I"m In Love With Johnny Lawrence

It was the summer of 1984. I was twelve years old, and boys started to appear on my radar as more than annoying little pricks. I saw The Karate Kid in the theater at the mall, and it rocked my world. I wanted to be Ali with an i: to be sixteen years old, blonde, curly, with amazing teeth. Instead, I was a short brunette tween with frizzy straight hair in desperate need of braces.

The movie's plot and its characters awoke an inner conflict: I wanted to have a boyfriend, someone nice, like Daniel LaRusso. But I wanted to be pretty enough to attract a hunk like Johnny Lawrence. Johnny was bad news; that much was obvious. I would have lasted two days with him. But he was pretty. My young, insecure self wanted to feel attractive enough to date a boy like that, but hopefully with a better personality.

Fast forward thirty-something years. I'm sweating bullets sitting in the living room at my in-laws, desperate to get out of there, the early signs of binge tv withdrawal creeping on me.

My significant other and I are making excuses to leave his oblivious parents' house in the middle of a snow storm so we can get on with what we were doing before the invitation arrived; not, it was not sex. It was much better than that. We rushed to plant ourselves like stuffed potatoes on the couch so we could continue binge-watching the third season of Cobra Kai on Netflix.

The show is fantastic, period. The Karate Kid was not intended to be a comedy, but Cobra Kai has the perfect combination of drama, comic relief, and delicious, hilarious 80s cheesiness to keep us hooked. Rarely do we have an opportunity to catch up with beloved characters and see how they are doing after so many years. As a middle-aged person, watching the show was so exciting it felt like snooping on Facebook to see what the cutest guy from high school is up to and finding out that he's still hot, single, and would love to ask you out for dinner.

And then, there's Johhny. Back in '84, we all booed when Johnny Lawrence came on the screen. He was the prototypical 80s bully: blonde (for some reason, that was a thing back then), wealthy, entitled, and trained to fight. He was so bad that we couldn't stomach him, no matter how handsome he was. And boy, was he gorgeous. William Zabka was the ultimate Gen X hunk; we see proof of it on the third season when he brings up some old pictures, all baby oiled in muscle T-shirts (yes, in the 80s, that was hot). Now at age 55, he is even more handsome, with a full head of hair and a body that doesn't include a beer belly (I know, I know, at my age, the standards run pretty low).

As the show progresses, we learn more about this character. We meet his shitty stepfather, played to perfection by Ed Asner, and he gets us to understand that becoming a bully was a misguided defense mechanism for Johnny. We see a guy that peaked in high school and for whom everything went downhill after. A man who has not found redemption because he doesn't know that it is possible to be redeemed. His friends have found redemption: the other former Cobra Kais are living reasonable lives, can acknowledge the mistakes they made, and know what a toxic influence John Kreese had in their lives. On the other hand, Johnny has been in the hole too long to see it, and it takes him a while to start shaking his bad habits.

But he emerges from his shell of shittiness, slowly but surely. We see him take a real interest in his students; try to the best of his limited abilities to reconcile with his son; fall in love with a good woman that loves him back. Best of all, we watch him pair up with Daniel a few times, and the result is pure magic: we desperately want these two to become friends, team up against the evil Cobra, and save the Valley. Women my age shriek in dismay as we painfully admit to ourselves that we have a crush on Johnny Lawrence. Cobra Kai has brought nostalgia and happiness to our lives. All Hail Eagle Fang!

PS: By the way, I'm happy to say that my boyfriend is a nice and cute blonde guy with a full head of hair named Johnny. Go figure.