you to like
Speaker 6: help you settle in and spend a couple more weeks.
Speaker 6: And what I thought was there was a lot of
Speaker 6: really bad writing in this season, but in one of
Speaker 6: my thought the best lines, you know, he said, like,
Speaker 6: you know, I know we have to break up soon,
Speaker 6: but like not or we have to.
Speaker 4: Like I don't think he said that.
Speaker 6: What he said something about something about the words soon
Speaker 6: of like you know that like soon we're gonna be
Speaker 6: a part for a long while, right, And what she
Speaker 6: says is but soon can.
Speaker 4: Wait a little bit longer, exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like that, Like you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: we're gonna not be up together this whole time, but
Speaker 6: that's fine. And where it's having Dmitri and Hawk decide
Speaker 6: to do it because they're best friends who are working
Speaker 6: on this business model, which, let me just ask you,
Speaker 6: in a martial arts fight, my impression has always been
Speaker 6: that split second decision making is fairly important. So if
Speaker 6: there was a computer watching the moves of your opponent
Speaker 6: calculating it through it like a lightning fast algorithm and
Speaker 6: then you heard a recording in your voice saying left kick,
Speaker 6: Like whatever, how do you think that would affect your
Speaker 6: combat abilities?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's it's I mean making it's like
Speaker 4: actual unconscious competence of like instinctive reaction. That is most
Speaker 4: of what actual mark s Art's performance is, you know,
Speaker 4: actual fighting. Not that there isn't strategy that that can
Speaker 4: be composed over a somewhat longer timeframe, you know, but
Speaker 4: but yeah, having a useful AI would be something like
Speaker 4: and this is speaks to the coaching that didn't really
Speaker 4: exist during the tournament, where they're more like, let's just
Speaker 4: do locker room speeches because kind of a central tenet
Speaker 4: of Cobra Kai seems to be, you know, the inspiration
Speaker 4: and the speech that you give someone is like, what's
Speaker 4: going to make them a better fighter? Not like they're
Speaker 4: dropping their right arm, you know, right or like, I mean,
Speaker 4: the most useful thing I ever got from a coach
Speaker 4: in a fight, which was between rounds because you can't
Speaker 4: really do much during rounds, was you know, try skipping sidekick,
Speaker 4: backkick and act kick combination. And I did, and I
Speaker 4: hit the dude in the face multiple times and then
Speaker 4: the mat was bloody and like that, like because my coach,
Speaker 4: who'd had decades more experience than me, recognized that, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's something that'll probably work here. It might not work,
Speaker 4: but it's not like, oh do this do that you know,
Speaker 4: like or like this like big inspirational thing. You know,
Speaker 4: it's like it's you. You can observe things and then
Speaker 4: make suggestions, but like, you know, unless it's like this
Speaker 4: is the counter that we're going to be working out. Okay,
Speaker 4: we're going to be throwing a back kick, right, it's
Speaker 4: like now, you know, if I do think it's possible
Speaker 4: to like receive some signal, some external signal that's like
Speaker 4: this is the time to do the thing, but it's
Speaker 4: not time to explain what the thing is, right and
Speaker 4: have you do the thing like in time for it
Speaker 4: to be Sighting a bunch of like mid air cartwheels
Speaker 4: or like like flips isn't generally that useful in fights either,
Speaker 4: which you.
Speaker 6: Know, especially because like the idea of the technology they
Speaker 6: built is that it allows one person to fight like
Speaker 6: someone else, so that a person it's kind of like
Speaker 6: being able to like, Okay, I want my batting practice
Speaker 6: picture to throw exactly like Greg Matic, so I can
Speaker 6: practice batting.
Speaker 2: It's gragmatics.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, the problem is your batting practice picture doesn't
Speaker 6: have the muscle control and memory to know. And so
Speaker 6: the idea first of all that Miguel who's wearing this thing,
Speaker 6: could like change his own instincts. But also yeah, now
Speaker 6: do those things that you can't do what Axel can
Speaker 6: do anyway?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like his limbs aren't the same, right, and
Speaker 4: you know, so yeah, yeah, no, that was preposterous. That
Speaker 4: was definitely preposterous. You know. Was it more of a
Speaker 4: contrivance than the fact that just about every storyline wrapped
Speaker 4: up in a nice bow and everybody lived happily ever
Speaker 4: after unless they blew up on a yacht or murdered
Speaker 4: by their granddaughter. Not really, but it's more obviously like
Speaker 4: a well, that literally couldn't happen, as opposed to like,
Speaker 4: I guess that could happen, you know, I mean.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been to a tournament? Have you ever
Speaker 2: heard of a tournament.
Speaker 6: Where if the students get end in a tie, the
Speaker 6: senses have to fight each other.
Speaker 4: I have not, I have not heard of such a thing.
Speaker 4: You know, there are tournaments where the instructors will also
Speaker 4: be competing, you know, And I mean I've done that.
Speaker 4: I've competed at a tournament that my students were competing at.
Speaker 4: It was very uncomfortable. Like in general, it's a very
Speaker 4: awkward kind of thing, you know. Yeah, it's weird. Also
Speaker 4: when teachers fight each other. I remember fighting the teacher
Speaker 4: from another school and you know, we were fighting and
Speaker 4: like there were some of our students are there, and
Speaker 4: it's like it was weird. You know, you can't see it.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, like I'm sure that like a lot of
Speaker 6: people are coaches because they're not Like I'm sure some
Speaker 6: coaches are still very much in the prime of their
Speaker 6: physical abilities, but some are also like, yeah, no, I
Speaker 6: tell you how to do that because my back hurts
Speaker 6: a lot now, my knees are shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Or like I mean, having trained with multiple gold
Speaker 4: medalists in Korea and like when they're in taekwondo competing shape, Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're super thin and very fast and not like they
Speaker 4: can't hit hard, but they they don't have like a
Speaker 4: ton of muscle, right, because there are weight divisions and
Speaker 4: height and reach and speed are like the primary decisive factors.
Speaker 6: Right, because in that it's the competition. Your goal is
Speaker 6: to physically make contact, not to hit with enough force
Speaker 6: to like knock someone down or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then a lot of these former gold medalists,
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess you're a gold medalist for life.
Speaker 4: But like people who won gold medals maybe a decade
Speaker 4: prior and now are purely instructors. They're like built, you know,
Speaker 4: in a different way where they've like put on twenty
Speaker 4: thirty pounds of muscle and they couldn't compete effectively anymore,
Speaker 4: probably because they because somebody lighter and thinner, somebody of
Speaker 4: their weight is going to be much tall and be
Speaker 4: able to score points really fast. But they will break
Speaker 4: you like they like, you know, able to do like
Speaker 4: flying pushups, like still really able to fight, but not
Speaker 4: in the same sort of competitive way. So it's you know,
Speaker 4: as bodies change, I mean, and then yeah, once you
Speaker 4: get to be fifty seventy ninety, you know your body's
Speaker 4: going to respond differently. But like even just from like
Speaker 4: the late teen's early twenties, which might be the build
Speaker 4: for one sport version of a martial art getting into
Speaker 4: this is kind of something I was saying in the
Speaker 4: first third when we were talking about I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 4: these kids are not going to do well in a
Speaker 4: But it turned out the whole thing was under eighteen,
Speaker 4: which I didn't understand at that point when I was
Speaker 4: making that statement. I still stand by the fact that
Speaker 4: the people right exactly, the people who had been training
Speaker 4: since they were like three, probably would have had an
Speaker 4: advantage over the kids who start when they're like sixteen.
Speaker 4: You know, but yeah, I forgot the question.
Speaker 2: Well exactly, that's what you said. It's the same way.
Speaker 6: So let's stay on this idea of the competition, because
Speaker 6: this was another thing I thought the show wound up
Speaker 6: doing quite well, and we've talked a lot about how
Speaker 6: it seemed like all the way back to the movies.
Speaker 6: The show has kind of tried to meld two ideas,
Speaker 6: which is, two people who have a conflict want to
Speaker 6: settle it physically with violence, and two people want to
Speaker 6: compete in a sport in which an act that is
Speaker 6: construed as violent in other contexts is the act by
Speaker 6: which the sport is decided, you know, like boxing or
Speaker 6: in this case, you know, Rodny, or mixed martial arts.
Speaker 6: And I think that's been a frustration for surely for
Speaker 6: myself and I think for both of us, is that
Speaker 6: sometimes it's been kind of like assuming that one always
Speaker 6: has to be the other and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: and that so often it was like, oh, I hate you,
Speaker 6: I hate We're gonna have our karate fights like in school.
Speaker 2: And you know, all this kind of stuff. And so
Speaker 2: when it got to.
Speaker 6: The point where it said that, Sam was like, I
Speaker 6: don't hate Tory anymore, so I don't want to fight her.
Speaker 2: And first I was gonna be really bothered by that.
Speaker 6: Because it especially because we no longer had anyone who
Speaker 6: was not cartoonishly evil on the other side. You know,
Speaker 6: Zara just dials up the I am an influencer in
Speaker 6: the most misogynistic view of influencers that you've ever seen,
Speaker 6: and I'm gonna be terrible and say, like the most
Speaker 6: mean girl, mean girl that could instagram a mean girl.
