MovieChat Forums > Cobra Kai (2018) Discussion > Frankly the second season was pretty dis...

Frankly the second season was pretty disappointing.

posted 5 years ago by bond998 (1206)
10 replies | jump to latest

This show really works best when its a character study of Johnny Lawrence. But the latter half of this season turns into completely boring teen drama that i could totally do without. Its cool they brought back John Kreese. But they could have handled it a lot better then they did. All the conflict between Johnny and Daniel this time seem like a series misunderstanding with Danial jumping to conclusions. Hey Mr. Larusso, why don't you chill the fuck out and calmly explain just want the fuck is going on. And every time Daniel and Johnny get to being friends. The show has to throwing a monkey wrench into it. The ending was completely cartoonish. Where the fuck is all the faculty at school. And it only has one guard. Give me a break. What was good about this season was everything that was good about last season. Which was Johnny Journey to become less of an Asshole. Everything else was just dead weight. A lot more focus on Johnny conflict with Kreese and Danial (or maybe Danial/Johnny reaching an understanding). Would have been better than spending so much time his boring students love lives.

P.S. Unless Season 3 is Oscar Worthy. I don't think ill bother with it. Also Stingray was a bad joke.

[–] JohnnyCastle (393) 5 years ago

Season 2 was good but it felt incomplete. They need to get with Season 3 asap.

[–] beauq81 (1028) 5 years ago

The season was annoying. I got tired of both Johnny and Daniel acting like kids about serious stuff. The only really good part was with Johnny and his friends.

[–] SoCrates (869) 5 years ago

I liked season 2 for the most part.

The stuff between Johnny and Kreese was really good. Even in old age, Martin Kove still has it. Still menacing as hell.

Daniel trying to find a way to help other kids like Mr. Miyagi helped him was good to see.

Johnny reuniting with the other Cobra Kai was great, especially the bar fight.

Stingray was definitely the worst part.

That fight at the end would never happen, at least not with the active shooter protocols schools have now. There would've been so many cops flooding those halls.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Yes, that was one of the very good parts.

I mean, how the two doujous had different philosophies and approaches - Cobra Kai was gimmicky and flashy, with the brick-breaking (Mr. Miyagi was paraphrasing Bruce Lee, when he said in the second movie something like "I have never been attacked by a tree" - Bruce Lee originally said in a movie, "Boards don't hit back"), and Johnny was trying to evolve the old, merciless and brutal cruelty into something more balanced and thus even more effective, because sometimes you can just avoid a fight without having to go through the effort to actually fight.

(Bruce Lee had the concept of 'fighting without fighting' - but you can also think of a powerful authority figure that people wouldn't dare defy - and this authority figure can defuse a situation just by his presence - some people are like that naturally)

Miyagi-dō (I think it should have the line on top of the 'o') doesn't really need to gather lots of students, as Daniel doesn't need more money, he's already wealthy, and the reason and motivation for teaching karate is different, so he can just wait for 'those that need it' to come to it.

Daniel slowly coming to this realization and Johnny slowly molding the philosophy after seeing his son brutally hurt in the tournament due to the old 'No Mercy'-crap, was a REALLY good and well-done bit in the second season.

Seeing these two rivals understand things and get these insights and then put that wisdom to action is just really satisfying.

Then the teen drama happens or Stingray can't open a door, or suddenly the budding friendship of Daniel and Johnny is destroyed by some weird misunderstanding and Daniel being a hothead again (even with all that meditation), instead of listening to reason, so punches have to be exchanged...

..so the Season builds itself up carefully, then smashes everything to little pieces. I don't get it, they could've kept building, it was getting so good.

[–] TandyMan (10679) 5 years ago

Yeah, my awareness of current times really kept me from enjoying the big school fight, which would have been a pretty big stretch even if presented in the 80s. And that's a big west coast school with a lot of money. The movie veered off straight into fantasy land at that point. Which works if you're making a kung fu movie. But this is otherwise a fairly realistic and grounded show. They saved it by ultimately having drastic consequences for the event. But this show slipped the noose by a fraction of an inch. That said, it was pretty fun to watch. It was still good tv.

And that's pretty much what I thought about the whole second season. A mixed bag of some great moments and absurd ones, but ultimately still very enjoyable to watch. Johnny is so slavishly devoted to the 80s it's like he tumbled out of a time machine. Which makes for great humor, but isn't realistic and so it no longer feels like a deep character study for him. They toned down the edginess of the first season, and juiced up the teen drama, and soap opera style teen drama at that. The show was using the values of the 80s as sort of a looking glass to examine the values of today. It was very clever. Now we're getting something more like Degrassi with a lot of forced nostalgia. It feels clumsy, not organic.

A passable sophomore season. The show hasn't yet drifted too far off course. My biggest issue with the season was all of the themes and character arcs were just rehashed from the first season. It had nothing new to say. It's a weak "sequel", but a perfectly serviceable second chapter. So long as we're actually getting somewhere good.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

You are right - the school-fight was completely unrealistic on so many levels, I couldn't even list them all.

But to mention just one detail, NO ONE would ever push a pretty girl 'back into a fight' and yell something like "Get back in there!" and laugh.

There would be 2000 simps trying to protect the girl from being beaten up, in 0.01 seconds.

Also, this huge crowd of people, and NO ONE just simply grabs the fighters and tries to stop the fight and talk some sense into them? Come on.

What kind of sense does it make for the evil hag to get so upset that Daniel's daughter kissed the guy - - - that the evil hag then PUNCHES anyway? What the ..

[–] kenburke (2309) 5 years ago

I thought Season 1 was good and Season 2 was VERY good.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8464) 5 years ago

Wut?

[–] ASACWHITE (411) 5 years ago

The problem with this show is it's too short need more episodes in 40 minute to 50 minute long episodes

[–] Alex (1495) 5 years ago

All the fighting because a girl kissed a boy and his gf got mad. ROFLMAO!!!
I was like:" Wait, when did the channel switch CW?"