The Good, The Bad And The Karate

Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy.

Cobra Kai is back for the first part of its final—elongated—season. Netflix dropped the first five episodes of the sixth season of the Karate Kid sequel series this week, and I’ve watched all five.

So far, as with the last couple seasons of Cobra Kai, this one is a mixed bag. Spoilers ahead.

ForbesWhen Do New ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 6, Part 2 Episodes Come To Netflix?By Erik Kain

Cobra Kai — What’s Come Before

Cobra Kai kicked off back in 2018 as a YouTube Premium original series and gained a small but loyal following. After its second season, it moved to Netflix where it exploded in popularity thanks to both its pedigree as a Karate Kid sequel and its humor. Basically, it worked best when it was essentially The Johnny Lawrence Show.

William Zabka reprised his Karate Kid role but instead of the hot-shot high school karate star, Johnny was all grown up. Sort of. Now a middle-aged man, he was mostly down on his luck. But his version of drunk burnout dad was somehow still lovable. Firmly stuck in the 1980s, Johnny was a man out of time without even basic tech skills. More comfortable with Coors Light and ACDC than the internet, and recently out of a job, Lawrence went back to what he knew best: Karate. Much to the dismay of his former rival, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) he brought Cobra Kai back to life and began a new career as a sensei.

What followed was a whole lot of shenanigans and melodrama, with LaRusso beginning his own karate studio, Miyagi-Do, and a bunch of rivalry and conflict between not just these two deeply immature men, but between their students. Johnny’s estranged son, Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) found a new mentor in LaRusso, while Johnny took his teenage neighbor, Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) under his wing.

For many seasons, these rivalries percolated, with various new villains entering the scene like Johnny’s old sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove) and LaRusso’s old nemesis Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith). Things got pretty heated at times, with all-out school brawls and, in its fifth season, some very violent confrontations. But in Season 6 we begin with . . .

Peace In The Valley

I admit, over the past few seasons a few things have started to get under my skin. Cobra Kai has always been at its best when Johnny Lawrence was just being himself: Ridiculous, out-of-touch, boneheaded but ultimately a pretty adorable guy. The rest of the cast has a lot of great characters and actors but Johnny has always been the show’s lynchpin.

Conflict between Johnny and LaRusso has always been pretty fun and funny but it’s one of those things that can only go on for so long before it becomes a little repetitive. That’s why new villains were introduced. Unfortunately, I also think that the villains have fallen a little flat. Kreese is so ridiculous. They started giving him a bit of an arc which I thought might even lead to some kind of redemption, but here in Season 6 he’s back to being the mustache-twirling villain he was in earlier seasons.

Silver was like Kreese on steroids—a violent psychopath who took things even further than Kreese was willing to go. This was a startling change of pace for the show, but it mostly worked (though I’m glad that storyline is over). Still, even with villains the core of the story remained the long-held grudge and ongoing feud and occasional grudging partnership between LaRusso and Johnny. And in Season 6, we begin with the two men trying to make their combined karate studio work.

It seems like a bad idea because it is a bad idea. There’s no way you can make these two men work together without friction. Their personalities, teaching styles and values are so fundamentally different that by all rights they should just be leading their own studios. It would make more sense for Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do to both enter and compete in the Sekai Taikai—the fictional world karate tournament this season is centered around—than to try to work together.

Working together, it turns out, is really hard. Not just for Lawrence and LaRusso, but for Miguel and Robby as well, despite now being friends and very nearly stepbrothers. It’s even harder for Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser) and Tory Nichols (Peyton List) who had an even more bitter rivalry, though this is patched up and then un-patched in Season 6, Part 1.

What these first five episodes do, essentially, is establish peace and reconciliation just so they can break it all over again, which I find a little frustrating and forced. I really liked the end of hostilities. I liked that the rivalry between LaRusso and Johnny was largely a matter of style—bickering over the studio name, LaRusso horrified at Johnny’s twisted version of Miyagi-Do karate and so forth, rather than over-the-top melodrama. When things heat up and Johnny gets really mad at LaRusso and says that after the tournament “we’re through, for good” it felt off, despite some really damn fine acting from Zabka.

A Rushed, Forced Fifth Episode

This came after Tory’s mom dies and she and Sam spar to see who will be captain of the team in Barcelona, where the Sekai Taikai is being held. Tory is clearly way, way too upset and angry to keep fighting, and when Sam’s parents find out why, they put a stop to the fight. This is actually a good decision. Tory was lashing out and given her history with Samantha, there was genuine concern that she could take things too far. Johnny’s insistence that she be allowed to keep fighting felt out of character. He’s boneheaded but I think it was pretty obvious how out of control she was, and even he would see that things were about to get FUBAR.