Speaker 6: And then Axel is like, no, I want to be
Speaker 6: a nice guy, but I'm gonna snap people's legs like
Speaker 6: it's just you.
Speaker 4: Know, and it's well, I'm gonna do it and then
Speaker 4: feel and feel conflicted and then feel bad about it later.
Speaker 4: And not because there was a thing where his.
Speaker 6: Right, he doesn't do it later, but yeah, but like
Speaker 6: it just so it felt to me like, are you
Speaker 6: really saying that, like in a competition, your enemies have
Speaker 6: to all be terrible people or else you don't want
Speaker 6: to compete with them. But where it got to actually
Speaker 6: was very much the opposite, I thought, because what I
Speaker 6: at least took from it and tell me if you
Speaker 6: feel the same, was it was basically saying like, look, no,
Speaker 6: and that Danny was this is part of what Danny
Speaker 6: was saying that he had learned from Miyagi is that
Speaker 6: it is totally fine to compete if you want to compete.
Speaker 6: That going into a competition because you're mad at someone
Speaker 6: is the opposite of what Miyagio was supposed to be
Speaker 6: all about, because Miaguido is supposed to be about defense
Speaker 6: when it's not like competition. And so he was kind
Speaker 6: of like helping her get to a point and being like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't want to fight Tori. And then if she
Speaker 6: still wanted to be a competitor, she could have been like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 6: now I feel really great about wanting to just compete
Speaker 6: against my friend. But that the place she got to
Speaker 6: was like, oh, I never really wanted to be a competitor.
Speaker 6: I just wanted to beat up all the people who
Speaker 6: were mean to me and you know, fight alongside, you know,
Speaker 6: protect my father's legacy at all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: and that, you know, it felt, especially given that there'd
Speaker 6: been this kind of like Tennis mom aspect to some
Speaker 6: extent with her relationship with Danny, her being able to
Speaker 6: be like, yeah, I don't the reason why I would
Speaker 6: be in this competition is either to make my dad
Speaker 6: proud of me or not make him mad at me,
Speaker 6: because I don't want to do what he wants to
Speaker 6: do in order to hurt someone who don't want to
Speaker 6: hurt anymore. So I'm just not gonna be in the competition.
Speaker 6: And I thought that was actually remarkably healthy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. I think you know, her her journey
Speaker 4: like throughout the series, started from a point of she
Speaker 4: had trained in karate from a young age, really loved
Speaker 4: it for itself, right, not so much like as a competitor,
Speaker 4: not as a fighter, but as as an artist, really
Speaker 4: as a martial artist, you know. And you know, and
Speaker 4: she grew up with Miyagi like as practically her grandfather, right,
Speaker 4: I think, yes, And oh, By the way, the as
Speaker 4: much as I hate the like hole bringing up the
Speaker 4: whole miagi thing, Like, the one moment that I like
Speaker 4: teared up in this season semi season was when they
Speaker 4: were talking about his backstory and that when he beat
Speaker 4: up that one guy, it was because that guy had
Speaker 4: taken something from his wife was in an internment camp. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then she had died in the intern I was like, uh,
Speaker 4: because like, that's not that's not about this story. That's
Speaker 4: just about the the horrors of the world we live in.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was a Japanese American in the forties. That's
Speaker 6: back going to be a part of his experience exactly.
Speaker 4: And so but so, Sam like she was a reluctant
Speaker 4: participant in all this, But I think when she was
Speaker 4: really motivated, a lot of it was for some pretty
Speaker 4: bad reasons, right, And that doesn't mean it was necessarily
Speaker 4: the wrong thing for her to do, but just like
Speaker 4: there were there. It was kind of motivated by a
Speaker 4: lot of negative emotions, right. It wasn't like I want
Speaker 4: to achieve this, or that I want to demonstrate this,
Speaker 4: or that I want to compete for the sake of competition.
Speaker 4: But it was like, you know, the dynamic with with
Speaker 4: her and Tori and and you know, the whole weird
Speaker 4: thing with her and Robbie and Miguel early on, which
Speaker 4: I'm happy that they like really just kind of left
Speaker 4: that behind, you know. And and so I think her
Speaker 4: you know, circle, like she really her circle is complete,
Speaker 4: like she really comes around full circle. And like she's
Speaker 4: going to Okinawa, right, and like that's very tied into karate,
Speaker 4: Like that's why she's going there, because she you know.
Speaker 6: And it felt like like to my sense was like
Speaker 6: she might take a karate class or two, but more
Speaker 6: she's going to study at this like university in Okinawa
Speaker 6: or was gonna learn about basically her grandfather's cultures and
Speaker 6: life and yeah, for sure, and karate is a part
Speaker 6: of that. Yeah, She's not going to like go to
Speaker 6: a karate academy. She's going to go to a you
Speaker 6: know college.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah. But I mean like culturally, it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, culturally, she's like a quarter Okee Nolin kind
Speaker 4: of you know, like or like her grandfather is you know,
Speaker 4: her sort of adopted grandfather is Okay Nolin, and you know,
Speaker 4: she misses him and and she wants to know more
Speaker 4: about like where he came from basic right, and and
Speaker 4: where the art that she's practiced for like a decade
Speaker 4: and a half comes from right. And so so I
Speaker 4: thought that was a nice way to kind of close
Speaker 4: off her character arc because it and not arc like
Speaker 4: really circle, kind of like where in a way, she
Speaker 4: comes back to where she was in the beginning, except
Speaker 4: with a different understanding kind of of who she is
Speaker 4: and what she's interested in. Okay, it's an arc.
Speaker 6: I mean I think I think it's both because to me,
Speaker 6: what she basically does is she gets caught up in
Speaker 6: this cycle of violence, and I think the show has
Speaker 6: this cycle go around a few too many times, and
Speaker 6: she becomes very repetitive.
Speaker 2: Yes, but in the end she's able to break the cycle.
Speaker 6: And I feel like, I feel like that is kind
Speaker 6: of my best way of explaining how I feel about
Speaker 6: a lot of the main plot points is that it
Speaker 6: felt like seasons one and two and maybe a little
Speaker 6: bit three set up these really interesting dynamics that were
Speaker 6: leading in certain places, and then it was kind of like,
Speaker 6: and I don't I'm kind of getting here into the
Speaker 6: behind the scenes stuff and I don't know actually what happened,
Speaker 6: But yeah, a lot of reports that I've read has
Speaker 6: been that like LaRusso wanted to get or no, what's
Speaker 6: that actor's name, Ralf Maccio wanted to get a lot
Speaker 6: more involved in the show. But on that like there
Speaker 6: were like, you know, polls and stuff that showed that
Speaker 6: he was the most popular in the show or whatever,
Speaker 6: and like it became a lot more about his character
Speaker 6: and we and also just you know, Netflix had a
Speaker 6: really popular show. They didn't want to end it, and
Speaker 6: to me, it felt like what could have been a
Speaker 6: two or three season show became a six season show,
Speaker 6: and along the way, we got tied into a lot
Speaker 6: of like, wait a minute, wasn't the point that Sam
Speaker 6: was gonna break this cycle? And wasn't the point that
Speaker 6: the other things are gonna happen? It wasn't also part
Speaker 6: of the point that this was mostly Johnny's redemption in
Speaker 6: the end of the day, right, And it really did
Speaker 6: feel like the end of the season they were like, oh, right, okay,
Speaker 6: and like, so what you said about like how Johnny
Speaker 6: becomes head of Cobra Kai again and Robbie and Miguel
Speaker 6: and Tory fight for Cobra Kai completely and utterly contrived,
Speaker 6: and the dialogue. We both separately came up with the
Speaker 6: idea that chat GBT might have written part of the
Speaker 6: dialogue to get so bad, But then it gave us
Speaker 6: the two or three episode like no, here's Johnny's full
Speaker 6: like the end of his arc and the end of
Speaker 6: his Students arc.
Speaker 2: I thought those were really well and I think Sam
Speaker 2: same with Sam.
