When ODESZA, Bridgerton, and Cobra Kai collide, you get Simone Ashley going full on Karate Kid to the sound of ODESZA’s latest single “Love Letter (feat. The Knocks).”
In the dream-like new music video directed by Dan Brown, Bridgerton leading lady Simone portrays Iyla, a dancer facing the woes of a working artist—an exhausting cycle of rejection. Iyla is seen clutching envelopes from dance conservatories, hopeful until reading the short, agonizing lines, “your application was unsuccessful” and “we regret to inform you.” Iyla dances it out, literally moving through the frustration while the defiant lyrics of “Love Letter” repeat the chant: “You can’t break my heart / ‘Cause I was never in love.”
It’s while Iyla is fed up, shredding the rejection letters on the rooftop of her apartment when Yuji Okumoto, who stars in Cobra Kai as Chozen Toguchi, magically appears. Student…meet master.
As ODESZA’s beat drops, Iyla goes full-on Karate Kid with her new sensei, even training to catch fish à la Cobra Kai‘s Miguel. And just like that, Iyla launches herself into a montage of different trades, ambitiously trying her hand at everything from martial arts to chess to bartending to paddleball to wrestling.
She even attempts to contact extraterrestrial life, but receives the same message with each new pursuit: nice try, not good enough, nope, not interested, no thank you. But the resilient Iyla refuses to give up until she gets a yes, until she regains her power. The music video is a fun, psychedelic vision that captures the hopeful heart of the record.
