Cobra Kai Season 6

 In 2024 the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai debuted.  Netflix adopted a strategy similar to what they did with the final seasons of The Crown and Ozark and dropped the episodes in groups over a several month period.  My family and I watched the first group around September or so and then the last ten in February.  

Fifteen episodes was too much of a good thing.  It is enjoyable seeing these characters interact and I appreciate the commitment of the creators and Netflix to give the fans a super sized season but there was not enough story to fill fifteen episodes.  In particular the last batch of episodes felt this way even though the final episode was a well made send off.

Spoilers below:

The first group of episodes sets up the new Cobra Kai students in South Korea and more importantly puts Kreese to work with the ruthless Da-eun.  Kreese focuses on Kwon, played by Brandon H. Lee (no relation to Bruce Lee) who is more talented but has a manipulative personality, and becomes the character the audience can route against.  At this point though it feels like the show is twisting itself in knots to keep Kreese involved.  There is no fallout from his escape from prison, a development which felt out of place here anyway.  Since Silver was ultimately arrested at the end of Season 5 it should have exonerated Kreese.  

In Los Angeles Johnny and Daniel focus on getting their students ready and there is some awkward merging as the former Cobra Kai students try to learn to fight together with the Myagi-Do counterparts.  Of this group I got a kick out of Johnny forcing a slumber party between recent arch enemies Tory and Sam.  I hadn’t liked the development at the end of Season 5 that Chozen and Kumiko could become a couple and the show agrees and has Chozen facing Kumiko’s rejection of him.  The subplot focusing on colleges was appropriate for kids this age and there is some built in drama in the selection of the students who will compete in the Sekai Tekai though I always knew that Robby, Miguel, Sam, Tory and Hawk would be there.  

Peyton List as Tory gets the most dramatic arc in Season 6.  The creators cleverly have Tory fight Sam for the captain role right after her mother died as a way of processing the pain.  Daniel and Johnny’s differing reactions to this discovery are spot on and the truth is they are both right.  Daniel is looking out for her, recognizing this could make it worse and Johnny sees that fighting is helping her.

There are a couple of other developments I did not care for.  Daniel and Johnny’s bickering grows old and the discovery that Myagi committed a crime (and left evidence in a box so Daniel could solve the mystery over several episodes) felt like a contrived way to torture and distract Daniel.  Daniel could have learned of this another way and I knew it would turn out to be a red herring and Myagi would be redeemed.  Daniel’s mother’s calm explanation of the truth is a good use of her character and goes to show that he should have just talked to her in the first place.  However the moment in Daniel’s nightmare when Myagi’s face appears in front of him about to finish him off is chilling.

The second group of episodes has the Myagi-Do team out of sorts as they arrive in Barcelona.  Robby is thrown when he sees Tory back with Cobra Kai and again Peyton List is strong as she plays with these mixed feelings, which are only complicated further when Robby is seduced by Zara played by Rayna Vallandingham.  Vallandingham is terrific as a slick fighter with catlike moves who also is a cute modern type of femme fatale.  

Daniel’s imprisonment in a dog cage is scary but does not belong in this series.  It’s fun to watch him fight the thugs but this series was never about these types of crimes.  Johnny’s behavior on the flight to the U.S. is more fitting and Amanda’s working to heal the wound between Kenny and Anthony gives Courtney Henggellar something to do in this group of episodes which she otherwise would not be a part of.

The different competitions in the Sekai Tekai are creative.  I particularly liked one where two fighters on each side would enter one platform and one would remain standing and the tag team which exposed tensions on the Myagi-Do team.

Axel, an Iron Dragon fighter is used well as Sam witnesses him being abused by his captain and offers him kindness, which he mistakes as a romantic gesture. Wisely the creators avoided turning this into a love triangle as Sam never seems tempted by Axel, even though Miguel predictably is not too thrilled with Axel suddenly eyeing Sam. 