Speaker 6: You know, it just kind of got like you could
Speaker 6: have had Sam had that exact same revelation four seasons ago,
Speaker 6: but it still was great to get it now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean I think what I don't know
Speaker 4: what happened in the writer's room, Right, This was a
Speaker 4: YouTube spec TV series, right, it was YouTube bread or
Speaker 4: whatever it was called for the first two seasons, and
Speaker 4: then it got acquired by Netflix. He ran it on
Speaker 4: Netflix and then and then made I think season three
Speaker 4: forward were Netflix, So it was actually different studio essentially. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I may need to look that up to make sure
Speaker 4: I'm not just like.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm not doubting you did about it one the other.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but like I I completely agree that this is
Speaker 4: something that it was. It was the sort of thing
Speaker 4: where basically you had an idea like the first the
Speaker 4: first two seasons, I think introduced some yeah, YouTube bread,
Speaker 4: YouTube premium, It introduced some interesting ideas. It basically took
Speaker 4: a couple of characters decades after they'd been left off,
Speaker 4: which I think very very rarely works, and I think
Speaker 4: it totally made it work in the beginning, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not saying it was always brilliant writing,
Speaker 4: but I think it had there was a lot going
Speaker 4: for it, and it was kind of a small show,
Speaker 4: you know, that was successful, but it was like it
Speaker 4: was small in terms of its scope. And then once
Speaker 4: they started introducing a bunch of people from before, and
Speaker 4: you know, and there was a big gap actually between
Speaker 4: the second and third seasons, like almost two years, and
Speaker 4: you know, you've got the pandemic and everything, but also
Speaker 4: you've got the switch from YouTube to Netflix. I think
Speaker 4: what happened is they're like, oh, we have a franchise,
Speaker 4: you know, and I mean, you know, Karate Kid was
Speaker 4: already you know, started this franchise, right, but like Cobra
Speaker 4: k Kai basically turned into like, now we can have
Speaker 4: this like you know, cobraverse or Karate Kid verse or
Speaker 4: put you know, Miagi verse. I think that's the word
Speaker 4: they use. And like somehow it crosses over with it
Speaker 4: Mon four also, But you know, but like what happens
Speaker 4: I think is you have an idea in the beginning
Speaker 4: of like here's the overall idea of what we want,
Speaker 4: what we want to do with these characters and this story, right,
Speaker 4: and then as a show gets more successful, it gets
Speaker 4: harder and harder to not make more of it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: because it's making money. All the people involved in the
Speaker 4: show are making money. It's selling marchandise. You know, nobody
Speaker 4: wants to wrap it up. I mean my understanding is
Speaker 4: that a show like Breaking Bad, it took like effort
Speaker 4: to be like, no, this is the end of the show.
Speaker 4: And then you know it wasn't because there's spinoffs and whatever,
Speaker 4: but like you know, but it was like, no, this
Speaker 4: is this is the end. We're actually going to end
Speaker 4: it here, you know. And I think like this show
Speaker 4: suffered from from its own success a little bit where
Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, they could have had a lot of
Speaker 4: what happened in this third of a season happen in
Speaker 4: say a season four or five, that all the seasons
Speaker 4: were normal length, and you wouldn't have just like been
Speaker 4: going in circles and circles and circles, you know, And
Speaker 4: so I think there was an idea of here's where
Speaker 4: we want to end up, but like, in order to
Speaker 4: get there, we need to maintain a level of conflict
Speaker 4: that just made it feel like things were just like
Speaker 4: people weren't growing like they would, right, and then they
Speaker 4: would revert to saved form basically.
Speaker 6: You know, I think that's a perfect way to put it,
Speaker 6: because we often talk about the trope of the will
Speaker 6: they won't they not like we specific and superherotics, but
Speaker 6: in the immedia discussions, and that's most oftenly phrased in
Speaker 6: terms of a romantic thing of like these two characters
Speaker 6: of tension, and a lot of times some of the
Speaker 6: worst things is where it's not just that they can't
Speaker 6: let the show end if they can't imagine what the
Speaker 6: show would look like if they resolve that main tension. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and like Chuck is one of my favorite examples of
Speaker 6: both sides of it, where for a couple of seas
Speaker 6: they kept letting them almost get together, and then for
Speaker 6: more and more contrived reasons, they didn't, and then finally
Speaker 6: they did and they realized, oh wait, we.
Speaker 2: Can actually still have a show where they're just together.
Speaker 2: And that's okay.
Speaker 4: And then they split them up again, and then they
Speaker 4: wiped someone's mind and oh my goodness.
Speaker 8: You know, but like I feel like the season of
Speaker 8: them being romantic together and it just okay, sure, and
Speaker 8: I think this remind like I've kind of known this,
Speaker 8: but I think this was a good reminder, Like this
Speaker 8: had a very specific will they won't they, but it
Speaker 8: wasn't romantic.
Speaker 6: Although I know a lot of fan fiction is written
Speaker 6: about Johnny and Danny and that's totally legitimate interpretation too,
Speaker 6: But it was like the can these two high school
Speaker 6: rivals see past their rivalry, recognize the growth in each other,
Speaker 6: and also kind of recognize that they've been so kind
Speaker 6: of balkanized by this feeling of like my way is
Speaker 6: the only way that they can come to a place
Speaker 6: of both accepting that the other is a legitimate form
Speaker 6: of karate but.
Speaker 2: It's not their own. And that's okay too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it took a while, and there was like
Speaker 6: a number of times I think we've said on this podcast,
Speaker 6: like oh, look, Johnny and Danny are just what you said,
Speaker 6: are back to factory defaults.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: But I really like the place because the place they
Speaker 6: get to is that they're no longer trying to have
Speaker 6: one united dojo, that is two different schools of karate.
Speaker 6: But there's a sense of like, yeah, you can primarily
Speaker 6: study cobra kai, but go learn some miyagi do and
Speaker 6: vice versa, because once more offense focused and once more
Speaker 6: defense focused, and you can focus in one direction, but
Speaker 6: having a blend of things, you know, like, you know,
Speaker 6: any good guitarists like you might be like, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: be the best, you know, punk music punk guitarist. Ever,
Speaker 6: learning some jazz isn't gonna hurt, you know, learning some classical,
Speaker 6: learning some heavy metal.
Speaker 2: Just it's more tools in your repertoire.
Speaker 6: And I kind of had that feeling at the end
Speaker 6: with martial arts, and I really appreciated where that got to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, And I think I think really high
Speaker 4: percentage of serious Marshall artists do at some point study
Speaker 4: something else, you know, I think, and I'm sure that
Speaker 4: in the past I've mentioned that, you know, the taekwondo
Speaker 4: that I studied came is, you know, in terms of lineage,
Speaker 4: is certainly closer to cobra kai in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: I mean, it is literally Korean as his cobra kai,
Speaker 4: and that that my teacher trained with someone who did
Speaker 4: go touate, and then that's basically what miagi do is
Speaker 4: I think representative of And when I when I learned
Speaker 4: this later, I was like, oh, yeah, that that makes sense,
Speaker 4: you know. Yeah, And and like my teacher would teach
Speaker 4: us some of that stuff, even though it wasn't really
Speaker 4: in the core curriculum of taekwondo, and even though most
Speaker 4: martial arts have like a lot of kind of ancillary
Speaker 4: stuff that like you don't learn early on, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: we actually do have grappling in this, we're just not
Speaker 4: in the sport version. But like the martial art often
Speaker 4: does encompass a lot more than most people think of
Speaker 4: from the outside. But having said that, like there's there's
Speaker 4: arts that focus more on circular motions, that focus more
Speaker 4: on straight line motions, that are more soft styles, hard styles,
Speaker 4: and you know that that are specialized in kicks and
Speaker 4: high kicks and flashy kicks and ones that are mostly
Speaker 4: hand based. And I have a friend who was from
Speaker 4: my taekwondo school went and started doing krap maga, and
Speaker 4: I went and traded with him in Krav Magath for
Speaker 4: a while, and it made so much sense because it
Speaker 4: was like, oh, here's a bunch of ways of getting
Speaker 4: out of grabs, out of chokes, stuff like that, and
Speaker 4: then I could just use my taekwondo to hit people
Speaker 4: after that, you know, as opposed to like learning a
Speaker 4: whole grappling art. But then I have another friend, another
Speaker 4: master in taekwondo, who came up together, and she learned judo,
Speaker 4: and like did judo for I mean, it's probably going
Speaker 4: on twenty years now almost, you know, yeah, because like
Speaker 4: she saw a fight that went to the You're like, oh,
Speaker 4: well I need to know what goes on then, right,
Speaker 4: And so learning multiple styles, you can still have a
Speaker 4: primary style where like no, this is my main style,
Speaker 4: but then I'm going to take from this, take from that.
Speaker 4: I mean that's basically you know Bruce Lee's philosophy, right,
Speaker 4: He's not the only one, but like ge kundo is
Speaker 4: essentially like you take what works and you leave what doesn't.
Speaker 4: You know, you try a lot of things and they're like,
Speaker 4: oh this is working for me, I'm going to keep this.
Speaker 4: I'm going to refine this, you know, and I'm going
Speaker 4: to take something else from over here and just put
Speaker 4: it together right.
Speaker 6: And it feels like it's both like that buffet style,
Speaker 6: but also it's the idea of like abandoning the idea
Speaker 6: there's one true way that like the best martial art
Speaker 6: for you may not be the best martial art for me,
Speaker 6: and the best martial art for someone else and all
Speaker 6: this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like the best martial art for you now
Speaker 4: might not be the best martial art for you in
Speaker 4: ten or twenty years, you know, and like your body changes,
Speaker 4: like your perspective changes. A lot of things change, and
Speaker 4: what you want to get out of a martial art
Speaker 4: can change, and and so yeah, I really do feel
Speaker 4: strongly that they did ultimately a great job of wrapping
Speaker 4: things up and letting, you know, Danny and Johnny accept
Speaker 4: each other for who they are, appreciate, you know, the
Speaker 4: other person's perspective while and like learning from the other
Speaker 4: person's perspective some while also maintaining their own perspective, maintaining
Speaker 4: their own character. I think, you know, and this culminates
Speaker 4: to me in the last fight scene where Danny's coaching
Speaker 4: Johnny and like Chosen's like, you know, you should try
Speaker 4: something else, So Danny tries coaching Johnny in like a
Speaker 4: Cobra Kai Johnny type style. Yeah, and it works. And
Speaker 4: there's a moment where it feels like the last kick,
Speaker 4: like Johnny's going to do a crane kick. Oh god, yeah,
Speaker 4: and then he sweeps the leg.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, I was like, oh, He's going
Speaker 4: to do a crane kick. That's I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 4: that was better.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: There had already been the foreshadowing of the cigar, and
Speaker 6: there were two different moments where we saw them training
Speaker 6: the crane kick was no stop foreshadowing that.
