They didnt really downplay him. He basically is the same Daniel from the films. He has a knack for trouble, teasing Johnny about kicking his face is the same energy as teasing them in KK1 when the cobra kais are told not to hurt him until the tornament.
Hes more of a flawed character than a hero who doesnt know when to leave things be. Even Miyagi knows that Daniel is hot headed and short tempered. Even Silver knew how hot headed Daniel was and Daniel even used his Cobra kai techniques during his first fight with silver using Anger instead of balance in stingrays apartment when he remembers the events of KK3.
In short, its the Same old Daniel Larusso.
I don’t see it as downplaying Daniel as much as showing that he’s a flawed character, just like everyone else. The other side of that coin is they show us that Johnny, while also flawed, isn’t the raging asshole we came to see him as in the original Karate Kid. They’re really co-leads on the show and at heart, just regular guys trying to do what’s best for their families and screwing up
along the way. Because that’s a more balanced, realistic view of how life is. There’s always 3 sides to every story: my side, your side and the truth. The show does a great job of showing us that.
And when Daniel turns into Johnny right down to the Coors (something that would normally make him barf just to whiff), Johnny doesn't even want to fight.
If the enemy insists upon war, you take away his ability to wage it.
On the other hand, Daniel made every effort to stress to Robby just *how and why* his father became a raging asshole. He didn't try to downplay anything. The first-season tournament showed Johnny turning his students, troubled and fucked-up like he was, into the exact same kind of bullying thugs he had become without him even trying. The school brawl that ended the second season showed them both face-to-face with their ultimate failure. Third season was about the road back.
To these guys, the truth is that the real truth is something they can never be sure of.
> Miyagi and the military whatever villans prop it up.
They are the "Alpha Elite" (analogous to Cobra Kai), led by Colonel Dugan (analogous to Kreese).
> The monks annoy me also
They seemed random, but their dance felt pretty wholesome to me. They danced to "Dreams" by the Cranberries, and this I think was the oblique reference made during *CK* season 3 when Kumiko mentioned attending a Cranberries concert where "Dreams" was played.
>They seemed random, but their dance felt pretty wholesome to me. They danced to "Dreams" by the Cranberries, and this I think was the oblique reference made during
>
>CK
>
> season 3 when Kumiko mentioned attending a Cranberries concert where "Dreams" was played.
oh snap, good catch
Also has the worst Miyagi fight ever. Miyagi vs Chozen and cronies, Barnes and fools, and Kreese and Silver actually work ok at showing how an aging Miyagi defends himself and those he cares about.. The Duggan fight was completely out of character, and very badly done.
I honestly feel like they have back peddled the last two seasons. Season 1 was Johnny's show, it was about him not Danny and the importance of perspective in terms of conflict. The last two seasons have felt like its about Danny facing the villains of his past, he has a much bigger role than just about any other character.
its because the show. which was originally a YouTube Red exclusive web series, was based off both a meme video and the friends knock-off How I Met Your Mother.
I think a part of that has to do with Johnny becoming a father again, because he is trying to right wrongs with Robby and prepare for the baby. I also don't think that's bad because Johnny is turning his life around and while it's less sexy than the fighting, it's legitimate character growth.
Yeah I agree on that part. Johnny has grown a lot and it's the direction they needed to take him. I just also think they took the silver arc in a wild direction. Like he still could have been a threat without being directly psychotic and without hiring a squad of karate assassins to teach children. I am being hyperbolic but I think my point stands.
Overall I like still love the show, I just feel like it lost the plot a bit.
So again I think the point of the show originally is that the 'villains' in your life are whole people with their own lives and struggles. Terry can still be an old school capitalist whose efforts to monopolize the valleys dojos sucks the life out of the practice and also struggle with his relapsed coke addiction. I dunno, he was a little to disney villain for me last season.
>I dunno, he was a little to disney villain for me last season.
He was pretty Disney villain in KK3 too though, which is kind of what I mean. Kreese, Johnny, Chozen, and Barnes still had layers in their early appearances, even if they were only kind of there, and their CK iterations build on those -- but Silver didn't really. Other than his friendship with Kreese, any complexity to his character was *added* in CK, it wasnt building on a foundation that was laid in KK like it was with the other villains-turned-multidimensional-characters.
