Series Review: Cobra Kai Season Six: Part Three

Cobra Kai Season Six: Part Three
Created by Josh Heald, John Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossbeg
Hurwitz and Schlossbeg Productions, Overbrook Entertainment
Streaming on Netflix: 02.13.25

There are few forces on earth more potent than nostalgia, especially the older we get, and for any middle-aged child of the ‘80s, Cobra Kai has truly been a powerful experience. Since 2018, the follow up to The Karate Kid has been mixing the wistful memories of simpler times with the harsher realities of growing up and growing old. I, for one, have gotten quite a kick out of the show, but after six seasons, it’s lost a lot of that real world edge and it was time to go out while it could still do so as a champion.

When we last left lifelong rivals Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), they were working together as senseis to try to lead a team to victory at the Sekai Taikai Karate Tournament in Barcelona, when tragedy struck and the tournament ended with no winner after a contestant was killed in a giant brawl on television. Now, everyone has returned to California, and it seems as if there will be no closure for anyone, until a surprise announcement comes that the Sekai Taikai is back on, with the remaining dojos competing right there in the Valley, in the very stadium where Daniel and Johnny faced off nearly 40 years ago.  Who will emerge victorious? Will the defense driven Miyagi-Do style or the “mercy is for the weak” mantra of Cobra Kai come out on top? Can Daniel, Johnny and their students at last put the demons to rest?  Everything has led to this moment.

A big part of the appeal of Cobra Kai in the first season was the juxtaposition of the glory days of being a high school sports legend with the reality of being an over-the-hill adult whose dreams didn’t pan out. Over the course of the series, the theme of re-evaluating life choices and dreams, as well as channeling them into something more focused and more important, has made for a surprisingly deep story during its best moments. The series has gotten progressively more over-the-top and cartoonish with each new season, however, and the most puzzling choice that the creators have made was with very character that detailed the films, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) — the one note villain of The Karate Kid, Part III, and Cobra Kai — who became less about crane kicking and more about shark jumping. While the endless shenanigans of Silver and original Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove), both together and separately, have threatened to bring the whole show down, the final episodes managed to find a sense of balance that would make Mr. Miyagi proud. Yes, there’s still a fair amount of silliness, but each of the main characters get an arc that fits well with their overall story, and the show ultimately refocuses on the story of Johnny Lawrence finally making peace with his past and realizing his potential. Zabka and Machhio are in top form, and I was particularly pleased to see Kove finally get another shot at exploring the human being inside Kreese, and a decades incoming scene between Kove and Zabka may be the best acting moment the show has given us.

There are still some moves that don’t land quite right, perhaps most notably an unfortunate choice to build a major sequence around some less than convincing CGI, and the outrageous resolution to the Terry Silver story probably would have been a major eyeroll moment if I hadn’t given in and just laughed myself sick at it. Still, Daniel is the heart of the show, and Johnny is the (sometimes lost) soul, and what the show does with the two classic characters manages to come together in a way that left me satisfied and even moved.

As the series funky ends, we know that the larger universe still has stories left in it, as Karate Kid Legends prepares to hit theaters in May, but this truly unique chapter that reimagined and redefined the franchise will remain the most interesting. We may not see any more episodes, but as any fan can tell you, Cobra Kai never dies. —Patrick Gibbs

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