Speaker 4: So give them something that is not.
Speaker 6: Exactly exactly And all right, here's the weird analogy tying
Speaker 6: up a whole bunch of different media together. And you
Speaker 6: can tell me if you think I'm nuts here when
Speaker 6: I was watching all that, because because one of the
Speaker 6: things that I'm struggling with, and I think the writers
Speaker 6: are struggling with, is is Cobra Kai fundamentally bad? You know?
Speaker 6: Like that's one thing that Danny believed for a long
Speaker 6: time was that because by teaching offense, because by teaching attack,
Speaker 6: that that's inherently going to become problematic and overly violence,
Speaker 6: that it's basically the way of being a bully. And
Speaker 6: while I think there was like a lot of truth
Speaker 6: to that, honestly, a lot of what I heard in that,
Speaker 6: because I think it's it's grappling with a Simil issue,
Speaker 6: is a lot of the I think sometimes dogmatic approach
Speaker 6: that the Jedi can have to the dark side of
Speaker 6: like you know, the whole like always defend, always defend,
Speaker 6: you know, and like some of the stuff that I've
Speaker 6: liked most in more recent Star Wars stuff, but it
Speaker 6: goes all the way back to Revenge of the Sith also,
Speaker 6: you know, with like you know, only a Sith deals
Speaker 6: in absolutes, which is itself an absolute like that, there's
Speaker 6: often a lot of hypocrisy there, And to me, where
Speaker 6: where some of the stuff that I've really liked has
Speaker 6: come out is like, yeah, maybe like that the dark
Speaker 6: side is a path to all sorts of terrible things.
Speaker 6: But like we've seen Ray use powers that are thought
Speaker 6: of as dark side. We saw Canaan Jerris considered like
Speaker 6: one of the greatest Jedi, act out of emotion all
Speaker 6: the time, act out of attachment all the time, and
Speaker 6: it not necessarily be the terrible thing. And in the end,
Speaker 6: one of the last scenes is Johnny kind of like
Speaker 6: starting off his dojo again and he's still being a
Speaker 6: bit of a jerk and a bit of a bully,
Speaker 6: and I kind of wish it wasn't, but it's just
Speaker 6: kind of who he is. But he's getting it and
Speaker 6: kind of like you get the sense that he's doing
Speaker 6: because he wants to help people, even though he's you know,
Speaker 6: probably gonna make some kid cry at some point pretty soon,
Speaker 6: but but putting that aside, like he basically he points
Speaker 6: to the stuff on the wall, you know, strike first,
Speaker 6: strike hard, no mercy, and he reinterprets it someone yeah,
Speaker 6: he and he talks about like yeah, he specifically says
Speaker 6: like you could hear these things and use it as
Speaker 6: justification to become an asshole. And that's a specific words use.
Speaker 6: And he said that that's what he did for an
Speaker 6: awful long time. But it doesn't have to be. No
Speaker 6: mercy can be about like not stop like pushing yourself
Speaker 6: to the limit, you know, And like one thing I
Speaker 6: remember you talking about a competition is like you know,
Speaker 6: when the other person's doing their best to hurt, to
Speaker 6: hit you, it's okay to do their best to hit
Speaker 6: them back when they're doing their best to take your
Speaker 6: money at a poker table, it's okay to you know,
Speaker 6: within the rules.
Speaker 2: We've all agreed to try to take their money back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And like if you're if you're in a spot
Speaker 4: where it's like I don't think this person should be fighting,
Speaker 4: Like you should tell your coach of the ref like, hey,
Speaker 4: that person shouldn't be fighting like they're they're clearly hurt.
Speaker 2: Like call the fight, Yeah, call the fight.
Speaker 6: Like you and I have both talked about like someone
Speaker 6: sitting down at the poker table who's clearly drunk and
Speaker 6: being like, I know I can take all this person's money.
Speaker 6: This person should not like they cannot consent to playing
Speaker 6: voca right.
Speaker 2: Now, right right now. And yeah, so I did the
Speaker 2: dark sid analogy.
Speaker 6: I know is a little bit of a stretch there,
Speaker 6: but like because it's a little more genocidal than Cobra
Speaker 6: Kai is you see what I'm getting with this.
Speaker 4: Well, the point is like there's a path of violence
Speaker 4: and aggression and you know, and maybe anger and that
Speaker 4: doesn't always have to stem from or lead to hate. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes violence is the only effective response to
Speaker 4: violence basically, and it's It doesn't mean it's always the
Speaker 4: only effective response to violence. It doesn't mean it's a
Speaker 4: good response to nonviolence. But I think if you're going
Speaker 4: to be training in violence, because that's what it is, right,
Speaker 4: you know, you need to acquire an understanding of you know,
Speaker 4: the purpose of that violence, Like what are you planning
Speaker 4: to use this for? You know, are you planning to
Speaker 4: use it for defense, which is basically violence against violence? Right,
Speaker 4: like counter violence or you you know, and strike first
Speaker 4: can be not like I forgot exactly what Johnny said,
Speaker 4: but like it can be not like, you know, just
Speaker 4: go around punching people in the face, but like when
Speaker 4: somebody's like lining up to do you harm and and
Speaker 4: they're clearly like intent on doing that, Like you know,
Speaker 4: preemptive violence is often the most effective way of you know,
Speaker 4: striking first can also be like a counter attack, like
Speaker 4: somebody's attempting to strike you, and you hit them first,
Speaker 4: you know, you're first to the ball, essentially.
Speaker 6: I think at the end there he also has someone
Speaker 6: is also just a general life philosophy and like be aggressive,
Speaker 6: take action, like go after the thing you want, you know,
Speaker 6: ask the person out, like don't be a thick about it,
Speaker 6: but you.
Speaker 4: Know, basically don't get run over in life. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: doesn't mean you have to push everybody around, but it means,
Speaker 4: you know, advocate for yourself, advocate for other people who
Speaker 4: are maybe unable to do so for themselves. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does a good job of kind
Speaker 2: of showing that.
Speaker 6: I think, like Cobra Kai has a lot more potential
Speaker 6: to lead to like really bad problems. Yeah, but like
Speaker 6: there's an extent to which both Samantha and Danny both
Speaker 6: sometimes are kind of like letting life pass the may
Speaker 6: and are not you know, striking for they're not taking
Speaker 6: action in their life and they need to both like
Speaker 6: on the mat but also just life in general. But
Speaker 6: also and I think this is especially tru a Samantha,
Speaker 6: but also someone of Danny. There are moments in the show,
Speaker 6: and these are mostly going back a couple of seasons,
Speaker 6: but where they're pushed to that breaking point where it
Speaker 6: feels like, you know, when instead of like having a
Speaker 6: healthy outlet for negative emotions or even just like difficult emotions,
Speaker 6: you oppressed and you oppressed and your oppress and then
Speaker 6: you snap right and that like I think at one point,
Speaker 6: like they have Sam go to Cobra Kai for a while,
Speaker 6: particularly while she's feeling jealous about this whole like love
Speaker 6: multi polyhedral thing that happens. But she talks about like
Speaker 6: it gave her a better because she acts really badly
Speaker 6: when you know, it's like teenager would do teenager things.
Speaker 6: I'm not like saying she's a bad character, but like,
Speaker 6: sure she has no context for how to deal with
Speaker 6: being really angry at someone and wanting to lash out.
Speaker 6: And and I just really like that. It was like that, like, yes,
Speaker 6: these are these two schools, and yes, Cobra Kai's is
Speaker 6: maybe a little more playing with fire, but it's not
Speaker 6: inherently bad. And and that like Crease was really bad
Speaker 6: and Silver was really bad, and Johnny was taken to
Speaker 6: that place, but as a student, then he came back
Speaker 6: from it, and that's that's what we're celebrating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as a teacher, he came back from it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And that's that leads us to something that i'd really
Speaker 4: like to talk about. I don't know if you have
Speaker 4: something directly lined up next.
Speaker 2: But I was going to talk about Crease, which I
Speaker 2: think is maybe where you're going.
