Cobra Kai is among the oddest media stories of the past year. When it first was announced last year, people assumed it was a joke or a prank: A continuation of that stupid Ralph Macchio Funny or Die video from a few years ago, perhaps. But, slowly, it was revealed to us as a true continuation of the Karate Kid saga, one that grappled with its characters’ legacies and their iconography. And it didn’t feature Jaden Smith at all, so that was a plus. As more and more information hit the internet, we slowly became more and more excited for it, and finally, the day came when it’d finally come out.
The one problem: Cobra Kai is a YouTube Red exclusive, and we’re not going to sign up for an extra streaming service just to see Johnny Lawerence (William Zabka) finally give Daniel LaRusso (Macchio) the beating he’s always deserved. Sorry, guys — we’d have to watch Kedi 10 times a month in order to make that worth the investment.
Thankfully, it’s almost like YouTube knows that they’re not going to hook people without a proof of concept, and so they’ve dropped the first two episodes on plain-old ad-supported YouTube for you to get a taste of the product. It’s like your dealer offering to smoke you out just so you know how good the product is, with the hopeful guarantee that you’ll come back for more. There are 10 total episodes of Cobra Kai, eight of which are behind that YouTube Red paywall, but you know what? It might be worth it after all.
Here are the first two:
All episodes of Cobra Kai are now available for streaming on YouTube Red. We’re kind of excited to find out if there’s a Hillary Swank cameo at the end.
Image via YouTube.