Am I supposed to be laughing at this? Because this isn't meant to be serious, right?
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That was me while watching a few episodes of Cobra Kai, the TV series spin-off from 1984's Karate Kid movie. It was made by YouTube a few years ago and is now getting a run on Netflix.
I saw those episodes a few days ago and have been thinking about the show ever since. And I still don't know if they're trying to be funny or not.
Part of me thinks the makers have their tongue deeply embedded in their cheek and are sending out a subtle message - "you're a clever guy, you know we're totally taking the mickey here".
But there's another part of me that thinks American TV shows don't have much of a history of subtlety or placing their tongue anywhere near their cheek. And that part of me figures, yes, they're being very serious here.
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In Cobra Kai, you have Johnny (played by the same actor as in Karate Kid) the bad guy Daniel-san defeated at the end of the original Karate Kid film. His life is crap; he's angry, divorced, living in a dingy apartment where he drinks every night.
It's never explicitly stated but it's very, very heavily implied that Johnny's life started going downhill from the moment Daniel beat him. We see him still thinking about that fight - which happened more than three decades ago. He even drives out to the venue that held the bout so he can feel sad.
The show is set in 2018 and the writers seriously want us to believe a grown man is still upset about some sporting contest he lost way back in 1984. See, that has to be a joke, right?
Daniel is still living in the same city too; he's a successful car dealer who makes karate jokes in his TV ads. Because he also seems to have spent the last 30 years thinking about some sporting event from the 1980s.
So much so that when a lame plot contrivance gets Johnny into Daniel's showroom, he's introduced to some of Dan's employees. One of them says "Oh, is this guy you beat in that karate match?". Like, what sort of adult tells their work colleagues about some stupid comp they won when they were 15?
See, that just can't be serious, right? Surely they have to be joking with stuff like that.
Man, I am so confused.