#Miguel & Tori are still cute but only for the one episode and a lot of it is that they seem good friends... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

trifle-of-doom · 4 years ago

Text

The Hawk X Demetri Manifesto

Okay, here is the thing. Despite being well past my teens, there's a particular ship of Cobra Kai that has drawn my attention, this ship being Hawk/Eli x Demetri. When I first watched the show, I was actually more invested in the adult characters storylines than the teens. I immediately rooted for Johnny and Carmen, and I was always hoping for more interactions between them. But then I saw episode 2x05, in which the atmosphere between the Binary Brothers becomes way more dense, and that's when I started to see some potential for them. Not because I'm a deranged person who fosters abusive relationships, but because I immediately caught the hurt/comfort dynamic of the duo, which is something that works really well when it comes to fictional relationships. However, it wasn't until 3x10 that I said, "Ok, that's official, I need to see more of these two! I totally support them!" And I was quite surprised to find a fairly large amount of people who are very committed to this pairing, to the point it's caught the attention of the screenwriters/producers as well. Honestly, I don't know if the showrunners will ever have the guts to make them an official couple, and chances are their supporters will have to keep reading between the lines of their bromance, but in any case, here is my take on why Hawk/Eli x Demetri is an option worth to be considered.

#1 - The Bromance

If there's something that many years of navigating the Internet taught me, is that the main driving factor for fan-made ships is the presence of either a solid relationship based on mutual brotherly love or a bitter rivalry that may or may not flow into hate/obsession. If you consider anime fandoms, there are thousand examples that fit into either of these categories: Yugi and Jonouchi from the Yu-Gi-Oh series (yes, that's how old I am), Yugi and Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, Sakuragi and Rukawa from Slam Dunk, Light and L from Death Note, etc. And our Hawk and Demetri fit into both categories. When we first see them, they are the stereotypical nerdy friends (possibly childhood friends?) sitting at the losers' table, who have no one else but each other. When Eli is at his most sensitive and fragile, you can tell he feels comfortable being with Demetri by the genuine smile he has on his face as Demetri is joking with Miguel at the canteen table. Through his sarcasm, the mouthy kid acts as a catalyst to deviate the attention from Eli, speaking for him, reprimanding Johnny when he makes fun of his lip and trying to make him feel safe. Besides, you can see a certain degree of frustration in Demetri when Kyler and his gang are harassing Eli, and he's unable to do anything to defend him. And they even have a jingle for their friendship with a robot dance, I mean, how cute is that? But of course, a solid friendship between two helpless nerdy guys is not enough to spark a ship to be rooting for. In order for the magic to happen, another key ingredient is needed, i.e. a little bit of angst. Which brings us straight to the next point.

#2 - The Angst (aka the Hurt/Comfort Dynamic)

Even though I never liked the Twilight saga or any similar urban fantasy young adult works, I can easily see where the appeal comes from; the attraction to a charming, dangerous person who could either protect you from any harm or crush you like grape. Although with different franchises, I wasn't immune to the bad boy trope either (Yes, I'm looking at you, my teenage self drooling over Grimmjow from Bleach). If we can appreciate the genuine, brotherly friendship between nerdy Eli and Demetri, the shift that Eli makes as he transitions into Hawk and becomes more aggressive and dominant gives their relationship a totally different flavor. Attrition sparks a certain tension that, in the viewer's eyes, could either flow into a brawl or into passion.

During the mall fight, Demetri comes to the realization that his former best friend is actually someone who can crush him like grape. We see Hawk intentionally harming him for the first time, and Demetri's heartbreaking expression as he drops the line: "You'd actually hurt me?" And if that line gave us a pang in our hearts when we first watched Season 2, imagine rewatching it now that we know what happens in Season 3. Demetri is chased down the mall, running for his life, and then he's locked in a grip, as his best friend menacingly advances towards him. Demetri appears as the damsel in distress, however his friend is not the one who will fight to protect him, but rather his tormentor.

