This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
“ | Look, man, I'm sorry. For all of it. You wanna help me win this thing? | „ |
~ Eli's redemption after saving Demetri. |
Eli Moskowitz, better known by his nickname Hawk, is one of the two deuteragonists (alongside Samantha LaRusso) of the YouTube Red/Netflix series Cobra Kai.
He is one of the top students of Johnny Lawrence's Cobra Kai dojo, alongside Miguel Diaz. While initially a meek nerd who joined in an effort to fight back against bullies, Hawk eventually takes the Cobra Kai mindset of "Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy" to its extremes and becomes a bully himself, as well as the top student of John Kreese after the old sensei reclaims Cobra Kai from Johnny. However, after realizing that Kreese's ways are wrong, he redeems himself by defecting from Cobra Kai, saving his former best friend Demetri, and joining Miyagi Do Karate, redeeming himself in the process.
He is portrayed by Jacob Bertrand, who also played Chip Chambers in iCarly.
Biography[]
Past[]
Eli was born with a cleft lip and despite getting surgery to have it fixed, was left with a facial scar, resulting in him being made fun of in middle and high school for it. Eli's only friend was a fellow nerd, Demetri, whom Eli often talked about geeky subjects with. According to Demetri, Eli and him watched together every film of the Harry Potter film series, during which Eli cried when they saw the scene of Dobby the Elf's death. They were also fans of Doctor Who. Sometimes, Eli went for a sleepover at Demetri's house, but given his nature as a bedwetter, Demetri's mom always used a special mattress every time he went for sleepover.
Season 1[]
When Miguel Diaz joined All Valley High School, he became friends with Eli and Demetri after they were the only two who let him sit with them at lunch. When Miguel used the karate training he received from Cobra Kai to fight back against Kyler and his gang of bullies, Eli thought it was cool that he stood up to them despite being beat up for it. After Miguel fought Kyler and his gang again in a massive lunchroom brawl and singlehandedly defeated all four of them, Eli was inspired to join the dojo.
However, after joining, Eli was frequently picked on by Sensei Johnny Lawrence for his lip scar, being nicknamed "Lip" by him for it. When Eli complained for him to stop, Johnny simply told him to "flip the script" and get an accessory to distract people from the scar. Eventually, Johnny's taunts caused Eli to leave the dojo out of shame. Eli then took Johnny's words of "flipping the script" to heart and returned the next day sporting a blue mohawk and a more confident persona. Impressed, Johnny, referring to Eli as "Hawk" told him to fall in with the rest of his students.
Now using Hawk as a nickname, Eli went on to get a tattoo of a hawk sporting a mohawk on his backside. Hawk later took part in a plan by Cobra Kai to get revenge against Yasmine for making fun of Aisha by throwing a party on the day of her birthday in a canyon where she intended the birthday party to be. Before the party, Hawk bought alcohol from the local mini-mart using a fake ID. When Yasmine and her friends arrived to find Cobra Kai already partying in the canyon, Moon took notice of Hawk and went to go talk to him, with the two soon falling in love with each other.
On the day of the All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament, Hawk made it to the final four where he faced off against Johnny's son Robby Keene. However, after Robby mocked his mohawk, Hawk attacked him and injured his back, causing him to be disqualified. The injury Hawk inflicted on Robby would lead to the latter's defeat against Miguel in the final round when Miguel exploited the injury to defeat him. Hawk was later seen cheering when Miguel won the trophy.
Season 2[]
The next day when Hawk and Miguel arrived in the Cobra Kai dojo, the two were reprimanded by Johnny for using "pussy" tactics to win the tournament and were both made to do fifty push-ups on their knuckles as punishment. Cobra Kai were later introduced to Johnny's Sensei John Kreese when Kreese persuaded Johnny to let him back into Cobra Kai. During a training exercise where Johnny tasked his students with manually pushing a cement mixer, when Hawk and several other students showed reluctance to participate in it, they were all scolded by Kreese for not listening to the "man who led them to the mountain top". With that, Hawk, Miguel, Aisha and a few other students got into the cement mixer and managed to get it to manually start moving, succeeding in the training exercise. During this time, he would change his blue mohawk to red, symbolizing his descent into evil.
