by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
It’s a funny thing about Netflix shows over the last few years. They abruptly wrap things up once they get to about the fourth or fifth season. Possibly, people at the top of Netflix told them to end the show before the writers wanted to because, with many of their shows, the final season doesn’t feel like a final season until the last few episodes. However, the fifth season of Cobra Kai has the opposite feeling. It’s NOT the final season, and yet, the way it ends, I would have been delighted if it had been. By the end, I was excitedly wondering where they could go next.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at the season overall, firstly about the show as a whole. I have found it a little strange that, from season three onwards, the dojo in the title has adopted a clear villain status. There weren’t any prominent characters we knew we should hate for the first two seasons, only characters doing horrible things with good intentions. But after Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) was kicked out of Cobra Kai at the end of season two, the dojo resorted to a similar role that it had in the films. Nothing wrong with that, but the show’s title is a little misleading now. The show Cobra Kai is no longer the story of Cobra Kai; it’s about Johnny.
So how does the fifth season of the sequel to The Karate Kid films fair? It picks up with Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) heading to Mexico to find his father. Meanwhile, Johnny, Miguel’s surrogate father, and Johnny’s actual son Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) go after him, as was alluded to at the end of the previous season. Johnny appears to be using the trip as an attempt to connect with his estranged son. It is a massive relief to see Robby finally accept his father reaching out to him after rejecting him numerous times over the previous four seasons. Mending relationships is a bit of a theme for the season, and is a critical factor in several character arcs we see. While the bonding between Johnny and Robby is great, a significant shortcoming of this storyline with Miguel’s father is the anticlimactic way it ends, and the lack of it tying into anything else seen later in the season. I understand the importance of seeing what a character is like rather than just being told, but given it was alluded to at the end of the previous season, I expected it to have more significance.
Another storyline alluded to at the end of the previous season is Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) recruiting Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto) to help him fight Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith). Chozen had been Daniel’s rival in The Karate Kid part II, but he’s shown to be a much more good-natured character in season three. He is a welcome addition to the regular cast for this season, after only playing significant roles in two episodes previously. He has a far more deceitful approach to dealing with Cobra Kai and adds a new level of comedy and camaraderie when socializing with the other adults. He even gets to teach Daniel and Johnny’s students; his lesson is an important plot point later in the season. Johnny bonds with Chozen over their shared experience of having their ass kicked by Daniel back in the day. It’s a pleasant experience to see interactions between characters from The Karate Kid films who never had scenes together. Griffith is also chilling as Terry. He comes across as kind of a Bond-type villain, a far more convincing threat than he ever was in the entertaining but also dumb The Karate Kid part III.His act of deceit and intimidation does make him an easy character to hate and want to see get compliance. However, at times it has the side effect of making Daniel and Chozen look dumb, though Daniel’s wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) calls him out on this. I’d also say Terry’s ultimate plan for Cobra Kai seems a little unimaginative to me. It’s not about teaching kids the wrong lessons or getting certain people on his side. It doesn’t seem to be about money since he’s already shown to be pretty well off. Terry’s plan appears to be nothing more than conquering the world, and I almost expected a “mwahaha” evil laugh from him at some point.
Two other film cast members reprising roles this season are Sean Kanan as Mike Barnes and Robyn Lively as Jessica Andrews. Both are primarily in the story as fan service. Mike’s role is mainly that of light-hearted humor. His introduction is a massively over-the-top screw-with-the-audience joke. Most of his scenes are played for comedy, suggesting that the writers didn’t have any serious plans to make him part of the storyline. They just brought him back for the fans. That isn’t a bad thing — I’ve always loved how this series has just embraced fan service, but I was hoping he’d have a more significant role. Sadly he has no scenes with Jessica, who appears only briefly, but adds a good bit of backstory to the role she played in how Daniel and Amanda met.
This season has an entirely new character, Kim Da-Eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim), the granddaughter of Terry’s old sensei and right hand in his plan to take over. She adopts a similar role to the one Terry had in The Karate Kid Part III,attempting to corrupt the students, primarily Tory Nichols (Peyton List). Hannah-Kim presents an equally chilling portrayal to the one Griffith gives and shows Kim’s teaching methods being possibly even more ruthless than Terry’s.
As is customary in this series, the teenage characters all get their time to shine in plot lines entirely separate from anything the adults are doing. In past seasons, these plot lines have gotten a little bogged down in romance. However, this season, the two prominent couples, Miguel and Samanta “Sam” LaRusso (Mary Mouser), and Robby and Tory, appear to be put on hold, leaving room for progression in other bad-blooded relationships. The heated rivalry between the students of Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do peaks with a war of words at a water park, which shows some good character progression from Robby and Tory in how they deal with the situation. Tory agrees to participate in a contest to settle things in a way that avoids further fighting. I found this to be a compelling character turn and one of the season’s best moments. Tory is a character who, before this season, has been the embodiment of Cobra Kai’s “No mercy” policy, and now she wishes to avoid a fight. One negative about Tory’s role this season is that she spends many parts of it alone, with no one she could turn to that she felt could be trusted. As a result, she has limited chances to verbalize her feelings. It is all shown through her facial expressions, which are hard to read at times. She makes a couple of choices this season where I’m not sure what she is thinking. Her actions make it hard to tell how much she had planned ahead of time.
