#i also skipped all the cobra kai and all the teen scenes and that also made me enjoy it more

[youandthemountains]

Rewatching:

- still hate the miyagi do sequence bc it's soooo. It feels so embarrassed about the fact that tkk is part of their source material? And the miyagi is a badass line 🙄 Daniel drinking beer and ENJOYING a blue moon? Literally he's rich enough and prissy enough to have better taste 🙄 the ~ooh didn't you teach him English line that made me wanna drown Johnny. The WASP really jumped out of him there.

- Daniel definitely thought Johnny brought him to the warehouse as a sex thing. I'm not convinced he's wrong. Ugh Johnny talking about real men not getting cucked he definitely found 4/ch/an.

- Johnny talking about Daniel's soft hands while staring at Daniel's ass as he does push ups in front of him. 👀 But Daniel wincing as his knuckles hurt on plywood 😭

- put your fangs in those balls. jfc dude just ask him to blow you.

- I.... Hate eagle fang Daniel 😞 ~thats my wife~ who are you.

- wouldn't the soles of his feet still hurt

- Johnny clearly just wanted to go on a date

- i do love the Daniel and Miguel relationship a lot

- to be perfectly honest Johnny, if you did everything your parents wanted you to do you definitely wouldn't have needed to pretend to have a job. (Obviously that would have been terrible bc his stepdad is evil but let's be accurate about what it would have looked like here.) Also very funny that ~following your passion is eagle fang when that is, in my opinion, the most obnoxious rich white new age kid advice. Accidentally accurate.

- god I love mechanic Daniel. Hot take I actually love Larusso Auto scenes

- Daniel's so good with genuine life advice. I feel like as much as they try to give us Actually He Was Poor Johnny, the class they grew up in really shows here. Daniel going there's gotta be some way even if it's weird and sucks, Johnny like well I won't do something I don't Love like a sucker in an office. I've literally only got that speech from trust fund kids.

- look I'm a sucker for outwitting your way out of a dead end, I love the fishing lesson

- that's definitely not what he told you Daniel lmao

- Johnny not even responding to 'miguel spending all that time with him lets us spend time together' in favor of talking about Iceman's abs. Carmen baby please!!! You're a gorgeous nurse you don't have to do this to yourself!!!

- ok the it's not good to carry secrets/what if it just makes things worse is definitely about coming out

- Carmen you're allowed to make active decisions about your life and your relationship with your kid

- this is a bad season bc they didn't give us another long thirsty shot of Daniel bent over a car with his pants straining

- Sam.... Awful but also you're such a baby lesbian.

- Tory hurt that Sam doesn't respect her fighting 😭

- ok but for real wtf was that kids party. Where did they hold it?

- I kind of love Robby with self confidence this season

- jealous Tory 😔

- tell me more about the chef Daniel's friends with 🧐

- did Daniel force the kids to go into the dojo? Who do we think Johnny thinks this is?

- Daniel is absolutely low grade panic attacking though this conversation. Story wise I get it but Daniel getting hammered alone while his nightmare is back and the ally he thought he had wants to fight too :-(

- aw Louie and Anoush care about Daniel in their own way

- I do wish they had included the 'you ever think your teacher might be wrong' line as a flashback to go with Johnny's line

- Miguel really is the only person that can get through to Johnny huh

- I love Amanda so much and I love how human they let her be.

- Daniel's conversation with Robby :-(((( the silver convo. literally leave him alone.

- leoh's post about how this show understand's Daniel as Ralph Macchio Famous for being The Karate Kid rather than Daniel Larusso: a kid who had to fight one tournament with a few weeks of training as a hail Mary to not get the shit kicked out of him then got manipulated into another is the Most Correct thing ever written

- Daniel trying to teach Anthony with video game speak - I'm charmed. Dork.

- when's Daniel going to realize miyagi was more than karate 😭 he loved you!!! You can tell your kid it's because you love and miss him and want him to carry his love too bby

- the thing is Daniel really is an Only Child & it sounds like Amanda was too. Only Child Syndrome is real and serious.

- miyagi being the first one to hold the Larusso kids 😭😭😭

- I do like conflicted Anthony

-blughhhh male role models 💀 I know I know this is male role models: the tv show but jfc

- I hate the way this show writes Lucille. Who is this. This is a generic mother in law character

- I love that Johnny's at all these family events lmao

- I KNEW Anthony was his grandma's favorite

- lmao for a minute I was like does Carmen even know Johnny has a kid.

- the silver's a creepy rich guy storyline is actually good but makes me extra 😭😭😭 about Johnny and Amanda both just brushing off daniel telling him the kk3 story

- I love Julia so muuuuuch

- lmao Daniel really Married a Johnny in Amanda huh. The This Is the Test scene but also the slapping Kreese and taking a baseball bat to the wrong target of her rage

- Chozen walking up only having eyes for Daniel 🥵 the implication he was just letting Daniel have his space with Miyagi and stood there watching that conversation 🥵🥵🥵

[shrinkthisviolet]

My Overall CK S5 Review

Okay so!! I’ve had thoughts percolating in my brain since I watched the season over the weekend, and here’s my attempt to combine them into something coherent.