As for Tory, while I’m sure that losing her mom would make her act rashly, I just don’t buy the huge about-face at this moment. She had a bunch of people offering her support and love and instead she quits and storms off and joins Kreese’s new mostly-all-Korean Cobra Kai (how exactly is he globetrotting as a wanted man, anyways? And I think he could still be arrested by Spanish police in Barcelona as an American fugitive and extradited—he’s a violent felon coaching kids, come on now). Worse, nobody follows her or checks up on her or tries to get her to come back. They just move on and next thing you know, we’re in Barcelona and everyone is all shocked to see Tory on the Cobra Kai team. Really, in the months between these events nobody thought to go help her or make things right? Did Robby just . . . ignore his girlfriend for that entire time?

I will say, Peyton List knocks it out of the park with her performance during the fifth episode, but the actual plot feels like a lot of contrived conflict drummed up to keep us watching. None of it feels organic or true to the characters and situation. I think I’m far from the only fan who feels like this Johnny/LaRusso drama has peaked and is now well past its expiration date.

What I really enjoyed about Part 1, and what gets me pretty excited for Part 2 and presumably the big tournament is the fight choreography, especially the fight between Johnny and Barnes, and the fight between Robby and Miguel. That last one in particular was just phenomenal. The fight between Sam and Tory was good also, but I think the violent undertones and Tory’s grief made it less fun, if that makes sense. Terrific fight choreography this season; quite possibly the best in the show up to this point.

I’m very excited to see Robby face Cobra Kai’s champion, Kwon (Brandon H. Lee). Kwon is Kreese’s new male champion—a talented, hot-headed badass with a Kreese-sized chip on his shoulder. Obviously, Tory will be Cobra Kai’s female champion. I’m not sure how it all plays out, but it’s clearly Robby’s turn to shine since Miguel and Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) have beaten him in the past.

All told, a pretty good start to Season 6, though I’m bummed it’s being separated into three parts that have months-long gaps between them. A weekly release schedule would have been really fun for this show’s final season.

Scattered Thoughts:

• I like that Devon has gone darker this season, with a dirty trick securing her entrance into the Sekai Taikai. Unfortunately, that dirty trick was played on Kenny (Dallas Dupree Young) just after he finally—and reluctantly—joined Miyagi-Do. And after all that effort to get him to join, Robby and friends do literally nothing to make sure he’s okay after his embarrassing “brown belt” moment. This felt like a weird loose end to me. And a disservice to Kenny as a character.
• I forgot to mention the whole secret Miyagi box with his newly revealed backstory painting LaRusso’s old teacher in a very mixed light. I kind of like that we’re getting some more Miyagi history and that it makes him less noble and more human, with actual flaws. LaRusso is predictably selfish about the whole thing, making all of it about him. “Oh woe is me, why didn’t Mr. Miyagi tell me every detail of his past? Oh it’s so hard to go on living without my old karate teacher! Pity me, Amanda, as I go through yet another ridiculous midlife crisis . . . .” When Johnny tells Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) “Oh you’re finally leaving him” I laughed out loud.
• The college stuff was kind of fun—the fight with the frat boys especially—but I don’t think Kyler or his buddy deserve redemption arcs. Those guys suck and sometimes sucky people remain sucky for their entire lives.
• I’m glad we got a Stingray (Paul Walter Hauser) scene though it mainly served to make Johnny realize how much he didn’t want to go back to anything related to Cobra Kai, nudging him on a path toward a new start with Miyagi-Do. That all feels pointless with how Part 1 ends.
• Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) is awesome and hilarious throughout and I hope he doesn’t just disappear back to Okinawa. I would watch a spinoff real estate fake reality TV show starring Chozen and Johnny Lawrence, especially if they spent a lot of the time slumming at the LaRusso house.
• I want to find whoever is responsible for Sam’s wardrobe and banish them from this plane of existence.
• The Lethal Weapon references were fun. I wrote about how annoyed I get by constant callbacks in shows, but Daniel saying “I’m too old for this *^$%” on top of Johnny flat-out referencing Lethal Weapon 2 was fun. It also reminds me that I need to rewatch Lethal Weapon 2, as I watched the first film again not long ago but it’s been ages since I’ve seen the rest of the series.

If I think of other scattered thoughts I’ll add them here. What did you think of Part 1? Any predictions / hopes / concerns for the remaining ten episodes? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.

Check out the full Season 6 release schedule right here.