‘After high school, it’s just been one loss after another…’
When season one of Cobra Kai first dropped YouTube Premium, it didn’t feel like something that was going to run for 65 episodes across five more seasons. It wasn’t until Netflix picked it up that this belated sequel to The Karate Kid movies began to take off. While it has struggled to maintain its initial quality in recent years, this sixth and final season is a marked return to form and a fitting end to what has been a mostly excellent TV spin-off…
Season six begins with Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and LaRusso confidante Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) facing off and ends with a Rocky tribute and a final battle for the ages. Split into three parts, the first part of season three introduces the idea of the Sekai Taikai – a prestigious karate tournament that is mentioned roughly 47 times in every episode. Part two moves the action to Barcelona for the tournament, but ends in controversy and uncertainty, while the final section concerns the fallout and ultimate conclusion of several story threads. I don’t want to give too much away about the transition from part two to part three but be rest assured there are some truly brazen plot twists along the way.
While there are still too many filler episodes here, and too many characters still around that we don’t care about, when season six of Cobra Kai is at its best, it matches anything we have seen on the show previously. By the end, co-creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg understand that it is the legacy characters that have kept people coming back and we wisely conclude with the focus very much with Johnny and Daniel-san. Indeed, as the title suggests, Cobra Kai has always been more about Johnny’s journey than anything else, and he remains the most compelling character here by some way. The younger cast members perhaps struggle to make as big an impact with Robby (Tanner Buchanan) and Samantha (Mary Mouser) both exciting the show with a whimper rather than a bang, but Peyton List as Tory fares better offering a depth and nuance to her character that is absent elsewhere. A word too for Martin Kove who continues to make John Kreese one of the most captivating and ridiculous onscreen villains in recent memory.
Cobra Kai season six builds and builds throughout its 15 episodes, and unlike some of the previous seasons, the journey more than justifies the destination. The final episode deserves to go down as one of the best series finales ever. It may be predictable, but damn, is it satisfying.
Strike hard. Strike fast. No mercy.