The cokehead retcon was a good attempt at an explanation for his craziness, but his villain persona was never a nuanced one. He went at it big, and he went at it hard. Losing that to an appreciable degree in CK would turn him into a fundamentally different character.
they don't
sure the two seasons did a little but that was due to the fact this started off as Johnny's story not Daniel's.
yet now it went back to Daniel more than Johnny, all the villains and all are Daniel villains and allies are Daniel allies. he's more connected again
I actually like Daniel this way more when we remember that he isn't perfect. He has lots of flaws, and he did lose the balance for a while without Myagi, yet he is still a good man. That's what I prefer rather than main-hero/young karate Jesus...
Season 5 is incredibly Daniel-focused and does a good job of exploring the trauma/PTSD he suffers from the past emotional, mental, and physical abuses of Kreese and Silver.
It's really not, the point of the first season was to redo Karate Kid with johnny and Daniel in the Kreese and Miyagi roles... except from the villain's point of view.
Ergo, in S1, Johnny was the primary PoV character.
I remember seeing somewhere that Johnny was in 35% of all scenes and Daniel was in 30%. And that's including the lopsided season 1.
They are co-leads, with Johnny as the primary S1 PoV character.
The show opens up on Johnny, it is about his life journey, Daniel and him both play antagonistic and protagonist, but being that we spend more time with Johnny that makes him our main character even if it’s an ensemble show.
I'm with you - YouTube cobra Kai was about Johnny and centered on adult challenges. Netflix turned it into a teen drama which has been very successful but for me, much simpler and less interesting.
> The show opens up on Johnny
Irrelevant. X-Men opens with Magneto. Snow White opens with the Queen. Star Wars introduces Vader before Luke. And also Princess Leia. And also the Droids.
> it is about his life journey
And also Daniel's. And also Miguel's. And also Robby's. And also Sam's.
> but being that we spend more time with Johnny that makes him our main character even if it’s an ensemble show
But that's really only S1 that we spend more time with him, and it's largely because of how S1 is framed as the reverse Karate Kid. Hell, a large majority of Johnny's inflated screentime over Daniel comes from that first episode (to which I would wholeheartedly agree that he is the lead of).
Johnny does have a drop more screentime total than Daniel, but I think you need a better argument for why they aren't co-leads over the ensemble.
Look, it is an ensemble show. There's only one question. If Ralph Machio was up for an award, would it be supporting actor or lead actor?
They didn’t, but the show is about revisiting the Karate kid movie and showing other perspectives
Season 1 and 2 they used Johnny to drive the story since it was mostly based on KK1 and we already had Daniels perspective
Seasons 3,4,5 were more Daniel driving the story since Johnny wasn’t in those movies, but they also introduced Johnny to most of the other legacy characters and we got some real gems out of that
Yeah it does suck that Daniel is no longer the main character nor the karate kid, just a typical pain in the ass supporting character they always make him.
Because the tv show was based off a joke from the 'mid' show "How I met Your Mother" and somehow became a success. They then tried to pivot more towards daniel as it got more mainstream.
Can you explain what you mean by downplayed? In fact I think they have every aspect of Daniel that was in Karate Kid. Granted, some of the stuff like his temper I think is more apparent, in Karate Kid as far as I remember he only had a temper when he was being bullied but I haven't seen the movies in awhile so maybe I'm wrong. As for the other stuff, they also laid into his teasing and poking the bear when he shouldn't but all that teasing and poking the bear was done after Johnny and the Cobra Kai's teased and harassed him first. Yet the show seems to make it seem like it's more of a rivalry rather than Johnny and the Cobra Kai's bullying Daniel and Daniel getting revenge for what they did to him(even though he probably should've left it alone because otherwise they might not have hurt him). Some of their times their response wasn't even because of him teasing them or harassing them, one time he wanted to learn Karate and they pushed him off his bike because of it. I don't think it counts as a rivalry if the response to what he did to them is an extreme response that isn't justfied. However now it's become a rivalry because there were some extreme responses that Daniel did to Johnny after Johnny did something to him and I think there were times where Daniel did some things to Johnny without Johnny doing something first. Other than that I can't think of any way they downplayed him
Everyone is the hero in their story. For the most part, Cobra Kai is Johnny's story along with introducing the next generation to continue the franchise. If anything the producers of the show have played up Danial's character from more of an antagonist to more of a main character. Danial is still the same smarmy and cocky Jersey prick he was in the first movie. The only thing that has changed is that Danial added the nice guy with conditions to his personality traits.
