Back and Better Than Ever

Cobra Kai never dies!

That’s the rallying cry of the long-running Netflix series. But as the Karate Kid continuation enters its sixth and final season, I, who has supported the series since its YouTube Red days,  began to wonder if maybe it should. 

As the series has gone on, the storylines have become far too familiar and repetitive. How many times can Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) face-off? How many times can Kreese (Martin Kove) return, smoking his trademark cigar with a menacing grimace? How many times can the young characters grapple with whether they are Eagle Fang or Miyagi-Do or some variation thereof? How many extended fight sequences are too many?

But then, like the underdog story the series is rooted in, Cobra Kai rises from the ashes to come out on top. By the end of the five episodes that premiere as part of this first tranche of the sixth season, the series delivers one heck of a cliffhanger. 

The season premiere is entitled “Peactime in the Valley.” “That is the sweet, sweet sound of no more karate wars,” Daniel tells his wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) at the top of the episode. Last season’s villain Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) has been carted off to jail, while Kreese (Martin Kove) has escaped from prison and is on the run. Of course, no more karate wars would mean no more show; peacetime in the valley cannot last long. 

The crux of this season finds the kids preparing for the Sekai Taikai, the world championship karate competition that “for over a century” has been occurring every two years. “This is the Olympics plus the gladiator games plus the Kumite from Bloodsport, all rolled into one,” Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) says. Cobra Kai treats the Sekai Taikai with such gravity that, for a minute, I wondered if it’s a real competition. Spoiler alert: it’s not. But it’s a great device to take the karate competition global and move the show past the All-Valley Karate Tournament. 

The series’ consistent secret weapon has always been its sense of humor, and Season 6 has plenty. Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) walks around the Larusso house in a robe and eating all the cannolis, while Amanda says “Guy flies in for the weekend to kill Terry Silver and stays for another three months. That’s normal right?” Paul Walter Hauser, whose fame has risen since the show first premiered with roles in Inside Out 2 and Black Bird, hilariously reprises his role as karate wannabe Raymond. The world according to Johnny gives the show its biggest oomph. His versions of what makes a teen girls’ slumber party, how to navigate his new career, or how easy the impending birth of his baby will be (“I’m a pro with boys and girls are easy,” he tells Daniel) are highlights. The show demonstrates a constant, cheeky self-awareness and willingness to be in on the joke.

Cobra Kai also remains delightfully steeped in its ‘80s culture roots, from the awesome hair band soundtrack, to the memorable quote shout outs (at one point Daniel announces that he is “Too old for this shit,” a la Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon), to basically all things Johnny. He still views the Soviet Union (which no longer exists) as their number one international enemy and trains his students by having them watch martial arts movies like Best of the Best. His politically incorrectness remains intact. “Chicks dig me,” he tells Daniel. “Don’t be a pussy,” is still one of his favorite retorts. Johnny should be canceled in 2024, but Zabka makes him so charmingly unaware of his faults.  Zabka successfully flipped the narrative on his teen villain to create a character who is hilarious but never a caricature. 

One thing the series can’t defeat is the passage of time. It’s been almost two years since the series aired its fifth season. But it’s only been a few months in the Cobra Kai timeline, and maybe a year has passed since the show first premiered. That’s a bit of a problem, since a lot of the young actors look so much older than when the show first began. This final season finds them in their senior year of high school applying to colleges and worrying about grades and extracurricular activities. They should be worried about their transcripts because it doesn’t seem like they’ve been going to school all that much—and I’m not so sure how much Standford cares about karate.  

Unfortunately, the show remains committed to telling more of Kreese’s backstory, which it began delving into in the show’s third season. Of all the arcs, Kreese’s seems the most redundant. The show has already entered into evidence why Kreese is such a bad guy. And as the series spins its wheels on its villain, this season also see Daniel delve more into Mr. Miyagi’s (the late Pat Morita) past. While it’s lovely how the show continues to honor Morita, this latest plot twist does seem a little like Cobra Kai grasping for storylines. 

The actors playing the show’s teen characters are all strong but Peyton List’s Tory becomes the show’s MVP in this first arc of episodes. Like Zabka, List has spun the bad-girl trope on its head and risen above the cliches. Her storyline has more dramatic thrust this season, and List is more than up for the challenge. To their credit, showrunners and writers Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg often upend our expectations and don’t take their characters down a predictable path. 

Will the series sweep the leg on our expectations on how Cobra Kai will end? We won’t get that answer for a long while, as Netflix is stretching out Cobra Kai’s goodbye and showing no mercy to fans who are anxious to see how the show wraps up. The next batch of episodes premieres November 28th of this year, with the final episodes not launching until a currently unscheduled date in 2025. 

Cobra Kai isn’t ready to die just yet. 

Cobra Kai Season 6’s first batch of episodes premieres Thursday, July 18th on Netflix. 

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Amy Amatangelo, the TV Gal®, is a Boston-based freelance writer and a member of the Television Critics Association. She wasn’t allowed to watch much TV as a child and now her parents have to live with this as her career. You can follow her on Twitter (@AmyTVGal).

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