During the party at Moon's, Demetri manages to briefly go through Hawk's mask and reach out to Eli, thanks to a casual conversation about Dr Who. But then the beer incident happens, and Demetri defends himself with the only weapon he has – his loudmouth. The situation is reversed, and for a brief moment, he gets to be the dominant one as he discloses all Eli's most intimate secrets. Demetri is now actively contributing to the Hurt/Comfort dynamic; he's no longer just a target, but he's doing his part to enlarge that gaping hole that has formed between them. And Hawk didn't take it well.

From this moment on, Demetri becomes a sort of obsession to Hawk, who hunts him down the school, teasing him and taunting him sadistically, like a serial killer from a horror movie, during the big fight. Of course, in real life, this would be completely insane, and the police/a social assistant/psychiatrist should be called, but in ShipLand, these situations are pure gold. Okay, we get it, Hawk wants to get revenge for the humiliation at the party, and he wants to crush that nerd part of himself he sees in Demetri, but he does it with such an intensity that it borders on ridiculous. It's like this is his twisted way to acknowledge Demetri's presence. Eventually, Hawk ends up smashed into the trophy case, and I confess I felt a little disappointed when Demetri broke that hug to give Hawk a roundhouse kick. I mean, it was a great comeback, but I was sincerely hoping for a "No hard feelings man, let's get outta here!" scenario.

Getting back to the sick and twisted way Hawk acknowledges Demetri's presence, he destroys his science project after he got jealous due to him being confident in his nerd self and laughing around with his ex girlfriend (whom the writers insist he still has a crush on). Speaking of Moon, I have a feeling she likes Hawk mostly based on his badass appearance. Remember when she goes "I like this (mohawk) and I love these (muscles), but I'm not dating a bully"?

Then the football match happens. Okay, let's break this down. Demetri trips Hawk and acts all sassy, and a fellow Cobra Kai is immediately ready to take him down, but Hawk stops him. "Fight smart, he says". Too bad that literally 5 seconds earlier he had shoved a kid to the ground just because his ex girlfriend (again, duuuh~) ignored him when he winked at her. And then, as he's trying to intercept the ball, BANG, Hawk hits Demetri, sending him to the ground, pretending it was an accident. So, what does this tell us? That Hawk has some serious anger management issues? Yeah sure, but also that he cares about fighting smart only as long as it serves as an excuse to leave Demetri for him, because he's his designated target. Again, this is all but romantic, and it doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted as him lusting after his friend, but it's undeniable that this dynamic offers a lot of ship fuel.

The arm breaking thing is just too painful to even analyze. We see a completely helpless Demetri begging for mercy to his ex best friend, who has made No Mercy his life motto. And that scream, oh that scream. All I wanted to see was Hawk realizing what he had done and throwing himself on his knees while begging for forgiveness. But I'm glad that at least we get to see he feels awful for what he's done, and I like to think that, as he got home, Eli cried out all the tears he had in his body thinking about poor Demetri at the hospital, with a swollen broken arm, all because of him. Of all the situations, this is undoubtedly the most deranged and extreme, and if something like this happened in real life, the wrongdoer would deserve to be punished and would definitely need to be sent to therapy. But in ShipLand, this opens the road to many, many different scenarios, in which the bully understands his mistakes and shifts back to the good side, or the two share a tender moment after they reconcile, or the traumatized character has to to learn to trust the other one again, or the bully becomes overprotective of his former victim, etc.

#3 - A Rewarding Reconciliation

Finally, we come to the reconciliation, in which Hawk makes his heel-to-face turn. While we've seen him torn with doubt for an entire season about his sensei's teachings, his actions and the people he wants to surround himself with, the key factor that drives Hawk's redemption is the sight of his best friend being held down for him to beat. And with an epic stunt and his awesome KEEEH screech, Hawk jumps to the rescue of his friend. Like many of us, Demetri thought this was still part of the "Only I Can Torment Him" dynamic I discussed earlier, as he steps backwards a little concerned, but then he understands that action was actually meant to save him, and the two begin to fight side by side, in sync, watching each other's back. You can see Demetri's eyes sparkling at the thought of having his friend back.

