Character Storylines/Story Arcs

### **Eli Moskowitz/Hawk**

From what I’ve seen, many people view Hawk as their favourite character, and I can understand why… for Season 1. His backstory and role in the story made him very sympathetic and his initial transformation was genuinely brilliant. However, Season 2 and Season 3 turned from a three-dimensional daredevil to a one-dimensional prick.

In Season 2, Hawk becomes an egoistical fanatic who only cares about appearing strong and demonizing those that criticize his dojo. This is not good character development. For one, it was poorly built up. At the end of Season 1, Hawk fights Robby at the tournament and during a lull, Robby trashes talk him and makes fun of his mohawk. This was literally the only event that hinted at what Hawk would become in the future, and yet that was all he needed, as a millisecond later, he ruthlessly dislocates Robby’s arm and takes getting disqualified very bitterly. It’s like he took a 180° turn! It’s comes out of nowhere and feels like a forced attempt to repeat what happened in the original movie. If the writers wanted to turned Hawk into a villain, they should’ve built it up over several episodes and especially come up with a better reason. **For example, imagine if he immediately started using his newly-developed skills to confront his old bullies and gradually became corrupted from the satisfaction of settling so many old scores**. That would’ve been far better than just a single insult. Secondly, it was poorly written. In his very first scene of the season, he immediately chastises Demetri, his best friend, for not joining Cobra Kai and then quickly antagonizing for bringing up his past life. When Demetri posts a Yelp’s review criticizing Cobra Kai, Hawk attempts to beat him at the mall, and when that fails, retaliates by vandalizing the Miyagi-do dojo and steals Mr. Miyagi’s Medal of Honour. This further escalates the already belligerent tension between the two dojos, which eventually leads to the school fight that Hawk passionately participates in. This is what you call irritating characterization. In Season 1, Hawk’s newfound confidence turned him into a hot head, but he still retained his good nature. In fact, he used his newfound confidence to help his friends, from buying beer for Aisha’s party to giving Demetri advice for how to get Yasmine. What made his character great is that he changed what needed to changed, but kept what needed to be kept. Here, all he does is act like an asshole and cause problems for stupid reasons. That’s it. It’s not interesting or entertaining, it’s just annoying, and it does not get much better from here.

In Season 3, Hawk begins to regrets staying in Cobra Kai when all his old friends slowly start leaving and eventually he leaves Cobra Kai when suddenly started to care about Demetri again. As you could see, this makes absolutely no sense. Firstly, why would losing his friends be the reason he starts doubting Cobra Kai instead of, oh… I don’t know-facing the consequences of his actions?! **Imagine if he see him get scolded and punished by his mom for participating in the school fight, or go to juvie for vandalism, thievery, assault, etc., and became bunk mates with Robby, or be viewed as a freak by everyone at school again, with even the faculty being against him now**. Scenarios like these would’ve been far more satisfying and intriguing to see than being sad that Bert got kicked off the team or losing Miguel’s approval. Secondly, why would he suddenly care about Demetri? Hawk spent the entirety of Season 2 treating Demetri like shit, among countless other horrible hings, so why would he hesitate at breaking Demetri’s arm? I mean, he still broke the damn arm and did it with extremely angry frown on his face, so what was the point of the hesitation? Additionally, Hawk still did a ton of terrible shit during Season 3, like exhorting Miyagi-do’s car-washing money and beating Brucks to near death, so why would anyone want to see him redeemed in this season?!

I wish he had more screen time in Season 3 and we could actually see his journey into realizing what he was doing was wrong. It would've been cool to see him have a real conversation with Miguel or Demetri and see him slowly turning into a better person.

**It would’ve been much more rewarding to see Hawk feeling conflicted with both his personalities over another season. We could’ve seen how his mom reacted when she heard from Demetri’s parents that Hawk broke his own best friend’s arm. We could’ve seen more development of Hawk feeling isolated, wanting to talk about “nerd shit” but he can’t around people like Robby, or Kyler, or Tory. We could’ve explored more of the aftermath of his fear of of feeling weak after Demetri beat him at school.**