Is Cobra Kai season 2 any good?

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I’m about four episodes in right now, and I would say it’s an improvement over the first season. The cast gets a lot more room to express themselves, we’re thankfully not forced to wallow in self-pity with Johnny anymore now that he’s solidly on his feet.

My main gripe about the show is that every single main character, has gotten dragged into this boy’s world where fighting prowess determines self worth. As a result I just don’t find any of them relatable.

And when you get right down to it, fighting isn’t all that fun as a hobby. The only way it becomes compelling is if you have something personal in it. Either you’re fighting for your country, or your loved ones, or you just really find it fun, like Kenpachi Zaraki in Bleach. If you don’t, then once you get the basics down, some nice conditioning, the ability to defend yourself, most people will just naturally fall away from it as they mature.

I just can’t get into Miguel’s faux-hero character arc, it’s not compelling for me. It doesn’t help that the acting is subpar compared to the rest of the cast, though not nearly as bad as Kreese’s. Miguel has two facial expressions. Dopey, and what he thinks is hard badassery.

I can’t relate with Daniel either. Daniel… became a car salesman. With discipline, he was able to become a good one. I sold cars once upon a time. It’s a field that… doesn’t reward good character traits, or studiousness or intelligence. It’s pretty clear that without the character traits taught to him by Mr. Miyagi, he’d have gone nowhere with his life.

Can’t buy in with Johnny, he’s just a big ball of toxic crap. Everything about all his choices just screams ‘bad decision!’. I feel like they needed to bring Kreese in because otherwise their protagonist would end up truly becoming the villain. And the show would turn into a Billions-esque battle of titans. Not that I didn’t like Billions, but this show needs to ultimately be about the kids.

And so the character I find myself relating to the most is, surprisingly, Daniel’s daughter Sam. She didn’t want karate, she doesn’t want to beat Cobra Kai, her self-worth is built on more than kicking ass. But since literally every single one of her friends and peers are training, what’s a girl to do? She makes the best of it just as I might.

Ultimately this show, to me, is about the psychology of broken homes and what they drive people to do to earn self-worth. Martial arts is elevated to Force-like levels of mythological significance, the solution to all problems. Which is practically how it’s always portrayed in film and TV, but it would have been nice to see a little more depth.