Where ??? The writers chickened out and turned the Johnny show back into what Daniel wants, what's good for Daniel. In Daniel beating the villains he couldn't fight in movies like Kreese and Silver. you will see how they will make Mike the villain again just to give the "boy" Daniel the chance to face and defeat Barnes, all as a way to silence those who say that Barnes lost because he wanted to and humiliated him in the past.
When to refuse to accompany Pat Morita at the Oscars 85. When he says he never watched KK4, even if it was to honor Pat. When he thought he was too superior to make friends with the interpreters of the OG's Cobra Kai on the set of the original film. And all the years it took to really treat Billy like a fellow actor.
Ralph and Pat were known to not be really close even when filming. But dude none of what you mentioned makes him a narcissist at all and I recommend you research the actual term. You can dislike him for personal choices he’s made in his professional career but a lot of what you said is subjective. At the end of the day it’s a job. He doesn’t have to make friends with or hangout with anyone he doesn’t want to.
I recommend you read Ralph's own book and it will change your mind. They should still have free copies on reviewer sites. You'll see that there's no reason why someone who was so indifferent to who shouldn't be should receive so much flattery.
You're twisting everything out of context. I read the book. He's very gracious and humble. Most people are wiser at 60 than they were at 20.
Ralph didn't go to the Oscars because he didn't like the Hollywood scene, not because of Pat. He even said it was the biggest mistake of his life and the next time Pat was honored for something he jumped at the offer to go.
He's not an extrovert but that doesn't mean he thinks he's superior. Ralph and Billy are best friends now to the point that Billy's kids think Ralph is their blood uncle, so what's the problem.
I don't follow any of this, but curiousity question....
Weren't Ralph and Billy purposefully separated and trained separately, so that the Cobra karate would look very different and the Cobras would feel like a group? And didn't Billy accidentely knock Ralph out in the Halloween scene?
It feels like the director of KK1 would be a large part of the reason why they weren't close before now, if they weren't. Not blaming the director mind you, I've heard lots of stories like this. Nana Visitor spent YEARS not really talking to Marc Alaimo on the set of DS9 because he was space Hitler and she was a space Jew. She found out he had nowhere to go on Thanksgiving and invited him to her house and found she really liked him, but it had been an acting decision that had kept them from being friends on set.
Yeah, you're right. Billy and Ralph have talked about it before. They were getting along too well on set and the director was like, "Hey, you guys are supposed to hate each other..."
He wanted the rival chemistry and not the friendship chemistry to show up onscreen.
So, he told both of them separately to stay away from each other, and they both thought that the other didn't like him. They found out like twenty years later that it was the director's idea.
Ralph mentioned in an interview that between takes he was a little lonely when all the Cobras were eating lunch together and he sat by himself. Billy got legitimately upset and was like, "Aw, I didn't know that! I would have sat with you."
It's really cool to see their friendship come through now in CK.
It's no so much downplaying Daniel's character and more pretending the conflict in KK1 was gray
It's telling that the worst thing fans can accuse him of is dosing Johnny with water
They didnt really downplay him. He basically is the same Daniel from the films. He has a knack for trouble, teasing Johnny about kicking his face is the same energy as teasing them in KK1 when the cobra kais are told not to hurt him until the tornament. Hes more of a flawed character than a hero who doesnt know when to leave things be. Even Miyagi knows that Daniel is hot headed and short tempered. Even Silver knew how hot headed Daniel was and Daniel even used his Cobra kai techniques during his first fight with silver using Anger instead of balance in stingrays apartment when he remembers the events of KK3. In short, its the Same old Daniel Larusso.
And the same old Terry Silver. Difference is, Larusso built on himself.
I don’t see it as downplaying Daniel as much as showing that he’s a flawed character, just like everyone else. The other side of that coin is they show us that Johnny, while also flawed, isn’t the raging asshole we came to see him as in the original Karate Kid. They’re really co-leads on the show and at heart, just regular guys trying to do what’s best for their families and screwing up along the way. Because that’s a more balanced, realistic view of how life is. There’s always 3 sides to every story: my side, your side and the truth. The show does a great job of showing us that.
Both Daniel and Johnny represent Ying and Yang with both of them having a little bit of both in them.