First of all, let me say this, spoiler free: the season is a great experience imo. There were things I didn’t like, but honestly, I enjoyed this season more than s4! Especially the fight scenes, those were incredible. If you didn’t enjoy this season, I totally get why, but after s4, my bar was so low and this season definitely went over it 😂 so I’m happy.

Beyond that…spoilers below the cut, so don’t click if you don’t want those.

So I’m gonna start with the bad and end with the good. The bad:

The Johnny-Miguel-Robby arc. Literally the only parts I liked were the parts without Johnny in them: the Miguel-Robby heartfelt talk, backing each other up in Cobra Kai, etc. But…the stuff with Johnny didn’t land.

Johnny basically told Robby he was only making amends “so he didn’t have to live with regret”…aka he’s making this about himself yet again, not about Robby. And he suggested these two, who have a history of fights gone wrong, fight it out in the apartment complex…and when Johnny lost sight of them, Robby almost fell off a balcony! (As in, Miguel almost kicked him off but then stopped). Like?? Hello?? This is not how you reconcile fighting teen boys!

And then we come to the reason why that happened: BabyGate. I didn’t like this at all. It was so transparently meant to serve as Johnny’s main reason for reconciling Miguel and Robby, which just…again, weird?? Reconciliation should be about them, not about “well we’re having a baby so shape up”!

It also reduces Carmen to a love interest again (a problem ever since s3), and a baby incubator. Like…that’s her whole personality now. What happened to the awesome, take-no-bs nurse who turned Johnny away every time Miguel got hurt?? The one who sees Johnny’s bad habits, the one who ran away from her previous husband because of a bad feeling…now she suddenly wants a kid with Johnny?? After how Johnny has treated Robby, how he’s treated Miguel?? I think the only understandable reaction is Anoush’s sarcastic “congrats on procreating.”

Beyond that, Kenny was sent further down the CK corruption path, as I feared…the toilet scene was so disturbing. Like honestly, wtf?? Not much more to say about that, but…yeah I found that whole thing distasteful.

The Mexico arc was pointless and added nothing, but I can’t really be mad because that’s a holdover from s4 so 🤷‍♀️ honestly they wrapped that up the best they could, it wasn’t gonna be any better (it could’ve been a lot worse tbh).

The Sam & Tory reconciliation…ehh? I mean it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. Tory hasn’t apologized for the school fight or for the home invasion, and until then, a friendship between them doesn’t feel super strong and lasting. I was glad to see them friends, but they really need to talk things out, and Tory needs to apologize for traumatizing Sam twice. That needs to happen next season or be alluded to (time passes between seasons sometimes, so I can believe it happened if the show suggests it).

If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d put the Daniel vs Silver fight here too, but…honestly I’m kinda on the fence about it? I watched it again, and I see what other people on here mean when they say Daniel was using defense against Silver, twisting his method against him. Like that was cool, I’ll admit. But I think him doing kata, beating Silver like he beat Barnes (thus showing that Silver still underestimates him, because Daniel never needed him) would’ve been a lot better. But…hey, I cheered when Daniel crane-kicked him, I’m only human 🤷‍♀️ so yeah. Mixed feelings.

I skipped most of Kreese’s scenes except the ones with Tory, Daniel, and Johnny, and the therapy scene, and tbh I regret nothing. Glad I did that, I’d do it again.

Now on to the good!

Chozen is an absolute star, I love him. I wish we got more of him, especially him infiltrating CK…I felt like that was cut short too early. Especially with him mentoring Tory!

Amanda’s backstory is fantastic. s4 did a great job with it (surprisingly), and s5 carries that forward. I love her being Jessica’s cousin, I love her being a rebellious teen…I love all of it, honestly!

On that note, I originally put the Amaniel drama in the bad stuff section while watching, but seeing how it ended, with Jessica telling Amanda the truth about KK3…it’s in the good things column. I was crying when Jessica finally told Amanda everything, I’ve dreamed of the day she finally found out! And though I wished it was Daniel going into s5, I’m glad it wasn’t. The way Silver messed with his head this season…I’m glad it was someone who saw it firsthand and could tell Amanda in his stead.

Mike Barnes was a surprisingly great addition?? Didn’t expect that 😂 wish we got more of him, and I never thought I’d say that.

Sam this season was incredible, so was Tory’s arc at CK, so was Robby’s arc of trying to save Tory and Kenny, so were the adults’ arcs (not Johnny’s, as discussed)…and so was the new CK sensei! And…I didn’t know how they were gonna do the tournament placeholder, but they made it work, kudos to them!

So yeah, there are my thoughts! Thought it was great with room for improvement, and I’m cautiously optimistic about s6