Speaker 4: But absolutely, yeah, I feel like Crease learning a lesson
Speaker 4: from Johnny basically and then supporting him after realizing that
Speaker 4: he's failed him, and like realizing that Silver is basically
Speaker 4: his greatest failure in terms of creating something dangerous in
Speaker 4: the world, and then kind of closing off that loop
Speaker 4: and like essentially setting Johnny up to move forward in
Speaker 4: Johnny's own way. You know, I thought was really powerful
Speaker 4: because learning through teaching is a central tenet of martial
Speaker 4: arts practice. So it was really nice to see not
Speaker 4: just Crease but the other senses as well, but especially
Speaker 4: Crease and and Johnny actually learn so much from their
Speaker 4: students that they they kind of became different people, or
Speaker 4: that they became like the best versions of themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because like especially like when when you're a teacher, it's
Speaker 4: really easy to get into this, Like, Okay, you're a student,
Speaker 4: you have a teacher, you train, maybe you get to
Speaker 4: a point where you're near your teacher's level, and like
Speaker 4: maybe then you have another teacher and you ladder up
Speaker 4: and at some point, you know you've got some colleagues,
Speaker 4: you know you've got some peers, but at some point
Speaker 4: you're not going to have a teacher. You know, whether
Speaker 4: whether you've only had one teacher, and the teacher dies
Speaker 4: or they retire, or you leave and go off on
Speaker 4: your own, and you just don't have a teacher. So
Speaker 4: it's like but it's not like you don't have anything
Speaker 4: to learn anymore, right, And so if you're a teacher
Speaker 4: and most of your time is spent with your students,
Speaker 4: it's like, who are you going to learn from? You
Speaker 4: learn from your students. That doesn't mean they're telling you
Speaker 4: how to throw a punch or a kick, right, But like,
Speaker 4: just like as a as a person, and also sometimes
Speaker 4: as you know, people can ask questions. People who know
Speaker 4: the least can ask some of the most surprising questions.
Speaker 4: That's like oh yeah, or like, well I'm trying to
Speaker 4: explain it this way and that's worse worked the last
Speaker 4: ninety nine times. But then this person is an understanding
Speaker 4: it that way, So like I have to improve my
Speaker 4: understanding of the thing to find a way to explain
Speaker 4: it to that person or to teach that person or
Speaker 4: to see it another way.
Speaker 6: In judging for mantic gathering other card games, it's the
Speaker 6: exact same, and like there are certain like levels of
Speaker 6: achievement that you have to have taught others in order
Speaker 6: to get at. Yeah, it's the same philosophy. And I
Speaker 6: know that, like one thing we talk about a lot
Speaker 6: is that like a new student hasn't learned bad habits,
Speaker 6: and like right now in the judging world, so many
Speaker 6: of the practices that we do were based in a
Speaker 6: paper world where we had to hand out matchlips to everybody.
Speaker 6: And there've been a couple of times where like we've
Speaker 6: been shifting over to like handling all the like running
Speaker 6: of a tournament electronically, but we still did some things
Speaker 6: just out of habit, and then like a new person
Speaker 6: would be like, who'd never done the paper system would
Speaker 6: be like, wait, why are we doing this? And someone
Speaker 6: in charge'd be like, I have no idea why we're
Speaker 6: doing it, because we.
Speaker 4: Did it because this is as been done.
Speaker 6: No I I but pulling it back to Crees, I
Speaker 6: totally agree with that, and I love it. I think
Speaker 6: it's a very martial arts and learning kind of thing
Speaker 6: that he learns like that. And for me, it also
Speaker 6: puts paid to what was one of my biggest concerns
Speaker 6: about the end of last the last part of the season,
Speaker 6: which is that, like you know, as we've talked about,
Speaker 6: it's been constantly upping the stakes and up the stakes
Speaker 6: not being the stakes. And what is the higher steak
Speaker 6: than putting a student into a coma. It's having a
Speaker 6: student die. Yeah, Like that is the penultimate steak, you know,
Speaker 6: other than like starting a land war in Asia because
Speaker 6: of the martial arts. But like you know, like that's
Speaker 6: that's where we're gonna go. No Princess Bride reference is needed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just don't go against the Sicilian with death on theline.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And like I was really worried that they weren't
Speaker 6: going to give that event the attention that I thought
Speaker 6: it needed. And I thought the fact that the Sai
Speaker 6: Tai Kai was canceled felt very earned and very real,
Speaker 6: and that a lot of people didn't want it to continue.
Speaker 6: The speed with which it went back on was a
Speaker 6: little silly, but fair enough.
Speaker 4: I think it was months. I think it was supposed
Speaker 4: to be months though.
Speaker 2: Well, but in terms of the speed of like, it
Speaker 2: looks like it was one phone conversation and then you
Speaker 2: know turns.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: But I do think, very very intentionally, the person who
Speaker 6: was most affected by it, and I think cold broken by.
Speaker 4: It was Crease And we're fixed by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that too, like.
Speaker 6: And and for those who don't haven't seen it or remember,
Speaker 6: like the student dies because like a major brawl breaks out. Crease, like,
Speaker 6: while all the people are fighting, gets his knife and
Speaker 6: brings it into the situation, planning to stab Silver. I believe, yeah,
Speaker 6: because those two have been kind of a war for
Speaker 6: all these reasons. And then the knife gets knocked out
Speaker 6: of his hand, and Crease's young student grabs the knife
Speaker 6: and tries to kill someone. And in what I've coined
Speaker 6: is the new version of jumping over, the shark falls
Speaker 6: on his own knife.
Speaker 4: And in what let's just remind people was like an
Speaker 4: atrocity of a plot point, like those are just that
Speaker 4: whole sequence of dropping the naife.
Speaker 2: It's so contrived, was so badly done.
Speaker 6: But I feel like at least they paid it off
Speaker 6: because like what happened was, I feel like you're right.
Speaker 6: For Crease, there are three key students in his life.
Speaker 6: There's Johnny, who he has always seen as a failure
Speaker 6: in that like Johnny, he thinks quit but eventually comes
Speaker 6: to understand like, no, all the bad things about Johnny
Speaker 6: were things that Chris taught him, and that Johnny has
Speaker 6: now overcome that and become the better person. There's Silver,
Speaker 6: as you said, who's the one who became even worse
Speaker 6: than Crease? And then there's the kid who he killed,
Speaker 6: like who or he took action? Because as I saw it, it
Speaker 6: was never really spelled out too much. But I think
Speaker 6: that's good because I think it was subtle enough that
Speaker 6: I can still get it. I don't think Crease was like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, I brought in the knife and thus
Speaker 6: this kid died. I think it's that he was like,
Speaker 6: I taught this kid hate your enemy, no mercy, whatsever
Speaker 6: kill or be killed? And so of course this idiot
Speaker 6: kid took a knife into this fight and died, and
Speaker 6: like that that's the way.
Speaker 2: He feels responsible for his death.
Speaker 6: I think, very like legitimately, and I feel like that's
Speaker 6: the thing that kind of pushes him into seeing like
Speaker 6: and he spends this last season on an apology tour
Speaker 6: that at first I kept waiting for the shoe to
Speaker 6: drop of like what's his seat plot, but once you realize, like, no,
Speaker 6: he really means this. I think it was very much
Speaker 6: about what happened with Kwan. Lets him really understand what
Speaker 6: happened with Johnny and thus want to apologize to Johnny,
Speaker 6: want to apologize to Tori, want to apologize to all
Speaker 6: these people who's hurt.
Speaker 4: What do you think about the none of his apologies
Speaker 4: were really like accepted, Like he didn't really have that
Speaker 4: kind of like redemption. Yeah, I know, it just feels
Speaker 4: like it fits in with kind of things you've said about,
Speaker 4: like you know, somebody does all these horrible things and
Speaker 4: then they like say they're sorry and do like one
Speaker 4: nice thing, and like everyone's like, oh okay, everything's great,
Speaker 4: Like how did that feel to you? In terms of
Speaker 4: it felt much better?
Speaker 6: You know, like especially Johnny's response because and he his
Speaker 6: apology to Johnny is so heartfelt because we saw from
Speaker 6: the very beginning and like if you only watch the
Speaker 6: first Karate Kid movie, you never see this. But the
Speaker 6: second Karate Kid movie starts literally minutes after the end
Speaker 6: of the first one, where Danny is in the parking
Speaker 6: lot going out to celebrate his great victory, and he
Speaker 6: sees like sixteen seventeen year old Johnny being abusively attacked
Speaker 6: both like verbally and physically by his coach Crese in
Speaker 6: ways that are like, oh okay, go directly to therapy.
Speaker 6: This is going to fuck you up for your entire life,
Speaker 6: especially with what a fucked up daddy also had and
Speaker 6: all that kind of stuff and like and then a
Speaker 6: lot of Johnny's Johnny's own drama was learning, I think again,
Speaker 6: to end the cycle of violence of either wanting to
Speaker 6: please Crease or wanting to prove that he's better than
Speaker 6: Crease and being able to just put Crease aside totally.
Speaker 6: And to me, it perfectly lined up that Crease gives
Speaker 6: him this apology, explains that he knows just all the
Speaker 6: way he hurts him, but also because Johnny's gone through that,
Speaker 6: Johnny no longer needs Cris's approval and Johnny's like he's
Speaker 6: not mean to him necessarily was like, Okay, I gotta
Speaker 6: go take care of a fight, you.
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah. It felt right to me, you know,
Speaker 4: like I wanted them mostly it was it was Tory
Speaker 4: and Johnny right. Silver wasn't so much of an apology,
Speaker 4: more apologizing to the world for for having created Silver
Speaker 4: or led him in that direction. But I I wanted
Speaker 4: them to like listen to him because like, not that
Speaker 4: I expect I felt like they should in terms of
Speaker 4: like where they're coming from their history with him, but
Speaker 4: that he wasn't asking for forgiveness, you know, he just
Speaker 4: wanted them to know that he was sorry. He wanted
Speaker 4: them to know that he had come around to understanding, yeah,
Speaker 4: like their point of view and what he had done
Speaker 4: that had caused harm. And like, to me, that's something
Speaker 4: that like I really wish we had more of that,
Speaker 4: you know, where where it's not like the person apologizing
Speaker 4: shouldn't be trying to gain something out of the apology,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like it's no, it's an apology for
Speaker 4: the sake of the apology, because it's it's true, it's honest,
Speaker 4: and it's what needs to be said because it's true.
