The expanded third season wraps up six seasons of ass-kicking with an underwhelming five episode finale.
Plot: After a shocking result in the Sekai Taikai, Miyagi-Do must reckon with their pasts while facing an uncertain future both on and off the mat. Almost 40 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, it’s all been leading to this.
Review: After six seasons over seven years and two streaming platforms, Cobra Kai is coming to an end. With the first two parts of the final season split into three parts, fans have seen ten episodes leading to the long-awaited finale event debuting on Netflix. The last five episodes of Cobra Kai VI culminate in the finale event that wraps up the story of Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) as he comes full circle in his story that began when he lost the All Valley Karate Tournament to Daniel LaRusso in 1984’s The Karate Kid. Bringing together all of the adult and teen cast along with the film characters introduced through the six seasons of Cobra Kai, this finale does provide a conclusive ending to the series. But, while everyone gets closure to their storylines, I cannot help but feel disappointed and underwhelmed by the repetitive and derivative nature of the sixth season, which has suffered rather than benefited from the extended episode count. Cobra Kai VI shows mercy to the audience by ending the show without leaving the audience feeling it was earned.
Part One saw Migayi-Do and Johnny’s Cobra Kai teaming up to prepare for the Sekai Taikai tournament. Part Two found the unified dojo arriving in Barcelona for the competition with the new Cobra Kai, led by Da-eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim) and John Kreese (Martin Kove), in one corner and Terry Silver’s (Thomas Ian Griffith) Iron Dragons, led by Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan), in another. The second section ended with a massive brawl that claimed the life of Cobra Kai’s Kwon (Brandon H. Lee) in the biggest cliffhanger this series has had yet. Part Three begins a month after the suspension of the Sekai Taikai, which has found Johnny and Daniel (Ralph Macchio) struggling with what should come next. Daniel is still at odds with the details he learned about Mr. Miyagi’s deadly past involvement with the tournament, while Johnny does not know what comes next for him despite having a baby on the way any day now. We know the tournament will resume, so the first episode serves as a way to put the characters back in alignment for the matchups in the semi-final round and, eventually, the championships. These episodes focus a lot of time on Robbie (Tanner Buchanan), Tory (Peyton List), Miguel (Xolo Mariduena), and Sam (Mary Mouser) and their competition with Axel (Patrick Luwis) and Zara (Rayna Vallandingham), with a couple of training detours along the way. This means some oddly goofy choices in preparing for the matches involving virtual reality and some callbacks to The Karate Kid feature films.
Cobra Kai has never been subtle in its messages of perseverance and balance, and these closing episodes are no different, which means the training montages and focus shifts to a smaller group of characters. Most of the teen cast has a drastically reduced amount of screen time, which wastes arcs for Devon (Oona O’Brien), Eli (Jacob Bertrand), Demetri (Gianni DeCenzo), Kenny (Dallas Dupree Young), and anyone not competing in the Sekai Taikai. These episodes also quickly wrap up Chozen’s (Yuji Okumoto) ongoing romantic subplots and give us closure with the antagonistic Terry Silver and the somewhat redeemed John Kreese, both of whom were a welcome addition to Cobra Kai when they first appeared but have overstayed their welcome. Lewis Tan is wasted as Sensei Wolf, whose presence could have been built up more. Still, instead, he feels rushed to provide a more age-appropriate villain instead of making us sit through the middle-aged Johnny and Daniel punching and kicking the geriatric Kreese and Silver. Nevertheless, those who like their old-man fights are in for some doozies in these closing episodes.
This series started out by focusing on Johnny Lawrence’s road to redemption, which blended his out-of-touch nature that was stuck in the 1980s with his ongoing feud with Daniel LaRusso. As the pair put their differences aside to team up against Kreese and Silver, the focus shifted away from Johnny. These last five episodes bring the focus back to Johnny, with the final episode reserved for the showcase William Zabka has deserved since this series began. But, the power of bringing in the iconic music from The Karate Kid and the nostalgic boost of how the story gets everything aligned for the finale is wasted by the overlong wait to get here. By splitting the season to mine as much viewership from fans as possible and enduring two major cliffhangers, the expectation that this series would end any differently than it does was never in the cards. Instead, the final episode feels underwhelming and too quickly wraps up multiple plot threads left hanging by the preceding ten chapters.
The final five episodes hail from writers Joe Piarulli, Luan Thomas, Ashley Darnall, Kyle Civale, Chris Rafferty, and Bob Dearden, most of whom have scripted prior episodes this season. The finale was written by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, with Hurwitz and Schlossberg directing the last episode. The last episode certainly hits all of the right points in referencing prior episodes and even incorporating some movie archive footage. Still, so much momentum is lost between the debut of the first episode of season six and the release of Cobra Kai VI Part Three, which takes away some of the elements laid out in the season premiere. I am sure there was some desire to lay red herrings along the way to pad out this season for maximum impact. Still, the first and second parts of Cobra Kai VI could easily have been cut down to a total of five episodes, which improved the momentum and led to what should have been a rousing conclusion to this hit series. The cameos and callbacks in this final section pale compared to the five seasons before, leaving Cobra Kai VI as the worst thing it could have been: boring.
When this series started, I was charmed by seeing William Zabka’s and Ralph Macchio’s legacy updated for a new generation. There was a lot of fun, both nostalgic and otherwise, through the years as The Karate Kid cast returned in different ways to connect this series to its source. The last seasons have suffered from diminishing returns as the Cobra Kai concept began to repeat ideas in slightly different combinations, failing to strike first, strike hard, or show any mercy. Cobra Kai VI brings the series to a close in a way that could have been daring, special, and even unique, but rather than rock the boat or the legacy of The Karate Kid, the finale plays it safe and does only one surprising thing, which you will all see as you binge the closing chapters. I wish I was more satisfied with where this series ended up, but I will always look back fondly on the overall series as a worthy continuation of one of the most iconic films of the 1980s.
The Cobra Kai VI finale event premieres on February 13th on Netflix.
