by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
40 years after facing off in the All-Valley tournament final, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) team up to train a new generation of kids for the Sekai Taikai in Barcelona. Meanwhile, John Kreese (Martin Kove) has escaped prison and wants to reunite with old friends. The stakes could not be higher in the final season of Cobra Kai, the sequel series to The Karate Kid films.
As is customary with the final seasons of Netflix shows, Season Six was split into three, five-episode parts: the first covers training for the Sekai Taikai, the second, the Sekai Taikai itself, and the third, its aftermath. I’ve never understood why Netflix does this; if you want to build up a bit more hype for the final seasons of your show, why not just do the usual thing that TV networks have been doing for years and release the episodes weekly? This is a particular problem with Part One of this season, as seeing all the events leading up to the Sekai Taikai, but having to wait to see the actual tournament makes for a very dissatisfying set of episodes. This wait is made all the more disheartening when you consider the season’s release had already been delayed because of the writer’s strike.
Many characters have had more significant problems leading to this international karate tournament. Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) is looking to get into Stanford University, his mother Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) and Johnny are preparing a new arrival in the family, while Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser) is looking to clear the air with her former rival Tory Nichols (Peyton List). So these first few episodes are torn between setup for bigger things to come, and wrap-up for other plot lines.
Meanwhile, despite being a fugitive, John Kreese has made it to South Korea to team up with Kim Da-Eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim) in training a new set of students on the ways of Cobra Kai. New characters, Yoon (Daniel Kim) and Kwon (Brandon H. Lee), are at the center of these events, in competition to be the dojo’s best fighters. This is an interesting side story that shows the rival fighters are going through the same feelings of self-doubt and desire to prove themselves as the kids back in the valley.
Speaking of the kids, there are a lot of interesting new developments with the “power couples,” as they are referred to by other characters: Miguel and Sam, and Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) and Tory. After Miguel and Robby went at it physically and figured out a way to clear the air last season, it’s now the turn of their girlfriends to do the same. In by far the best scene in Part One, the two former rivals verbally lay everything out on the table to one another. It is a wonderfully paced scene which is well-earned; both Mouser and List perform it brilliantly. A particularly cathartic moment is when Tory points out a mistake that has bothered me since the two characters first met in Season Two. It makes for a satisfying resolution at the right time, during which the characters apologize and admit to being wrong for the right reasons. The only disappointing thing about this moment is that Sam’s character arc is complete, so she doesn’t have much to do for the remainder of the season.
As the dojo prepares for the Sekai Taikai, another fan favourite, Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan), is brought back to aid the selection process. Watching the students participate in the trials that Mike sets up for them is a lot of fun, as he has some creative ways of determining the best fighters. It also gives some side characters the chance to shine. A lot of what happens in Part One of the season is setup for things to come, and anyone watching the season will likely be excited to see what happens next. However, as a set of episodes to watch independently, Part One is a somewhat unsatisfactory experience as it is all setup without any payoff.
This incompleteness isn’t helped by the fact that in the last few minutes of the fifth episode, many of the characters behave in a dumb way. One character finds themselves in a challenging emotional situation. Daniel and Johnny have conflicting ways of dealing with them, resulting in them falling out again. No one other than maybe Johnny attempts to help the character deal with their emotions, and you are just left feeling bad for them, and frustrated by everyone else’s behavior.
The enjoyment factor certainly steps up when the Sekai Taikai occurs in Part Two. The switching from the team events at the tournament and the training time in between events, where conflicts among the students happen, is well-balanced, keeping things from being too repetitive. During the tournament, we are introduced to a new enemy dojo for the main cast to deal with: Iron Dragons led by Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) and students Axel (Patrick Luwis) and Zara (Rayna Vallandingham). Wolf and Axel are given a decent amount of development and backstory, making them both deeper characters. However, Zara’s development comes across as extremely shallow and one-note, as if she was inserted into the story to be a foil for the female fighters; every second she is on screen, she acts insufferably, making you want to see her suffer. To be fair, the character does an outstanding job of being unlikable; the problem is there is nothing more to her than that. Axel has an interesting role later on that makes you sympathize with him and better understand why he is the way he is as a fighter. Zara, however, never gets anything like this, and her character’s ultimate fate is far too predictable. She is less of a character and more of a thing to be defeated.
Several other characters are given more minor subplots to provide them with some level of closure. Devon Lee (Oona O’Brien) has an engaging coming-of-age arc that takes an unexpected turn, Kim Da-Eun has a satisfying and somewhat expected redemption arc, Kyler (Joe Seo) has a similar, albeit briefer, moment of self-realization about his situation in life, and some of the other kids have quite nice moments together that shows what they have learned from their experiences. A few other character subplots add some comedy and help lighten the series’ mood for a few scenes scattered about the final season. I enjoyed and appreciated how certain events were set into motion by events in other plot lines, making the whole thing seem much more interwoven.
