#there's no baby jarmen in this dojo

[kathrahender]

Baby Jarmen is one of the worst sub-plots of Cobra Kai.

Change my mind.

I dare you.

[enidonline]

cobra Kai Johnny literally isn’t even real who is this man. Let me in the writers room you bastardes can’t get it right

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Johnny Lawrence in S6

standing in front of a daycare spinning and flipping an infant around like a sign

[slightlystrangepsyche]

Cobra Kai, season 5 thoughts

I may have been watching this season with a brain injury and a migraine, which might be why I think it’s the best season ever. Maybe, if I dug deeper I’d find more flaws, but I don’t want to. I’ll start with the couple of gripes I had, and then prepare for me gushing. 

I really don’t like the drinking and driving. I guess Johnny doesn’t even think of beer as booze anymore, but we’re not in season 1 anymore. Johnny shouldn’t have empty coors cans in his van.

The underage drinking. Again, it’s been there since season 1, and the kids did deserve a party, I just don’t understand why the party needs alcohol. Not a good message to sent to the kids watching the show.

My last gripe was when they showed the ultrasound. That was at least a ten week old fetus. They talked about the baby’s legs. I really don’t mind the baby SL, and I don’t even mind all the characters being happy about it, I’m happy for them, but to portray such a new pregnancy as having a fully formed fetus does seem like pro-life propoganda, and dangerous misinformation. 

A gripe I’m in denial about is implying Silver to be Jewish because he used Shalom services to sweettalk a Topanga sensei into handing over the dojo to him. I’m still pissed they gave Johnny’s evil step-dad a Jewish surname, so I am choosing to believe Silver faked it, in order to get what he wanted. 

Silver has always been such a comic book villain, and anybody who knows the KK lore knows him like that, but I think this season did a good job of showing the audience why other people don’t instantly see Silver as a villain. We know his philanthropy and civil demeanour to be an act, but innocent characters don’t, and are constantly blind-sided by him.

I really loved Amanda’s arc this season. It was logical, because this isn’t the Daniel she married, but she doesn’t know the full story of why he’s acting like this. The audience does. And having Jessica be her cousin, and to help her know the history, once she’s in the loop she can understand and support Daniel. 

I think this season is the best season at exploring trauma and how it affects people differently, especially the adults who never talked about it, versus the kids who have learned how to communicate, although some traumas can’t be addressed until they’ve been processed. 

Freaking Stingray has always been my least favourite character. His need to befriend the children, throwing parties with alcohol just to buy their friendship, always irked me. But they way he could only explain what happened, using D&D, it really broke my heart.

This season had the best balance of comedy, character moments and trauma. It was so funny. 

And the more people I see hating on the baby SL, the more I like it. And the idea what the series might end with a big Jarmen wedding. We’ve seen Carmen drink bad orange juice, just because Johnny gave it to her. We’ve seen Carmen be territorial when Shannon was by Johnny’s apartment. The fact that the Top Gun fantasy was Carmen’s and not Johnny’s was a funny reveal, but in character and I’m glad she’s getting what she wants. 

Robby does deserve to be bitter, but that’s not who he is. He is such a good kid, a good man. And he has a lot of love to give, love that he wasn’t able to share growing up, so I can see him doting on a younger sibling. Miguel too. He learned his father was not a good man, but he’s not his dad. He can be an amazing big brother. 

After everything, I just want the characters to be happy, and I know a baby is a cliché way to make everything better, but I don’t think it’s out of character. And I don’t think it implies that childrenless characters are evil, because Chosen certainly isn’t. I can see why people could take that as a takeaway, but not mine.

I do think the show is still trying too hard to be straight, when it is clearly a karate polycule. Having Chozen still pine for Kumiko so he’s not the fifth wheel just screams “no homo” but I don’t care. Kumiko is welcome in the karate polycule. I’m sure Amanda and Carmen would welcome her, just like Amanda invited Ali before, much to Johnny and Daniel’s horror. 

There are so many aspects of season 5 that I just love. At first I was disappointed we didn’t get more Kreese, but I really hope we spend season 6 doing that, and ending it with a cliché wedding or birth scene, where Johnny finally is too happy in the present, and excited for the future, to be haunted by the past. 

My heart sank when I thought Daniel was actually going to help Kreese get out of jail by hooking him up with his lawyer. And the thing is, season 1 Daniel might have done that, regardless of the trauma it clearly caused Johnny. So that reveal, makes my heart soar. 

And as much as I hate Kreese, I really love Martin Kove, and I thought it was really clever how they used young!Kreese for the fight scenes. 

There are so many more things I could rave about. I really enjoyed the balance between the adults drama and the kids, which I haven’t in past seasons. I love all the characters, and am so glad to see them come together. 

The children this season have been much smarter than the adults, which is hilarious, but I do hope to see more communication between the two generations. Anthony deserves to have an adult to confide in, and Johnny clearly wanted to reach out to Devon but couldn’t. 

I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface on this rant about season 5, because there was so much, but it was never too much, and I thought 90% of it was amazing. 

EDIT: I’m not even pissed that Daniel used violence to defeat Silver, or that Johnny got Miguel and Robby to brawl before they could finally talk about what happened. I know it seems contrary to previous seasons, that this season is saying “violence can sometimes be necessary, or cathartic, or funny” but I do think it’s a question of balance. (I still don’t think Daniel breaking Anthony’s tablet last season was funny though).