Speaker 4: And and so it did. It just felt right to me,
Speaker 4: you know, And I do think that they probably appreciated
Speaker 4: it on some level, and over time probably would more,
Speaker 4: but that he didn't need them to appreciate it, and
Speaker 4: they just now they know kind of you know that
Speaker 4: that's like where he ended.
Speaker 6: And to me, there's two real points there. One just
Speaker 6: on this idea of like not needing some thing. I've
Speaker 6: been rewatching er recently because it's kind of like just
Speaker 6: like fun background TV and watching the Pit got me
Speaker 6: into it. And there's a scene early in I think,
Speaker 6: like part way through season one, where one of the
Speaker 6: young doctors has a situation where a woman is dying
Speaker 6: and he kind of like blows off the husband's concerns
Speaker 6: and the husband's like desire to better understand the situation,
Speaker 6: and like, it's not that he could have saved her life,
Speaker 6: but he makes the experience of like her death a
Speaker 6: lot worse for the husband, and he like the husband
Speaker 6: yells at him about this, and he feels really guilty
Speaker 6: about it, and so he goes to her funeral and
Speaker 6: then like as they're walking away from the grave site,
Speaker 6: he goes up to the husband and gives this apology
Speaker 6: that is clearly heartfelt. And I was feeling myself getting
Speaker 6: mad at the show because I was like, I feel
Speaker 6: like the show is saying he's doing a nice thing here,
Speaker 6: but this feels really inappropriate. And instead he gives his
Speaker 6: whole apology, and the guy just looks at him and goes,
Speaker 6: you know, doctor, today isn't about you and walks right off,
Speaker 6: And I was just like that, no, that actually is perfect,
Speaker 6: and I don't think I put it together and listen
Speaker 6: to what you're saying. I think, what the thing is
Speaker 6: that what Chris does is it's not just that he
Speaker 6: says he was sorry, it is that he said he's wrong.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: With both Johnny and Tory, he told he said terrible
Speaker 6: things to them about who they are that have clearly
Speaker 6: haunted them for a long time. And I think with
Speaker 6: Johnny he's already kind of overcome it. Tory actually realized.
Speaker 6: I think he does have a big effect on because
Speaker 6: I think it's his speech to her largely that convinces.
Speaker 2: Her to go back and fight and participate.
Speaker 6: In the competition, and and and.
Speaker 4: And and but he and he's basically like, you should
Speaker 4: do this for you, right, you know, like, don't do
Speaker 4: this for me, don't do this for anybody else. You
Speaker 4: should do this for you because it's something you've put
Speaker 4: in so much work in, right, you know. And like that,
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure you do actually want to do so,
Speaker 4: like you know, right, I think.
Speaker 6: Where Sammy is like she wants the competition, and I
Speaker 6: will say to kind of well, actually, is there anything
Speaker 6: else you want to say about christ Thanks? I want
Speaker 6: to say something about how that competition played out.
Speaker 4: No, I think that that's pretty much yeah, you know, yeah.
Speaker 6: I do on some level, I like the idea that,
Speaker 6: like Robbie and Sam don't need to fight anymore, but
Speaker 6: Tory and Miguel do. But it also felt a little
Speaker 6: weird and how it was kind of set up, And
Speaker 6: I one thing we talked about a lot last week.
Speaker 4: You mean, Robbie and Tory do need to fight more?
Speaker 6: Let me take the whole thame. Yeah, so, and just
Speaker 6: go a little more on the Tory thing. I will
Speaker 6: say that I really liked this idea that, like, you know,
Speaker 6: Sam doesn't want to fight, Tory does want to fight,
Speaker 6: Robbie does want to fight but gets beaten, and then
Speaker 6: Miguel wants to fight and wins. And like they they've
Speaker 6: set up a lot of things about like Robbie versus
Speaker 6: Miguel and how they're like each of them is like
Speaker 6: in some way a son to Johnny, Like one is
Speaker 6: much more of an adopted son and he's kind of
Speaker 6: closer to in some ways, and the other is a
Speaker 6: biological son and all this complexity, and yeah, we've had
Speaker 6: a lot of it, and the fact that Tory is
Speaker 6: kind of the opposite of Sam there like no, she
Speaker 6: wants to compete, and they set up something nice also
Speaker 6: of like one of things we talked about a lot
Speaker 6: last season. Was this idea that like, you know, Stanford
Speaker 6: was only going to let him in if he wins
Speaker 6: this tournament. Yeah yeah, I love that, Like he gets
Speaker 6: the letter of acceptance before the fight is over, you know,
Speaker 6: like which was a really nice like, No, Stanford's not
Speaker 6: going to care about like this one specific competition, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean they definitely could like particular things, particularly on
Speaker 4: like a high level, like this is supposed to be
Speaker 4: some internationally televised you know thing like.
Speaker 6: But I think like if you came on second place,
Speaker 6: you're out, but if you come in first, you're in.
Speaker 2: Like that that level of like I have.
Speaker 6: To win or I won't get in, right, But they
Speaker 6: have kind of set it up as like mcguel and
Speaker 6: Sam are going to get to go off to college
Speaker 6: and have this really nice life, and then Robbie and
Speaker 6: Tori are like, well, they're high school dropouts, and clearly
Speaker 6: if they're not good enough to get into an IVY
Speaker 6: league or Stanford school, there's no other options for them.
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 6: Most contrived moment of the entire show, we're just saying
Speaker 6: so much that's it.
Speaker 4: That's a high bar and I'm not going to agree
Speaker 4: with this one, but go ahead. Okay.
Speaker 6: Someone comes up to them and it's like, hey, I
Speaker 6: liked how you fought. Can I offer you the fame
Speaker 6: and fortune contract that the muppets wanted. Sign here, and
Speaker 6: you'll be our new influencers and have lots of life
Speaker 6: changing money and you get to go around the world
Speaker 6: and basically do all the things that the woman of
Speaker 6: Myron Dragons you didn't like was doing, but not be
Speaker 6: a mean girl about it. It just felt so like, well,
Speaker 6: they don't go to college, They're going to do this
Speaker 6: other thing instead, and like there's nothing wrong with that,
Speaker 6: but just the split of like college or a job
Speaker 6: or i'm sorry, best colleges in the world or a job,
Speaker 6: and it being.
Speaker 2: So contrived the whole job a career, a career, a career.
Speaker 6: Right yeah, because that company will stick with them for
Speaker 6: years and years, right up to the moment they make
Speaker 6: a single like badly Understood tweet.
Speaker 4: I mean, okay, in terms of the dichotomy between either
Speaker 4: you get into like an Ivy League school or a
Speaker 4: top tier school or like you know, you're working at
Speaker 4: the Cinnabon or whatever, I mean, I agree with you
Speaker 4: on that point, in terms of it actually being that contrived,
Speaker 4: I don't like there are there are, you know, multi
Speaker 4: million dollar sponsorships for people who do things that other
Speaker 4: people like to watch, Like that's very real. And if
Speaker 4: this completely contrived tournament that really doesn't exist existed the
Speaker 4: way that they're putting it forward as existing, there would
Speaker 4: absolutely be not just like one random person like that,
Speaker 4: there would be like multiple companies being like, you know,
Speaker 4: do you have representation? You know, there'd be like agents
Speaker 4: and managers and whatever trying to get in touch with them. Now,
Speaker 4: they probably would have done that before they won whatever
Speaker 4: fight or whatever, you know, But I don't find that
Speaker 4: contrived in the larger sense in terms of you know,
Speaker 4: beat by beat storytelling. It was a little you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Mean I feel that, but there are people who have
Speaker 6: that contract form magic the gathering, Like right, totally things exist,
Speaker 6: but like all of those people probably got like one
Speaker 6: sponsorship gig, you know, and then like sponsored to like
Speaker 6: have their social media, Like there's a process generally, not
Speaker 6: like you go from zero to life changing career numbers.
Speaker 6: It just the way it was set up felt so
Speaker 6: very like here's the here, here's the happy ending with
Speaker 6: one quick signature.
Speaker 4: Didn't actually say what the amount is, right.
Speaker 2: They didn't. They said it was life changing career numbers.
Speaker 4: Sure, which I don't just be like six figures. That
Speaker 4: could be like low six figures to a high school kid,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, yeah, I think that. To me, I think
Speaker 6: it was about like fifty to one hundred thousand, Like
Speaker 6: I think it's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that seems completely credible to me in terms of
Speaker 4: what they built up this tournament to supposedly be internationally
Speaker 4: televised event, and in a world that supposedly there are
Speaker 4: martial arts events like this going around, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 4: that doesn't strain credulity with me the way it seems
Speaker 4: too with you.
