Early in the second season of Cobra Kai, a fully grown man with a red beard in a braid enters a competition in the woods while sporting a leather jacket and aviator sunglasses. He introduces himself as Stingray. The teenagers in his immediate vicinity hardly respond. And for some reason, that moment works flawlessly. On paper, it’s ridiculous. It lands on the screen.
Paul Walter Hauser plays Raymond Porter, also known as Stingray, which is a fact in and of itself that tends to cause people who are familiar with movies to react slowly. Before most people knew his name, Hauser was regarded as one of Brad Pitt’s favorite actors, collaborated with Spike Lee twice, and received praise from Clint Eastwood. His performance in the true-crime miniseries Black Bird earned him a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy.
In the midst of all of that, he played a man-child for a number of seasons who yearned to join a San Fernando Valley teen karate dojo. The contrast is startling until you see him perform it, at which point it all makes perfect sense.
By design, Stingray’s past is minimal. He is an adult whose mother forbade him from learning karate when he was a child. He is employed at a hardware store. After living with his mother, he is expelled. Fawn, his girlfriend, makes fleeting appearances before vanishing.
He doesn’t get much in the show, and strangely, that’s part of what makes him compelling. He is present on the periphery of every significant storyline, appearing briefly for comedic effect before disappearing. Neither a talent nor a grudge define him. It’s necessary. A basic, almost humiliating need to fit in.
Season 4 is what drastically changes that reading. By that time, Stingray had completed his probation following the altercation at West Valley High School, lost his place in the dojo, been expelled from his mother’s home, and moved in with his sister while she was out of town. When he arrives at Cobra Kai, he anticipates being greeted like a returning hero.
Rather, Kreese informs him that he is worthless everyplace, including in the dojo. One of the more uncomfortable little moments the show has created is watching Raymond process that, gathering himself while obviously on the verge of tears, and silently telling himself that it’s a test he won’t fail. It’s more difficult than it seems, but Hauser plays it without going too far.
The next events are darker. Raymond goes up to Terry Silver at the dojo, desperate to get back in. After beating him until he is almost unconscious, Silver offers him a spot at Cobra Kai in exchange for lying to the police and claiming that Kreese attacked him. Hospitalized and emotionally detached, Raymond accepts the offer.
Soon after, he starts crying over it. The decision is not justified by the show, but it also does not turn him into a villain. There’s a feeling that the authors grasped something genuine here, which is that people occasionally act horribly out of loneliness and longing that has simply worn them down beyond the point of better judgment rather than out of malice.
For a character who began as pure comedic relief, his Season 5 redemption—which includes forcing Daniel and Amanda LaRusso to confront Silver, physically battling his way through the dojo, and ultimately telling the truth to authorities—plays out with more sincerity than it probably should. It’s still a little messy, and because of Stingray’s credibility issues, Silver’s attorney is able to have the charges dropped, which is both realistic and subtly depressing. He made an effort. It wasn’t entirely successful. Compared to most characters, that resolution is more honest.
An additional layer is added by the behind-the-scenes information. In an interview, Ralph Macchio and William Zabka made the lighthearted claim that Stingray is the character who would genuinely win a real-life tournament because he improves with each season. In a scene from Season 6, Stingray shows Johnny an old poster of the two of them together, which is actually an actual picture from Zabka’s 1980s modeling career.
Additionally, Hauser has acknowledged talking to the show’s creators about the potential for a stand-alone Stingray film. The fact that the conversation took place at all speaks to what Hauser created with a character who was initially only there to make the teenagers appear more normal by comparison, even though it’s unclear if that ever happens.
Raymond Porter is a novice sensei at Cobra Kai under Johnny Lawrence by the end of Season 6. He’s finally got what he’s always desired. To get there, there had to be a fight, an arrest, a nearly fatal beating, a false accusation, a public confession, and six seasons of humiliation. It’s difficult not to notice something a little poignant about that—subtly, without drawing too much attention to it.