But possibly the most wasted characters in this final season are Demetri Alexopoulos (Gianni DeCenzo) and Hawk Moskowitz (Jacob Bertrand), who are more occupied with which university they will attend than the Sekai Taikai. Despite the two friends being pretty computer savvy while things like Discord and Zoom exist, neither likes the idea of not attending the same school. The prospect of being apart leads to some forced fights and falling outs. It’s as if both characters forgot everything they had learned over the previous seasons and decided to be angry at the other for the sake of it. Demetri paints himself in a horrible light when he blames Hawk for something that is his own doing. This contrivance is made even worse when this conflict is resolved, as there isn’t any apparent reason why it happens when it does; it just does. The plot line reeks of the writers needing to give these two characters something to do in the final season. With that said, they make a humorous addition to the plot during Part Three, which creatively ties into their knowledge of technology.
A more interesting subplot involves Daniel discovering that Mr. Miyagi may have had a darker past than he realized. By investigating old belongings and newspaper reports, and speaking to several people, Daniel is sent down a rabbit hole that leaves him horrified to learn that the man he always considered honorable and pure might have been a criminal and a killer. While I did appreciate this as an unexpected twist, it made me wonder what this information is supposed to mean. Daniel investigates events before his mother’s birth, so I wasn’t sure why he cared so much about it. Did the person Miyagi was before Daniel knew him take away from the good man he was when he did know him? Does it make the lessons he taught Daniel any less important? I couldn’t understand why it would. Despite this, the information that is gradually revealed contrasts nicely with events in the present, which comes across as very clever. The show brings in a young version of Mr. Miyagi (Brain Takahashi) to talk to Daniel in dream sequences, and uses Pat Morita’s likeness for a couple of scenes; while the effects aren’t the best, it’s nice to see him finally appear in the series outside of archive footage.
But what of the other sensei from the original film? John Kreese takes an unexpected turn in Part Three after being overcome with guilt because of what he feels he’s caused. He admits that he took his “No Mercy” philosophy too far, and makes several noble sacrifices to make things right for those he has wronged. It calls back to the way he treated Johnny before and after the original film’s All-Valley tournament, showing that it is never too late to change or to make things right. Ultimately, it may be too late for him, but he does what he can to make things better in the future for those he has taught the wrong lessons. His ultimate fate is quite startling and a little chilling, leaving me quite shaken. It was a masterful redemption arc for one of the most tragic characters in the franchise.
After the Sekai Taikai in Part Three, much focus is given to wrapping up the characters, and showing that their lives will continue. The status of the Cobra Kai brand is brought back to something similar to where it was in Season One. Formerly rival characters now work together to defeat a common enemy, and everyone is given a satisfactory ending to this part of their life. Still, they are going onto potentially more significant and better things. There are also a lot of beautifully written speeches with just the right level of sentimentality without being sappy. There are particular standout performances in the scenes between Zabka and Kove. Many of the kids also deserve special mention for introducing a new generation to this world of karate. I especially look forward to seeing what Maridueña and List do in the future.
While this final season is not my favorite, it certainly fulfills many of the hopes I had for how the show would wrap up. The longer format of 15 episodes does drag a lot in both Parts One and Part Three, but the pleasure of tournament sequences is more than worth the price of admission. After having a more ambiguous vibe in previous seasons, it’s more unmistakably “goodies vs. baddies.”. But at the same time, there is a lot of setting up for upcoming reveals, which take a while to pay off; as a result, the wait for these moments is frustrating at times.
The season’s tone is somewhat flat, because it’s mostly about wrapping everything up. Almost all of the meaty plot lines and character development had come and gone before its start. That isn’t to say the way everything wraps up is unsatisfying; it feels like the right way to end things. Johnny’s ending is particularly gratifying, and not quite what I expected. But this season shines in moments when the characters just lay everything out on the table to each other, fostering a connection by releasing all their repressed emotions. Plus, the comedy is still there, as is the fan service; a couple of very pleasing callbacks to the original film at the end make you feel the passion and love that the series writers have for The Karate Kid franchise.
So now that it’s over, what will Cobra Kai’s legacy be? While it will always have a special place in my heart, it probably won’t be remembered as one of the all-time great TV shows. It doesn’t quite hit that top-tier level of either comedy or drama, and it will always have a stigma attached to it, of its good will only being due to audience’s built-in love for the franchise. However, as someone who casually likes only the first film, I can tell you my love for Cobra Kai is independent of what’s come before. Most of the significant negative things I can say about the show have to do with what wasn’t in it. I don’t typically want more of a TV show just to have more, but I did here.
It was groundbreaking for a couple of reasons. To my knowledge, it was the first time anyone has tried to make a sequel story an entire generation after the original, with the same actors playing every returning character. The filmmakers had a rule: If we can’t get the original actor to return, their character won’t be in it. If anyone has tried this idea before, this is undoubtedly the first time it’s been done right, and it’s a blueprint for future writers. Since the show first dropped, the Top Gun and Ghostbusters franchises have done similar things, and I firmly believe many more will follow. Cobra Kai also mastered the right way to do fan service, finding the right balance of respect for fans new and old. Usually, fan service makes me cringe, but there was something about the way this show did it that was clever and creative. I don’t think I’ve seen anything do this amount of fan service without it ever seeming overblown or forced. The writers, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, weren’t afraid to embrace the idea of fan service and had faith that the viewers would accept it as long as it was done correctly. There was a real craft to how they pulled off this series, and I am excited to see others like it.
Season Rating: Liked It
Series Rating: Loved It
Cobra Kai is currently streaming on Netflix
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