Also, not only Demetri stands up to alpha bitch Tory in defense of Eli, but he also speaks for his friend when he's faltering, just like he used to. So kudos for Demetri.

#4 - The Red Oni, Blue Oni Dynamic

Binary Brothers are two sides of the same coin and complete each other with opposite character traits, visually expressed by the color red and the color blue. Being the color red typically associated with violence, rage, passion and irrationality, as opposed to blue, which is associated with calmness, melancholy and rationality, red is clearly the dominant color. Again, this opens many interesting scenarios for shippers.

#5 - Body Language

Besides the situations I described above, which may or may not be read from a romantic/attraction standpoint, there are also a collection of small gestures I noticed when rewatching the series with a more attentive look on their relationship.

- Demetri's heart-broken expression when Eli shamefully covers his lip during the anti-bullying announcement.

- The smile Demetri gives when Hawk responds "Hell yeah!" after Aisha proposes to crash Yasmin's party, implying he's learning to embrace this new wild side of his best friend

- The astonished look with which Demetri watches Hawk at the tournament and the way he's pissed no one knows his real name.

- How deeply hurt Demetri is when Hawk belittles him by saying: "Five against three. More like two and a half." He even tries to reply, but he's caught so off guard that words die in his throat.

- How Demetri takes a step towards Hawk during the mall fight, before Sam makes him back off, and how sadly he looks at Hawk's nearly unconscious body after Robby defeated him.

- How Demetri smiles and nods when he briefly connects with Eli at Moon's party, despite the mall incident.

- How Hawk watches Demetri juggle with the cleaning product from behind his bike helmet (how did he stuff the mohawk in there by the way)?

- Hawk's psychotic/sadistic faces when he smells Demetri's blood, and how he likes to hunt him down like he's his prey.

- Hawk's secret impulse to comfort Demetri after the arm breaking (I hope you get nightmares of Demetri's howl of pain for the rest of your life, Hawk).

- The way Hawk twitches his upper lip when he sees his friend Demetri in danger.

- How Hawk and Demetri are so absorbed in their new-found friendship, that they're caught off guard, and Demetri swings Hawk to allow him to deliver a kick using their handshake as a lever. And how they keep fighting together, shaking each other's hands even when they're out of focus and the attention is on Miguel vs. Kyler.

- How they're standing so close at Miyagi Do, in comparison with the other Red/Blue partners.

In conclusion, this kind of relationships are engaging and entertaining to watch, and they make us wish the best for the characters. They make us hope that, in the end, as Miguel puts it, love really conquers all (and what is friendship if not a form of love?), despite all the hurt they did to each other.

So this is it. I hope you enjoyed my Ted Talk. Feel free to share it with whomever you want, especially if you need some solid reasons why this ship has got some good potential.

And remember: the ship is in the eye of the beholder.

#HawkMeat #Hawk x Demetri #Cobra Kai #Eli Moskowitz #Demetri #binary brothers

42 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

Cobra Kai: Inside That Surprising Season 3 Cameo

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The following contains spoilers for Cobra Kai season 3.

When Tory Nichols (Peyton List) first appeared in Cobra Kai, she was the best red herring ever. She introduced herself in season 2 episode 4 “The Moment of Truth” as “Tory… with a ‘Y’” and every fan of the original film went ballistic. In The Karate Kid, Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) introduced herself to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) as “Ali… with an ‘I’” so we all wondered if Tory might be Ali’s daughter.

Then season 3 leads us on even more. In the second episode of this season, “Nature vs Nurture,” there’s a scene set in Tory’s apartment. She is caring for her invalid mother, but her mom is off screen. We don’t see her. Why would they hide her if she wasn’t Ali?