Speaker 6: I think it's it in part because they're like, very
Speaker 6: much we want you to be a personality for us,
Speaker 6: We want you to be on so and they have
Speaker 6: no idea if people are any good at that, you know,
Speaker 6: and like, the ability to be a social media influencer
Speaker 6: based on your ability to do these things really well
Speaker 6: is very much not the same as your ability to
Speaker 6: do those things really well. That's just the way it
Speaker 6: was offered instead of like, hey, we want to give
Speaker 6: these opportunities and see how it goes, and like, you know,
Speaker 6: if things go well, we could bring you on in
Speaker 6: a full time basis, Like that would have made a lot.
Speaker 6: It just felt very like complete, you know, if you
Speaker 6: had like again, like to me, I think if the
Speaker 6: character of Zara had been less like cartoonishly bad sure
Speaker 6: to the point where she like drunk, you know, takes
Speaker 6: advantage of Johnny when she's drunk like Robbie and then
Speaker 6: like rubs her face in it, and you know all
Speaker 6: this stuff, Like if Tori had a conversation with her
Speaker 6: about like what is that, like you know, and like
Speaker 6: you know, they you saw that like plant the seed
Speaker 6: of interest and like you know that I think they
Speaker 6: could have set it up a lot more rather than
Speaker 6: it just being the end of the Muppet movie, here's
Speaker 6: your fame and fortune contract that it felt like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I guess, I just I still don't find
Speaker 4: it as I'm sure it's not any more realistic to
Speaker 4: how a situation like that would play out than you know,
Speaker 4: any of the martial arts fights were you know, but
Speaker 4: like you know, I mean I know a lot of
Speaker 4: people in the poker world who have like sponsorships and
Speaker 4: a lot of them. You know, it's not necessarily like
Speaker 4: these people are you know, highly skilled social media experts.
Speaker 4: You know. It really is a lot of the time
Speaker 4: like somebody is not so much that somebody is just
Speaker 4: so good at the thing, but like they're known for
Speaker 4: being so good at the thing, you know, and it's
Speaker 4: like they had that moment or whatever, you know, on
Speaker 4: camera and whatever. So I could definitely see some companies
Speaker 4: whatever trying to you know, cash in on something. But
Speaker 4: like you know, also there, you know, we didn't see
Speaker 4: the fine print.
Speaker 6: You know, it's a dumb thing to get upset about,
Speaker 6: but it was just but no, it was much more.
Speaker 6: How do you feel about the overall idea though, of
Speaker 6: like two of our people go off to these top
Speaker 6: man colleges and the other two like go off and
Speaker 6: thus have like karate is their career going forward?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that seems fine to me, you know, I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm a little disappointed that none of the students clearly
Speaker 4: became teachers, you know, because I think that would have
Speaker 4: been a much more I kind of thought Miguel would
Speaker 4: maybe because of the way he was coaching Robbie in
Speaker 4: Robbie's fight. I kind of thought Miguel was maybe going
Speaker 4: to become a teacher, like a martial arts instructor, you know,
Speaker 4: and if he didn't, you know, obviously, like you know,
Speaker 4: Stanford isn't the only college. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: my opinion of the education system is not particularly flattering.
Speaker 4: You know. I I'd certainly agree with the ridiculousness of well,
Speaker 4: either you get into one of these schools or like,
Speaker 4: you know, your prospects are dim, Like people get into
Speaker 4: these schools and their prospects are dim after they graduate.
Speaker 4: You know, that's the world we live in. Speaking of which,
Speaker 4: like did you here?
Speaker 1: Was?
Speaker 4: Here was my biggest thing?
Speaker 6: Okay, let me just one more thing on what you
Speaker 6: were just saying then, Yeah, but yeah, I like a
Speaker 6: scene of Miguel, a scene of Miguel like starting a
Speaker 6: student chapter at Stanford of Cobra Kai.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, that would have been cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: but then I feel like I didn't need like a
Speaker 4: den human like that long you know, yeah exactly, but
Speaker 4: but that would have been a cool scene. You know,
Speaker 4: you could have just gone like cut, cut, cut, like
Speaker 4: montage type deal, right, yeah, because you know, they showed
Speaker 4: they showed Danny doing stuff, right, and he's still teaching
Speaker 4: and whatever. Here was here was my thing that I
Speaker 4: thought was the least believable in this season. Do you
Speaker 4: really believe that in today's economy, Tory, with all of
Speaker 4: her final struggles, could really afford a dozen eggs.
Speaker 2: Pre Trump? Yes? Post Trump? No, okay, not in the
Speaker 2: world we're going.
Speaker 4: I guess this was filmed a while ago. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I was just like, she can't afford eggs. Also, like
Speaker 4: one vegan event, only one vegan vendor? No? I yeah, no.
Speaker 2: I specifically wrote to Paul when I'd see all that.
Speaker 6: I know he's they'd seen it already, and I was like,
Speaker 6: come on, yeah, that is actually a legit fight.
Speaker 2: There should be multiple.
Speaker 4: I will say, if I had ever had a vegan
Speaker 4: vendor at any of the martial arts events I gon too,
Speaker 4: I would have been thrilled.
Speaker 6: So yeah, but New York twenty years ago, thirty years
Speaker 6: ago versus Southern California today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anywhere twenty years ago, to be honest, compared to
Speaker 4: South California.
Speaker 6: The last thing I'll just say is because I think
Speaker 6: actually reminded me of kind of what I was trying
Speaker 6: to get at.
Speaker 2: They did kind of it did feel a little bit.
Speaker 6: All, like Robbie and Tory connected in part because they
Speaker 6: came from much more like lower class, broken home kind
Speaker 6: of situation. And say that like phrase like probably much
Speaker 6: better phrase than broken home. It's not that, but like
Speaker 6: both of them had parents who are addicts or were
Speaker 6: like really having a lot of problematic behavior. And like
Speaker 6: clearly Danny Samantha and her brother grew up in a
Speaker 6: much more affluent situation than Miguel did. But Miguel had like,
Speaker 6: you know, a mother who was helping him with his
Speaker 6: homework and was like, you know, at least like middle
Speaker 6: class of some degree or an other, you know, and
Speaker 6: in a.
Speaker 2: Much better situation.
Speaker 6: So it kind of would have liked it if like
Speaker 6: Tori or Robbie had also gotten to go to college
Speaker 6: or something like you know, oh sure, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it was part of it. Is that stratification
Speaker 2: that also made it feel kind of weird.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean it doesn't mean they can't go
Speaker 4: to college necessarily. You know, they can take a year
Speaker 4: off and do their thing and then they can go
Speaker 4: to college. And I mean I think colleges often have.
Speaker 2: Martial arts.
Speaker 4: I mean they'll have martial arts clubs for sure, but
Speaker 4: they might have competitive you know, competition teams or whatever.
Speaker 4: So that certainly seems like, you.
Speaker 6: Know, especially in the fantasy world where people in bars
Speaker 6: are around all over the world to watch.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Oh my goodness, it was
Speaker 4: like world Cup level event like this. But here's the thing,
Speaker 4: Like people watch boxing the pay per view whatever. You know,
Speaker 4: it's not absurd to think that that's something that could happen.
Speaker 4: It's just not something that does happen.
Speaker 2: I mean, like.
Speaker 6: To watch like adults do it. Yeah, totally believable, but
Speaker 6: like very few people watch the like sixteen year old
Speaker 6: Golden Gloves like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah no, But I mean like Olympics,
Speaker 4: people certainly watch teenagers in the Olympics, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, So I do think sort of one off event
Speaker 4: like that that was actually literally supposed to be the
Speaker 4: best in the world, right, I think I think there's
Speaker 4: a lot of things that could be broadcast and promoted
Speaker 4: in a way that people would watch them that aren't,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean we I don't want to like
Speaker 4: diverge a long tangent about like women's sports or whatever,
Speaker 4: you know, but like I think that's something where you know,
Speaker 4: twenty years ago, a lot of people thought, oh, nobody's
Speaker 4: ever gonna watch that, you know, and like some people
Speaker 4: did obviously, but like where you know, depending on something,
Speaker 4: how something's marketed, how it's promoted, what the access is
Speaker 4: like to it, you know.
Speaker 6: I think later the women's rugby league in the United
Speaker 6: States is getting started in Minnesota has one of the
Speaker 6: first six teams, and I'm probably planning to buy season
Speaker 6: tickets because like, I love rugby and women's rugby is awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And and so my point is mostly just like
Speaker 4: we never really know what the market for something is
Speaker 4: until there's a legitimate effort made to market it, right,
Speaker 4: and there's there's always conjecture, but a lot a lot
Speaker 4: of times the conjecture is dismissive, right, and then a
Speaker 4: lot of times that dismissiveness is proven to be wrong,
Speaker 4: you know. And so do we live in a world
Speaker 4: where something like this is currently getting televised and tons
Speaker 4: of people are watching it? No? Is it that hard
Speaker 4: to envision a world where something like this did actually
Speaker 4: become a big thing and like a ton of people
Speaker 4: watched it. I don't think it's that hard, you know,
Speaker 4: It's just it's not the world we live in, you know,
Speaker 4: but this is a world where Tory ken of four aches,
Speaker 4: So you.