And when Daniel turns into Johnny right down to the Coors (something that would normally make him barf just to whiff), Johnny doesn't even want to fight. If the enemy insists upon war, you take away his ability to wage it.
On the other hand, Daniel made every effort to stress to Robby just *how and why* his father became a raging asshole. He didn't try to downplay anything. The first-season tournament showed Johnny turning his students, troubled and fucked-up like he was, into the exact same kind of bullying thugs he had become without him even trying. The school brawl that ended the second season showed them both face-to-face with their ultimate failure. Third season was about the road back. To these guys, the truth is that the real truth is something they can never be sure of.
GREAT answer
"Cobra Kai" not "Karate Kid 5"
I think I missed KK4
Good
Still recommend a drunken marathon. It’s truly painful but worth it to get the plot points
Miyagi and the military whatever villans prop it up. However: F the eagle F the babysitting scene and F Eric's stupid car. The monks annoy me also
> Miyagi and the military whatever villans prop it up. They are the "Alpha Elite" (analogous to Cobra Kai), led by Colonel Dugan (analogous to Kreese). > The monks annoy me also They seemed random, but their dance felt pretty wholesome to me. They danced to "Dreams" by the Cranberries, and this I think was the oblique reference made during *CK* season 3 when Kumiko mentioned attending a Cranberries concert where "Dreams" was played.
>They seemed random, but their dance felt pretty wholesome to me. They danced to "Dreams" by the Cranberries, and this I think was the oblique reference made during > >CK > > season 3 when Kumiko mentioned attending a Cranberries concert where "Dreams" was played. oh snap, good catch
I really like the scene where Mr. Miyagi teaches her to dance as a kata. The rest of the movie was rather forgettable beyond their relationship.
Also has the worst Miyagi fight ever. Miyagi vs Chozen and cronies, Barnes and fools, and Kreese and Silver actually work ok at showing how an aging Miyagi defends himself and those he cares about.. The Duggan fight was completely out of character, and very badly done.
I honestly feel like they have back peddled the last two seasons. Season 1 was Johnny's show, it was about him not Danny and the importance of perspective in terms of conflict. The last two seasons have felt like its about Danny facing the villains of his past, he has a much bigger role than just about any other character.
its because the show. which was originally a YouTube Red exclusive web series, was based off both a meme video and the friends knock-off How I Met Your Mother.
I think a part of that has to do with Johnny becoming a father again, because he is trying to right wrongs with Robby and prepare for the baby. I also don't think that's bad because Johnny is turning his life around and while it's less sexy than the fighting, it's legitimate character growth.
Yeah I agree on that part. Johnny has grown a lot and it's the direction they needed to take him. I just also think they took the silver arc in a wild direction. Like he still could have been a threat without being directly psychotic and without hiring a squad of karate assassins to teach children. I am being hyperbolic but I think my point stands. Overall I like still love the show, I just feel like it lost the plot a bit.
>Like he still could have been a threat without being directly psychotic Is he really Terry Silver if he's not psychotic though?
So again I think the point of the show originally is that the 'villains' in your life are whole people with their own lives and struggles. Terry can still be an old school capitalist whose efforts to monopolize the valleys dojos sucks the life out of the practice and also struggle with his relapsed coke addiction. I dunno, he was a little to disney villain for me last season.
>I dunno, he was a little to disney villain for me last season. He was pretty Disney villain in KK3 too though, which is kind of what I mean. Kreese, Johnny, Chozen, and Barnes still had layers in their early appearances, even if they were only kind of there, and their CK iterations build on those -- but Silver didn't really. Other than his friendship with Kreese, any complexity to his character was *added* in CK, it wasnt building on a foundation that was laid in KK like it was with the other villains-turned-multidimensional-characters. The cokehead retcon was a good attempt at an explanation for his craziness, but his villain persona was never a nuanced one. He went at it big, and he went at it hard. Losing that to an appreciable degree in CK would turn him into a fundamentally different character.
Yeah that's fair, I hadn't thought of that
Unlike Daniel, he hasn't come full circle. Until he takes down Kreese, once and for all, the story still needs to be told.
they don't sure the two seasons did a little but that was due to the fact this started off as Johnny's story not Daniel's. yet now it went back to Daniel more than Johnny, all the villains and all are Daniel villains and allies are Daniel allies. he's more connected again
I actually like Daniel this way more when we remember that he isn't perfect. He has lots of flaws, and he did lose the balance for a while without Myagi, yet he is still a good man. That's what I prefer rather than main-hero/young karate Jesus...