Well, it wasn’t Ali. But Ali makes a glorious return all the same in episodes 9 and 10, “Feel the Night” and “December 19” and she’s far from being an invalid. As Johnny says, she looks “amazing.” She opens her reappearance in the penultimate episode by saying “It’s good to be back.”

Dr. Ali Mills Schwarber

Just like Johnny and Daniel, every fan of the Karate Kid franchise still burns a candle for Ali. She was “beyond cute” as Daniel said back in the day, plus she had a fierce independence, defiant against social class snobbery as the privileged Encino cheerleader who fell for the poor Reseda new kid. Ali was way out of Daniel’s league, perhaps out of Johnny’s too. The Karate Kid was Shue’s first major film role and she shined. Previously she had been featured in a Burger King commercial alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lea Thompson. Eleven years after The Karate Kid, Shue’s talent was recognized with a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Leaving Las Vegas.

In a conversation with Den of Geek prior to the premiere, Cobra Kai stars Macchio and Zabka revealed that they were just as excited as the fanbase was to get Shue back in the fold.

“Oh, it was great working with her again,” said Zabka. “We got along really well on The Karate Kid and I bumped into her over the years. I never thought we’d be back together, working as Johnny and Ali, certainly. But working with her was just like picking up, playing tennis with an old partner. It was natural and fun and great and easy. We laughed a lot. We couldn’t believe it. There’s a special bond we all share from that time, like high school best friends or your college friends. Those kinds of relationships snap back effortlessly, and pick up where they left off and that’s what it was.”

“Yeah, there is a sweet kind of connection,” agrees Macchio, “something that’s kind of unspoken because we all came out of this film that has become way bigger than any of us, as far as the consciousness in the world, consciousness in the love for that story. So, we share that and it’s kind of unspoken. And so it was really kind of wonderful to tap into all that.

“When we were shooting, she said, ‘I forget how natural a partner you are to work with.’ Because it was 30-something years ago, and I felt the same way. There was an ease of which we connected just like Billy is talking about.”

Returning to Golf ‘N’ Stuff and the Encino Oaks Country Club

When Johnny reunites with Ali, they have “35 years of stuff to say.” They meet for lunch and in a moment of honesty, Johnny confesses how he screwed everything up to her, apologizing for taking her for granted back in the day, including running over her radio. Ali reciprocates by telling him that she’s separated from her ex, Greg, opening the door to rekindling their relationship. In another scene, after Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) tells Daniel that Johnny told him Ali was his first love. Daniel says she was his first too. “There was just something about her,” says Daniel. “I thought she was the one.”

After lunch, Ali and Johnny go to Golf ‘N’ Stuff, the same arcade Daniel and Ali went to for their first date.

“During some of our date at Golf ‘N’ Stuff, we just laughed most of the time and got to know each other even better and what’s happened over the years for us personally, which fed into these performances together,” Zabka says.

The characters discuss their kids, Johnny’s son Robbie (Tanner Buchanan) and Ali’s, Lucas, who excels at soccer (soccer plays a major component in The Karate Kid, as well as in season 3 episode 4 of Cobra Kai “The Right Path”) and Ava, who is in a punk band. Ali invites Johnny to a party at Encino Oaks Country Club, another great throwback to The Karate Kid. The Encino Oaks Country Club was where Daniel tried to meet Ali but Johnny blocks him and Daniel ends up covered in spaghetti in his all white outfit. In the Cobra Kai finale, Johnny narrowly misses getting spaghetti spilled on him when he arrives at the club in a white Scarface-style sports jacket.

Ali Did NOT Wreck Daniel’s ’47 Ford

For Shue, Cobra Kai gave closure to something that has bothered her for three and a half decades. Ali only appeared in The Karate Kid and at the end, Daniel and Ali made a cute couple. However, when the sequel began, Shue had moved on. She had already put her college education on hold to pursue acting, leaving Harvard one semester shy of her degree (she eventually returned to earn her B.A in Poli-Sci in 2000).