Speaker 2: Know that's fair. That's fair. All right, we've gone on
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 6: There's tell you two of the last quick things I'm
Speaker 6: gonna do, so everyone, I'm basically getting all the bonus content.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 6: We're not gonna have bonus content the other this episode necessarily,
Speaker 6: but because there's two other quick quick hits that I
Speaker 6: want to bring up. One just again on the they
Speaker 6: avoided the low Hanging Fruit. One of the things you
Speaker 6: and I talked about earlier this season was this hope
Speaker 6: that like the fighting was all gonna be on the mat,
Speaker 6: that we're gonna get away from these like sword fights
Speaker 6: in people's homes and like mass melas in schools, and
Speaker 6: so as we get set up that the final fight
Speaker 6: is gonna be Johnny against uh Sensi Wolf since a
Speaker 6: lawrence for sense Wolf and all that, and then we
Speaker 6: get you know, Silver on his boat being wahaha, he's
Speaker 6: plotting this like, oh yeah, kidnap Johnny's wife and daughter.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my god, don't do this.
Speaker 4: I was not here for that.
Speaker 6: And then like nope, we're just gonna have our fight now,
Speaker 6: and I was like, oh, thank god, Like I was
Speaker 6: so happy for that.
Speaker 2: But then the last one, I.
Speaker 6: Kind of want to ask you about this because I
Speaker 6: think it's you were saying earlier that, like, you know,
Speaker 6: a coach can't do much, but one thing a coach
Speaker 6: can do is be like, hey, like this person's like
Speaker 6: favoring their left side, or like when they do like
Speaker 6: this kick, they kind of pause for a second and
Speaker 6: like this part of their body is exposed, and I like,
Speaker 6: I know enough about sports to know that that's how
Speaker 6: it works. And so I was really annoyed that the
Speaker 6: only time a coach did that, the coach was like, yeah,
Speaker 6: there's this one moment where his back is exposed, break
Speaker 6: his back, yeah, like and it was like and so
Speaker 6: as a result, the kid doesn't do them, doesn't take
Speaker 6: advantage of the vulnerability in the slightest and winds up losing.
Speaker 2: And this is axl against Miguel.
Speaker 6: And again that was to me where it was like,
Speaker 6: if you want to compete, if you really want to compete,
Speaker 6: you're evil, right, Yes, trying to intentionally do harm to
Speaker 6: their spine is horrific, but like if the backs of
Speaker 6: the legitimate target, and they're leaving their back vulnerable to
Speaker 6: an attack. A coach pointing out to a kid and
Speaker 6: the kid taking advantage that seems completely legitimate, right, Well.
Speaker 4: You're not allowed to hit to the back, okay, okay, no,
Speaker 4: but that doesn't mean you can't take advantage of it.
Speaker 4: You know, like there would be a more nuanced like, well,
Speaker 4: he's got a back injury, so you know when he
Speaker 4: does this or that, you know his body doesn't move
Speaker 4: quite the same way or whatever, you know, or just
Speaker 4: like a bunch of body shots might hurt the back.
Speaker 4: You know. It's I completely agree with the overall point though.
Speaker 4: That's like, so the only actual strategic coaching or like
Speaker 4: tactical coaching right where it's like try this technique that
Speaker 4: really was ever brought was like, you know, us an
Speaker 4: illegal attack to permanently injure your opponent. It's like, well
Speaker 4: that's no that yeah, you know, but to.
Speaker 6: Me, like even and even if like the person's going
Speaker 6: in with an injury, like okay, let's say like your
Speaker 6: opponent's right elbow is was you know, hurt a month ago.
Speaker 6: As a result, they're not getting the right hand high
Speaker 6: enough to defend their head the way they are left.
Speaker 6: Focusing on attacking the right side is not considered cheating.
Speaker 6: You're not not at all kicking the elbow to hurt specifically.
Speaker 6: It might not be the greatest, but like, hey, they
Speaker 6: have an injury, that's meaning they're not doing their best.
Speaker 6: I'm going to focus on that. Yeah, that's that's that's legit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I mean and causing an injury
Speaker 4: even that's not through illegal techniques, like I mean in taekwondo,
Speaker 4: like you can just sidekick someone in the art like
Speaker 4: if blocking hurts the blocker a lot of the time,
Speaker 4: a hard block, right, I mean, it can hurt the
Speaker 4: person who's who's striking, depending on how you're doing the block,
Speaker 4: and it can be a soft block that doesn't really
Speaker 4: cause any impact to speak of. But you know, you
Speaker 4: can hit someone's guard over and over and over and
Speaker 4: either cause bruising that like they're not gonna want to
Speaker 4: block in the same way anymore, or is going to
Speaker 4: cause fatigue and they're going to drop their guard and
Speaker 4: then you know you clip them in the face or whatever,
Speaker 4: and and that's not you know, or like you have
Speaker 4: an opponent who's like got a broken right foot and
Speaker 4: you're like, oh, well they're not going to kick you
Speaker 4: with that foot, you know, or like.
Speaker 2: That side and not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean the like people who know boxing know
Speaker 6: about like Muhammad Ali, one of his biggest strategies when
Speaker 6: he went want to against some bigger opponents was the
Speaker 6: whole like ropodope, but like let them hire themselves out
Speaker 6: punching you in the arms exactly. And I remember I
Speaker 6: got an argue with someone about this once was like,
Speaker 6: oh so Muhammedli wasn't a good physical fighter, just mainly
Speaker 6: out thought and I was like he had twelve rounds
Speaker 6: of being punched in the arm.
Speaker 4: I know that that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, really impressive.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, that's not some random person just trying to
Speaker 4: do that sort of ropodope, Like their arms are gonna
Speaker 4: get pummeled, they're going to drop their arms that they're
Speaker 4: gonna get punched in the face eventually, that's what's gonna happen. Yeah,
Speaker 4: for sure, for sure. But so yeah, I think taking
Speaker 4: advantage of someone else's injury is not It could be
Speaker 4: viewed as sort of a dishonorable whatever. There's a scene
Speaker 4: in Iman for where Donnie n Iman is like injured,
Speaker 4: and the other guy's like, oh, I see you have
Speaker 4: an injury there, so I will also put that hand
Speaker 4: behind my back now and then they fight sort of
Speaker 4: on even ground. But like, if you're in a competition,
Speaker 4: you're not doing that, you know, that's like that's and
Speaker 4: and so yeah, taking advantage of an injury, not by
Speaker 4: using illegal striking, but just playing within the rules is generally,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 6: Clearly, the part that I was missing was that kicking
Speaker 6: them in the back in general is not allowed.
Speaker 2: And I guess exactly you know.
Speaker 6: That that if the strategy is, hey, do this thing
Speaker 6: where you might get like docked a point because you
Speaker 6: accidentally kick them in the back, but you also end
Speaker 6: their ability to fight, Yeah, clearly that's not that's not
Speaker 6: yeah yeah, yeah, So all right, well, I think this
Speaker 6: is a good conversation. I am glad we went on
Speaker 6: this journey. I could have had enjoyed this journey if
Speaker 6: it was a couple of stops shorter.
Speaker 2: I think a three season.
Speaker 6: If I go back to Cobra Kai and probably watching
Speaker 6: like seasons one and two and the second and the
Speaker 6: end of season seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, one, two, and like six point three.
Speaker 2: Basically, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I feel like it could have
Speaker 4: been a nice three or four season arc, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean probably four. I think you could get four
Speaker 4: good seasons. Yeah, you know, you can do a lot
Speaker 4: of the stuff you did once. You know. The problem
Speaker 4: was just how many times they went to the same
Speaker 4: Well the last notes, just like I had a thing
Speaker 4: an argument about red mats, blue mats. I won. We
Speaker 4: got the red mats.
Speaker 2: They were great.
Speaker 4: The musical cues were on point.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: And I thought it was funny seeing Kevin Burkhart and
Speaker 4: Ryan Clark where Kevin Burkhart was on the you know,
Speaker 4: the Mets Baseball channel back in like two thousand and six,
Speaker 4: as like in the crowd, reporter in the crowd, like
Speaker 4: you know, secondary kind of announcer, and like now he's
Speaker 4: like a big he's a big enough international or national
Speaker 4: broadcaster that like he has a cameo in Cobra Kai. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It gid be a little bit of proud, like you
Speaker 2: guys know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, oh he made good, you.
Speaker 2: Know, exactly exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Last thing I'll say was, well, two last of the
Speaker 6: things I do wish we'd gotten the Neil Patrick Harris
Speaker 6: cameo for those who don't know, like part of how
Speaker 6: this all started, was it and How I Met your Mother?
Speaker 6: The character of Barney played by Neil Patrick Harris was
Speaker 6: obsessed with john and like thought that Johnny was the
Speaker 6: hero of that movie. And like the actor William Zabka
Speaker 6: like showed up in that as Johnny, and that kind
Speaker 6: of like sparked this a cultural moment of like, yeah,
Speaker 6: Johnny Lawrence, we loved him, why don't we hear about
Speaker 6: him more often? And the writers of the show, I've
Speaker 6: said that that moment led directly to this show, right
Speaker 6: right right. I would have loved to have Barney show
Speaker 6: up as like one of the people cheering Johnny arms up.
Speaker 2: For sure, and then.
Speaker 6: Yep, don't remember the last thing, so lips sent off there.
Speaker 6: Thank you Paul so much for me to PARTI this,
Speaker 6: Thank you everybody pleasure, The Larman prosper.
Speaker 4: The lag
Speaker 2: The Darkly Federation would not allow that