When Demetri left a bad Yelp review of Cobra Kai in response to being punched in the nose by John Kreese for mouthing off, Hawk, alongside four other Cobra Kai students, went to go confront him in a mall to intimidate him into removing the review. When Demetri refused, Hawk attempted to beat him up, only for him and his henchmen to be defeated by Sam and Robby. Upon hearing about this, Moon, realizing the monster Eli has become, broke up with him. Following this Hawk went to go train in the Cobra Kai dojo where he was approached by Kreese, who told him that he hadn't "lost" he had simply allowed the fight to be over and that a fight wasn't over until he said it was. Inspired by this, Hawk and three of his cohorts went to the Miyagi-Do dojo and vandalized it, with Hawk stealing the late Mr. Miyagi's World War II Medal of Honor.
During the River Creek competition, Miguel discovered Hawk had stolen the Medal of Honor and was the culprit behind the vandalism of Miyagi-Do, and fought and defeated him to take it back. When they returned to the dojo, Miguel asked Hawk if they were still cool, to which Hawk replied that though they were enemies for a day, they were Cobra Kai "for life".
Hawk later attended a party hosted by Moon that both Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do had been invited to. Hawk attempted to seduce a girl at the party to make Moon jealous so she would come back to him, only to discover the girl was Moon's new girlfriend. Later on, Demetri, now a Miyagi-Do member, revealed all of Hawk's secrets, including the fact that he used to be a bed wetter, to the party goers to get back at him. Hawk attempted to beat him up, only for the party to be interrupted by the police.
The next day at school, Hawk learned from Miguel that he had kissed Sam at the party and congratulated him on it, saying that he intended to have a "full rotation" of girlfriends by the time he reached the midterms. Later, when Tory went to go assault Sam as revenge for kissing Miguel, Hawk, began a massive brawl between the two dojos. After beating up several Miyagi-Do, Hawk noticed Demetri, who had attempted to get a teacher to intervene, and chased after him. After cornering him, Hawk attempted to beat him up, only for Demetri to use the training he had learned at Miyagi-Do to fight him off and kick him into a trophy case.
However, Hawk soon got up and later returned to witness Miguel being knocked off a balcony by Robby, watching in shock as Miguel plummeted to ground and suffered severe injuries from impact. When a guilt-ridden Johnny Lawrence returned to his Cobra Kai dojo after hearing the news and going to visit Miguel in the hospital, he discovered that Hawk and all of his other students (with the exception of Aisha) had gone over to Kreese, who had managed to swipe the dojo from him thanks to a deal with Johnny's landlord Armand Zakarian. When Johnny attempted to approach Kreese, Hawk (and all the other students) blocked him, and proceeded to berate Johnny for teaching Miguel to show mercy, blaming him for the reason Miguel got injured and hospitalized and saying that if Miguel died it would be his fault too.
Season 3[]
Upon his return to school, Hawk became increasingly conflicted with his loyalty to Cobra Kai as Kreese expels Bert and several other students who refuse to feed a hamster to a snake, calling them weak links, and later when he approaches Kyler and Brucks to try out for spots in the dojo, with the former replacing Mitch and the latter being subject to a vicious beating from Hawk. In addition, after causing trouble at the laser tag park where Chris works, Hawk is attacked by Sam and the Miyagi-Does, including Demetri. After Tory arrives to assist his group, Hawk attacks Demetri and is pressured by the other Cobras into breaking his arm, which he does with some obvious reluctance, costing him his friendship with Miguel when Miguel finds out about it. When Kreese recruits Robby to Cobra Kai, Hawk adamantly and furiously disapproves of him being enrolled in Cobra Kai due to his actions against Miguel during the school brawl. While at the zoo to steal a Chinese Cobra for Kreese, Hawk, Tory, Kyler, Robby, and several other students are chased out, thinking that they have failed due to Kyler forgetting the snake pole, but Robby returns with the snake, earning him the respect of the rest of the Cobra Kai students except for Hawk.