After The Karate Kid, she starred in the ABC TV series Call to Glory and landed the lead role in Adventures in Babysitting soon after. Shue never returned as Ali and the character was unceremoniously written out. At the start of The Karate Kid Part II, Daniel tells Miyagi that Ali crashed his precious waxed on, waxed off ’47 Ford that Miyagi gave him and dumped him for a football player. That cleared the way for Daniel to fall for Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita) in the sequel, but it left Ali in the lurch.

In the Cobra Kai season 3 finale, Ali spies Daniel at the Encino Oaks Country Club and greets him with how he introduced himself to her in the original, “Daniel…with an ‘L.’” When Johnny joins them, they are immediately at odds. Ali feels the tension and starts diffusing it, asking if she’s going to have to put them both on a time out. Then Daniel’s wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) shows up and Ali shares tales of their senior year. She explains that she didn’t leave Daniel for a football player (he was just a friend) and that she had warned him about the brakes failing. Daniel denies telling Miyagi otherwise, even though he did.

“For her, for Ali and Daniel, it ended in such an odd way at the beginning of The Karate Kid Part II,” says Macchio. “It was sort of like a one-line write-off of her character, and I know that bothered her over the years. It may have bothered everyone.”

Nevertheless, working with Shue again was a special treat. As Ali, she got to help resolve a feud that was mostly sparked by her character. Macchio explains, “We laughed together and it was sweet to be the three of us, kind of for the first time, playing scenes that weren’t about, “I’m going to kill you LaRusso,” and, “You’re such a jerk, Johnny Lawrence.” And it was kind of a nice for her to sort of facilitate them seeing clearer through the fog of who they actually were, meaning Johnny and Daniel.”

Ali works her magic on the boys and manages to get them to reconcile. It’s something that seemed inevitable, but only Ali could achieve it. “The truth is you guys are more alike than you want to admit,” says Ali sagaciously. And she would know.

If Ali Isn’t Tory’s Mom, Who Is?

This all leaves one outstanding mystery. Who is Tory’s mom? If Cobra Kai is looking to place more Easter eggs, there aren’t a lot of female characters left in the franchise. Could it be Jessica Kennedy (Robyn Lively) from Karate Kid Part III? She was originally scripted to be Daniel’s third love interest but at the time of filming, Lively was only 17. Macchio’s Karate skill lies in his baby face. He was already 22 when he first played the teenage Daniel. And by the time of the threequel, he was 27. Since Lively was a minor, Jessica’s relationship with Daniel was rewritten to be a close friend.

Another possibility for Tory’s mom might be Miyagi’s other pupil, Julie Pierce, from The Next Karate Kid, the fourth and final film in the Miyagi tetralogy. That was the breakthrough role for Oscar winner, Hilary Swank. The Next Karate Kid lacked any of the characters from the previous films except for Morita and it was transplanted from Los Angeles to Boston. This killed that magical chemistry between Daniel and Miyagi. The fourth film flopped. Nevertheless, Swank’s burgeoning talent was evident. Despite a mediocre story, Swank’s performance as Julie shines as the only redeeming aspect of the film. So far, Cobra Kai hasn’t ventured into Julie territory yet, but it would be so cool if it did.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Perhaps Tory’s mom won’t be significant in season 4. It could never hold a candle to Ali. Ali’s return made the conclusion of season 3 into one of the best episodes of the entire series. And the door is wide open for Ali to return again next season. The fanbase is hopeful. As Ali says, “Sometimes it’s good to visit the past, to know where you are now. But you can’t live in the past.” Score a point for Mills.

Cobra Kai season 3 is available on Netflix.

The post Cobra Kai: Inside That Surprising Season 3 Cameo appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3o9u7F0

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

1 note · View note