Tory’s rival Sam meanwhile, starts the season going through a self-doubt arc that I didn’t buy into, and she doesn’t get much else to do until the last few episodes. Though, as someone that’s never really warmed to Sam as a character, I’m okay with that. Her role becomes far more significant in the final few episodes. Her behaviour towards Tory at the kids club in season four was probably Sam’s worst moment of the entire series; nonetheless, this season delivers one of her best moments involving her going to find Tory. A few decisions she makes near the end of the season show real character growth.
One character I didn’t expect to see as much of this season was John Kreese (Martin Kove), after he was taken to jail at the end of the previous season. He gets another character to work for him to attempt to overthrow Terry in a way in which the character is uncomfortable. One of the best visual scenes of the season is a therapy session John has, portraying the therapist as numerous characters from John’s past, including younger versions of Johnny (Logan Coffey) and John himself (Barrett Carnahan). Outside of a few good scenes, I’d described John’s role in the season as the start of an arc. We are in the dark about his plan’s details for a large part of the season. It’s unclear if John got others involved in his ideas purely for selfish reasons. It could be a setup for the character to have a redemption arc in future seasons. This and the fact he may know Kim Da-Eun excites me.
Another character that may be the subject of a redemption arc later is Kenny Payne (Dallas Dupree Young). Having adopted the role of a bully in the previous season, Kenny continues to escalate the war between the students of the two dojos. He is considered Cobra Kai’s top male student, and I found this a little hard to buy, given his size and lack of experience compared to many of the students at the dojo, not to mention how many students now supposedly train under Cobra Kai. Other side characters with minimal progression this season include Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz (Jacob Bertrand), who had some advice for Miguel and once again embraces his alter ego “The Hawk”, but mainly exists this season to be the victim of cheating. His best friend Demetri Alexopoulos’ (Gianni DeCenzo) contribution this season is almost entirely in the form of comedy, although he does get a moment to shine in the finale. We get a bit of background on Devon Lee (Oona O’Brien) as she develops a bond with Tory, which could be examined further in later seasons.
One of my favourite comedic characters, Raymond “Stingray” Porter (Paul Walter Hauser), returns for a few scenes this season. He plays a somewhat significant role in how things get resolved. At the end of season four, Terry used him to frame John, and he must now face up to the fact he was forced to lie and did nothing about it out of fear. It makes for some of the heavier scenes in the season, but the comedic tone of Stingray’s character, nerdy personality, and frequent pop culture references made them easier to watch.
The middle part of the season is where the real meat of the character arcs happens. After returning from Mexico, Johnny finds himself facing a new problem. A particular development in his life means Miguel and Robby will likely spend much more time together. Since they hate each other, Johnny feels the need to help them resolve things. I wouldn’t have expected this move of real maturity from Johnny, even midway through the previous season. There are a few moments of wisdom from him during the season. At one point, Daniel yells at him; Johnny asks what’s the matter with him and points out what is wrong with Daniel’s entire attitude. Eventually, he gets Miguel and Robby to vent all their hatred for each other. The payoff moment to this feels a little forced to me. It calls back to a moment from season two, and I didn’t understand why they only discussed it now. It seems strange it took them two and a half seasons to properly think about it.
The action scenes are probably the best choreographed the show has ever done. It always thrives with its fights, and it has an abundance of them this season. It felt like we had a fight scene in every episode, and nearly every central character was involved in at least one fight. There is a fight in the first episode where the camera work seems a little clunky, but they are all shot pretty effectively outside of that. The editing is a little fast for some of them, and there is no long-take fight like in previous seasons. However, there is one perfect panning shot where you expect a cut when the fight moves around, but instead, it moves seamlessly to another location. I love the variety of different characters that get fight scenes this season. Many side characters get to fight this season. There is a fight involving Amanda and another involving Kreese in jail, where Carnahan portrays him for parts of it. This time, the customary big fight in the season finale is a double feature. Fights over the season involve various locations and circumstances. Only one scene involves fighting under tournament rules.
Overall, Cobra Kai continues to impress me with how it can balance lighthearted comedy and some scenes of genuine emotion without ever feeling jarring or out of place. I admire the tight writing of setup and payoff. Many things or lines of dialogue that seem like throwaway jokes are a setup for later plot points. There is excellent character progression from my two favourite characters, Johnny and Tory, which results in some refreshing scenes of characters finding a way to connect. I’ve grown to love the togetherness shown by this cast of characters. It almost feels like a family at this point. A show with so much fighting in it, making me feel a real sense of family, is a testimony to how well they are writing the characters. This season even had me rooting for Sam LaRusso, and I never thought that would happen.
Score: 8/10
You can follow John Tillyard on Instagram