It sounds like a pretty awesome show. The fourth season of the Karate Kid franchise dropped on New Years Eve, continuing the adventures of Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence, and their martial arts students. After the end of last season, Daniel and Johnny decided to team up and train their students together in order to bring down the old villain.
The road from enemies to allies can be difficult. Macchio and Zabka talked about their relationship during the season in a talk with Entertainment Weekly. The method of how is the biggest source of conflict between Danny and Johnny. Danny and Johnny had differing martial arts approaches, so it was important for their characters to clash. If there wasn't a clash at the start, it would be dishonest, according to Zabka.
Their respective children can be partially responsible for that baggage. Danny learns that his son Anthony is a bully and that his daughter Sam is learning from Johnny. Sam accepting his rival's teachings may be the biggest, according to Macchio. He thought Danny was a good parent, but to see Johnny replace him as a father has made him angry. Johnny is fond of Danny, who teaches Miyagi-Do to Miguel, a student Johnny loves like a son now that his actual son, Robby, is being taught by Kreese. At this point, the former bully is trying to not lose another son, which is not great. He overcorrects and he is afraid of losing that bond.
Both men realize they need to swap styles and see where the other person comes from. While filming the sequence where Johnny sands the deck, Zabka realized how cool it was as an evolution of the character, and it was really important that Johnny opened his heart up and saw that there is something to learn here. The scene showed how far Johnny has come since Miyagi saved his life in Karate Kid II, and he found it important for himself.
The peace between the two is short lived. In the fifth episode of the show, the two fighters face off to decide who will teach their students. The two were excited to read the script and were surprised to see that the fight would end in a draw. Josh Heald explained how the tie had to happen. Danny and Johnny are both passionate about who has the better karate, but show's philosophy is about "exploring how" it is not better. It goes to that theme over and over again, after they have come so far with their exploration of each other's karate, and with their own interpretation of their masters' karate, it would have felt inauthentic.
Danny realized during the All Valley Championship that his students could become better fighters by learning more styles. He apologized to Johnny and gave their partnership the new name of "Miyagi-Fang". Heald made a strong case for keeping it in, even though Macchio admitted that he needed to be sold on the scene. Macchio decided to be true to Danny and make it sound weird. He said it was almost like he had trouble saying "Miyagi-Fang" out loud.
As for Zabka? He loved it, and found it to be a moment of surrender and growth for Johnny. It is one of the hardest things to acknowledge that you are wrong when you are so set in your ways. How will things go for both men now that they are friends? It will have to wait until season five.
There is a movie called Cobra Kai on the streaming service.
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