During Tory's assault on the LaRusso residence, Hawk realizes his mistakes after realizing the errors of Kreese's teachings, along with the fact that Kreese indeed didn't care about him or anyone else as seen when he recruited Kyler and Robby to Cobra Kai, and redeems himself by breaking away from Cobra Kai, coming to Demetri's defense and reconciling with Demetri. Using a variant of the wheel technique that had been used against Hawk by Sam and Robby in the mall fight, Hawk and Demetri then take down several Cobra Kai students together. A vengeful Tory threateningly warns Hawk to watch his back, but Demetri retorts that he's got friends that stand by Hawk's side. Hawk reconciles with Miguel and Johnny and joins Eagle Fang Karate. When Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang subsequently begin training together to defeat Cobra Kai, Hawk and Demetri stand together as they start.
Season 4[]
Hawk continues to train with both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang, and rekindles his romance with Moon (thanks to Demetri informing him she's now single again because of having broken up with her girlfriend Piper weeks before); he also changes his Mohawk from red to purple (symbolizing his desire to find balance within himself).
Later, Robby leads Cobra Kai to the tattoo parlor, where they ambush Hawk and shave off his Mohawk as revenge for betraying them, bullying their classmate Kenny, and drenching them at the baseball diamond. As a result, he loses his confidence and briefly quits karate altogether. When the two dojos split once again, Hawk, now going by Eli once again, joins Miyagi-Do rather than remain with Eagle Fang; he eventually regains his confidence, realizing that his true confidence came from himself, allowing him to easily defeat Kyler in the quarterfinals. In the boys' tournament finals, after Miguel bails out of his match, Eli fights Robby to a draw due to their knowledge of both Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do techniques, resulting in a sudden death overtime. However, Eli's combination of offense and defense (instead of his previous style of all aggressive offense), as well as having gained balance, allows him to emerge victorious over Robby, becoming the All-Boys champion for Miyagi-Do in the tournament. However, partially due to a bribed referee, Tory wins against Sam and Cobra Kai emerges as the overall victor in the tournament.
Season 5[]
Eli and Demetri helps Miguel with his relationship with Sam. Hawk is still part of Miyagi-Do and continuing his relationship with Moon, as well as making a new mohawk. At the Sekai Taikai tryout match, Hawk faces Kenny, but is defeated by the latter using the illegal method "Silver bullet", which forces Hawk to forfeit the match.
After Tory switches sides, the Miyagi-Dos and Eagle Fangs work together to break into Cobra Kai in order to expose Terry Silver. Hawk and Demetri hack into the servers and steal the security footage of Silver confessing to Tory about his bribing the tournament referee. However, due to Mitch ratting them out, they are discovered by Cobra Kai.
During the ensuing fight, Kyler taunts Hawk over his loss to Kenny, but Hawk rebuffs it by calling Kyler out, saying he chose to get over his loss to Kenny and move on, whereas Kyler never did, and instead kept putting on the same bully act as always, and adding he never learned his lesson. He easily defeats Kyler and his teammates with the help of Demetri. The two upload the video to the Cobra Kai YouTube channel, with Hawk sending the computer to Anthony LaRusso to finish the job during the brawl that follows while he and Demetri join the fight. Silver is finally exposed and arrested, while Kenny, Kyler and all the other Cobra Kai students abandon him by throwing their Cobra Kai shirts and hoodies at him, showing they quit Cobra Kai for good.
Personality[]
“ | Wake up, Mom! I'm a freak. I'm never gonna have any other friends besides Demetri. I'm never going to get a girlfriend. I'm never going to be anything other than a kid with a weird lip! | „ |
~ Eli to his mother in "All In". |
At the start of the series, Eli is shown to be very insecure and having very little confidence due to being made fun of for his lip scar. He was kind to Miguel after he asked to sit with them, and even complimented him later for standing up to Kyler. He was also even more submissive than Demetri when dealing with Kyler and his gang.