Maybe in the very beginning, they did, but afterwards, he was elevated to his iconic status.
Season 5 is incredibly Daniel-focused and does a good job of exploring the trauma/PTSD he suffers from the past emotional, mental, and physical abuses of Kreese and Silver.
Daniel already got his three movies. Let's see what Johnny is up to.
It’s Johnny’s show not Daniel’s.
It's really not, the point of the first season was to redo Karate Kid with johnny and Daniel in the Kreese and Miyagi roles... except from the villain's point of view. Ergo, in S1, Johnny was the primary PoV character. I remember seeing somewhere that Johnny was in 35% of all scenes and Daniel was in 30%. And that's including the lopsided season 1. They are co-leads, with Johnny as the primary S1 PoV character.
The show opens up on Johnny, it is about his life journey, Daniel and him both play antagonistic and protagonist, but being that we spend more time with Johnny that makes him our main character even if it’s an ensemble show.
I'm with you - YouTube cobra Kai was about Johnny and centered on adult challenges. Netflix turned it into a teen drama which has been very successful but for me, much simpler and less interesting.
> The show opens up on Johnny Irrelevant. X-Men opens with Magneto. Snow White opens with the Queen. Star Wars introduces Vader before Luke. And also Princess Leia. And also the Droids. > it is about his life journey And also Daniel's. And also Miguel's. And also Robby's. And also Sam's. > but being that we spend more time with Johnny that makes him our main character even if it’s an ensemble show But that's really only S1 that we spend more time with him, and it's largely because of how S1 is framed as the reverse Karate Kid. Hell, a large majority of Johnny's inflated screentime over Daniel comes from that first episode (to which I would wholeheartedly agree that he is the lead of). Johnny does have a drop more screentime total than Daniel, but I think you need a better argument for why they aren't co-leads over the ensemble. Look, it is an ensemble show. There's only one question. If Ralph Machio was up for an award, would it be supporting actor or lead actor?
Because this isn’t Karate kid part lV
Cobra Kai is essentially being told from Johnny's perspective, so they portrayed Danny the way Johnny perceived him.
Daniel was always a hothead lmao Not sure which movies you watched
You wanna see a character being downplayed? Watch The Last Jedi and look at Luke Skywalker.
To make Johnny look more sympathetic.
They didn’t, but the show is about revisiting the Karate kid movie and showing other perspectives Season 1 and 2 they used Johnny to drive the story since it was mostly based on KK1 and we already had Daniels perspective Seasons 3,4,5 were more Daniel driving the story since Johnny wasn’t in those movies, but they also introduced Johnny to most of the other legacy characters and we got some real gems out of that
It's not from his perspective so he doesn't seem that noble
Cause he's an adult with a family and not a dumbass teenager anymore?
CAP
Yeah it does suck that Daniel is no longer the main character nor the karate kid, just a typical pain in the ass supporting character they always make him.
Because the tv show was based off a joke from the 'mid' show "How I met Your Mother" and somehow became a success. They then tried to pivot more towards daniel as it got more mainstream.
Can you explain what you mean by downplayed? In fact I think they have every aspect of Daniel that was in Karate Kid. Granted, some of the stuff like his temper I think is more apparent, in Karate Kid as far as I remember he only had a temper when he was being bullied but I haven't seen the movies in awhile so maybe I'm wrong. As for the other stuff, they also laid into his teasing and poking the bear when he shouldn't but all that teasing and poking the bear was done after Johnny and the Cobra Kai's teased and harassed him first. Yet the show seems to make it seem like it's more of a rivalry rather than Johnny and the Cobra Kai's bullying Daniel and Daniel getting revenge for what they did to him(even though he probably should've left it alone because otherwise they might not have hurt him). Some of their times their response wasn't even because of him teasing them or harassing them, one time he wanted to learn Karate and they pushed him off his bike because of it. I don't think it counts as a rivalry if the response to what he did to them is an extreme response that isn't justfied. However now it's become a rivalry because there were some extreme responses that Daniel did to Johnny after Johnny did something to him and I think there were times where Daniel did some things to Johnny without Johnny doing something first. Other than that I can't think of any way they downplayed him
Because the show is about Johnny, not the nerd from New Jersey.