The brawl in episode 10 is an explosion of all the simmering tensions from the past few episodes.  It plays like the big high school fight from Season 2 but involves every character present.  Clearly a lot of work went into determining the match ups and a lot of the Myagi-Do victories come from teamwork, which is a nice rounding of the circle since the Myagi-Do team had been a little uncentered throughout most of the competition.  The fight went on a little long and Kreese’s hunting of Silver (whose presence at the tournament is anti-climatic) feels tired.  The other two battles (Robbie vs. Kwon and Johnny vs. Wolf) set up the final showdowns.  Kwon’s death is an effective close as it is a youngster who loses his life but it’s one who has only been shown doing awful things and was attacking his opponent with a knife so the tragedy is not as great as if it had been a more heroic character.

Part 3 plays as a sequel to part 2.  The Sekai Taikei is restaged at the location of the All Valley tournament from the earlier seasons and movies after the remaining participants agree to go back.  The obstacle is convincing Daniel to let the Myagi-Do fighters do so.  Here is where I feel the whole thing structurally falls apart.

First there are no consequences to the brawl in the previous finale which led to a child’s death.  I think they would have a legal and public reaction.  Silver’s terminal illness comes out of nowhere since he still is strong enough to fight when needed and I cannot believe Daniel would ever let Silver into his home, much less agree to return to the competition.  Silver was defeated in Season 5 and they should have just left him in jail as by now as an audience member I have had enough of him.

Kreese’s final showdown with Silver on the boat gives them both a big ending but this is also again out of place with the tone of the show as is Silver’s plan to kidnap Carmen.  Kreese does get a form of redemption when he apologizes to Johnny (and saves his family from Silver) but it all feels overdue.  The creators clearly wanted to tie up these storylines but this lacks imagination.

Daniel’s acceptance of Cobra Kai is a nice turn and refreshingly there is no more bickering between Johnny and Daniel in the final block of episodes.  Daniel also looks very good in the black gi, which shows that Cobra Kai has reformed to Daniel’s standards, not that he has embraced their ways.  Even when Daniel briefly joined Cobra Kai in The Karate Kid Part III he still wore his white gi.

Johnny’s wedding with Carmen, with Bobby, the most noble of the old Cobrai Kai gang, is a sweet moment as is the birth of his daughter is sweet and the presence of all the people in his life.  This sets up Johnny’s final with Wolf.  I found it preposterous that the tournament would require coaches to battle, especially as a good coach might be well past the age of being able to compete.  As it is Johnny is about twenty years older than Wolf and is clearly the underdog.  But the creators have been building to this moment since it started with a flashback of Johnny’s defeat to Daniel on the same mat and this is his chance at redemption.  

Daniel uses a Myagi approach to get Johnny ready beforehand, so that Johnny has balance, but when the fight starts similar to the final match in The Karate Kid Part III (the opponent completely unnerves Johnny at the start of the fight) Daniel, instead of repeating Myagi’s advice to him in the moment uses a Cobra Kai approach and tells Johnny to man up (using different words).  Macchio lets Daniel get a little angry and then enjoying the brief flash of power it gives him.   During the fight Johnny throws in a signature move from his original fight with Daniel when he leaps from lying on his back by pushing with his hands and landing on his feet.  This moment was never discussed in the film when everyone focused on the crane kick.  The move always impressed me and its inclusion here given William Zabka’s current age makes it all the more impressive.   I thought it might end with a crane kick but that would not have been true to Johnny so I am glad another signature finish, the spin around finishing with a left fist to the jaw (which he used on Daniel the first time he beat Daniel up).

The resolution of the Sam and Miguel relationship shows maturity on both of their parts.  Sam wants to spend a year in Okinawa and Miguel accepts this and in a nice surprise offers to keep her company for the first part of her trip.  This allows us to see them together at the end, even if it is only temporary, and it leaves the door open to future stories which could go either way.

The final scene, with the creators on camera discussing a reworking of Back to the Future similar to what they have just done with The Karate Kid is a funny in-joke.  The moment with the fly and the chopsticks is a cute final Cobra Kai and Myagi-Do final beat.  They will never mesh perfectly but they’ll find ways to work together. 

The creators are right to wrap up the show here and it’ll be interesting to see the new Karate Kid film that brings back Macchio again, working with Jackie Chan’s character from the 2010 film. *** 

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