After joining Cobra Kai and becoming "Hawk", however, he becomes much more confident in himself, taking Cobra Kai's teachings to heart and developing an extremely aggressive mindset based on them. Hawk enjoys fighting a lot and was actively cheering when the fight between Sam and Tory led to an all-out brawl. While Hawk is a formidable fighter, he still retains traits of his old self, such as being scared to tell his parents about his Hawk tattoo and showing respect towards students who can put up a good fight against him like Miguel.
“ | Hawk: Defeat does not exist. Demetri: Now there's that winning attitude that pushed her away in the first place. I think you need a healthy dose of inner peace. |
„ |
~ Demetri to Hawk about his aggressive mindset. |
Over the course of Season 2, Hawk's aggressive mindset leads him to become a bully himself. Though he projects a "badass" persona, Hawk's ego is fairly easily bruised and he often reacts to insults towards himself and Cobra Kai with violence. Despite his actions, Hawk also shows certain virtuous traits such as a sense of camaraderie with his fellow Cobra Kai students, not taking it personally when Miguel beat him in the River Creek Match. He also showed genuine love for Moon while they were dating and seemed to accept her decision to break up with him, albeit begrudgingly. When Miguel was severely injured after being pushed off a ledge by Robby Keene, Hawk was concerned for him and blamed Johnny for his injuries for teaching him to show mercy to his opponent. He also visited Miguel at the hospital — something that even Tory, Miguel's girlfriend at the time, didn't do.
Hawk seems to be the favored student of Kreese, as he was shown being advised by him one-on-one at several points in the series and was the one most enthusiastic (with the possible exception of Tory) to embrace Kreese's harsher philosophy of not showing any mercy and not stopping until the opponent was defeated. However, during the course of the third season, Hawk slowly starts to have a crisis of conscience and become uncomfortable with Kreese's more ruthless methods, as well as the lines he's crossed before and since he took over. This, along with him recalling what Kreese, Johnny and Miguel had said to him over time and realizing how Kreese does not care about him, results in him switching sides after he and several other Cobra Kai students invade the LaRusso house and attack both Daniel and Johnny's students, as well as saving Demetri’s life and apologizing to him for bullying him, which Demetri accepted.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Mrs. Moskowitz- Mother
Friends/Allies[]
- Miyagi Do-Karate
- Demetri Alexopoulos - Best Friend, Brother figure; temporary enemy and rival
- Miguel Diaz - Best Friend; Temporary Enemy
- Daniel LaRusso - Sensei and Former Enemy
- Johnny Lawrence - Co-sensei, Ally; Temporary Enemy
- Chozen Toguchi - Co-sensei
- Samantha LaRusso - Former Enemy
- Chris - Former Enemy turned Ally and Teammate
- Bert - Close Friend; Temporary Enemy
- Nathaniel - Former Enemy
- Robby Keene - Former Enemy turned Ally and Close Friend
- Anthony LaRusso - Teammate
- Devon Lee
- Mitch - Temporary Enemy
- Kenny Payne - Former Enemy
- Eagle Fang students - Former Enemies turned Teammates
- Miyagi Do students - Former Enemies turned Teammates
- Moon - Girlfriend
- Yasmine
- Tory Nichols - Former Enemy turned Ally (Status Unknown)
- Mike Barnes
Enemies[]
- Kyler Park - Former bully turned Brief Teammate and Former Arch-Rival
- Brucks - Former bully
- Kyler's gang- Former Bullies.
- Cobra Kai Dojo
- John Kreese - Former Sensei and Mentor turned Enemy
- Terry Silver
- Cobra Kai students - Former Teammates
Trivia[]
- Previously, his actor Jacob Bertrand also starred with Peyton List (who plays Tory Nichols) in the Disney Channel Original film The Swap.
- If he would've defeated Robby Keene without cheating, he would've faced Miguel in the finals, making the two Cobra Kai students face off each other. Had that been the case, Cobra Kai was going to win anyway (though the dojo still won when Miguel defeated Robby).
- In a way, Hawk mirrors Johnny Lawrence as someone who was bullied but gained confidence through Cobra Kai, only to end up becoming a bully himself.
- He can be compared to Dutch from the original movie due to his (formerly) sadistic nature.
External Links[]
- Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz on the Heroes Wiki.
- Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz on the Karate Kid Wiki.