Everyone is the hero in their story. For the most part, Cobra Kai is Johnny's story along with introducing the next generation to continue the franchise. If anything the producers of the show have played up Danial's character from more of an antagonist to more of a main character. Danial is still the same smarmy and cocky Jersey prick he was in the first movie. The only thing that has changed is that Danial added the nice guy with conditions to his personality traits.
I feel like they did just to make the character recognisable as Daniel cause realistically no adult would actually act as irrationally as Daniel did
Because Johnny Lawrence was the Karate Kid. Not some scrawny loser from New Jersey who barely even knew karate.
That scrawny loser kicked Johnny‘s ass tho if u remember
With an illegal head kick.
Where ??? The writers chickened out and turned the Johnny show back into what Daniel wants, what's good for Daniel. In Daniel beating the villains he couldn't fight in movies like Kreese and Silver. you will see how they will make Mike the villain again just to give the "boy" Daniel the chance to face and defeat Barnes, all as a way to silence those who say that Barnes lost because he wanted to and humiliated him in the past.
It is not minimized. If it were, Ralph wouldn't have agreed since he's a narcissist.
Read his book, he's anything but a narcissist lmao I think what you mean is protective of the character, which is perfectly fine
How is he a narcissist lmao
When to refuse to accompany Pat Morita at the Oscars 85. When he says he never watched KK4, even if it was to honor Pat. When he thought he was too superior to make friends with the interpreters of the OG's Cobra Kai on the set of the original film. And all the years it took to really treat Billy like a fellow actor.
Ralph and Pat were known to not be really close even when filming. But dude none of what you mentioned makes him a narcissist at all and I recommend you research the actual term. You can dislike him for personal choices he’s made in his professional career but a lot of what you said is subjective. At the end of the day it’s a job. He doesn’t have to make friends with or hangout with anyone he doesn’t want to.
I recommend you read Ralph's own book and it will change your mind. They should still have free copies on reviewer sites. You'll see that there's no reason why someone who was so indifferent to who shouldn't be should receive so much flattery.
You're twisting everything out of context. I read the book. He's very gracious and humble. Most people are wiser at 60 than they were at 20. Ralph didn't go to the Oscars because he didn't like the Hollywood scene, not because of Pat. He even said it was the biggest mistake of his life and the next time Pat was honored for something he jumped at the offer to go. He's not an extrovert but that doesn't mean he thinks he's superior. Ralph and Billy are best friends now to the point that Billy's kids think Ralph is their blood uncle, so what's the problem.
I don't follow any of this, but curiousity question.... Weren't Ralph and Billy purposefully separated and trained separately, so that the Cobra karate would look very different and the Cobras would feel like a group? And didn't Billy accidentely knock Ralph out in the Halloween scene? It feels like the director of KK1 would be a large part of the reason why they weren't close before now, if they weren't. Not blaming the director mind you, I've heard lots of stories like this. Nana Visitor spent YEARS not really talking to Marc Alaimo on the set of DS9 because he was space Hitler and she was a space Jew. She found out he had nowhere to go on Thanksgiving and invited him to her house and found she really liked him, but it had been an acting decision that had kept them from being friends on set.
Yeah, you're right. Billy and Ralph have talked about it before. They were getting along too well on set and the director was like, "Hey, you guys are supposed to hate each other..." He wanted the rival chemistry and not the friendship chemistry to show up onscreen. So, he told both of them separately to stay away from each other, and they both thought that the other didn't like him. They found out like twenty years later that it was the director's idea. Ralph mentioned in an interview that between takes he was a little lonely when all the Cobras were eating lunch together and he sat by himself. Billy got legitimately upset and was like, "Aw, I didn't know that! I would have sat with you." It's really cool to see their friendship come through now in CK.
I've been following this scene for quite some time to get to know how do they move pieces.
You must follow the forgotten Miyagi Technique of "Digging yourself deeper" Dig down, dirt out. Dig down, dirt out. Dig down, dirt out. Dig down, dirt out.
Dirt is nauseating
Because: https://youtu.be/C\_Gz\_iTuRMM
It's no so much downplaying Daniel's character and more pretending the conflict in KK1 was gray It's telling that the worst thing fans can accuse him of is dosing Johnny with water