Two legends. One dojo. Their biggest battle yet.
Cobra Kai is a 2018-present comedy drama television series created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, produced by Counterbalance Entertainment, Westbrook Studios, and Sony Pictures Television, and distributed by Netflix. The series stars William Zabka and Ralph Macchio. This series is the sixth installment in the Karate Kid franchise. It acts as a sequel to The Karate Kid and will be followed by Karate Kid.
"I love the smell of karate in the afternoon." - Daniel LaRusso
Plot
After defeating Terry Silver and taking down Cobra Kai, Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence now set their sights on the biggest challenge yet: the Sekai Taikai, the most intense and most prestige karate tournament in the world. As Daniel and Johnny prepare their students, John Kreese tries one last move to put Cobra Kai back on top.
The Background
Cobra Kai is a show that I feel has gotten better as time has gone on. I think the first three seasons are fun, but I find them to be a bit too corny and I think some of the characterizations are bad. However, I thought seasons four and five were fantastic. Season four especially just made me go from liking the show to really loving it. Despite this, I've had my reservations about a season six, because it felt like most of the conflict of the show was resolved at the end of season five. But I've kept some optimism because the last two seasons have been so great.
The Sweet
Season six still manages to have the sharp comedy and fun, binge-able side of Cobra Kai. The jokes still land. Johnny Lawrence is still one of the most lovable and fun characters on TV. I will always enjoy watching Cobra Kai. It's a very easy show to have fun with because the characters are great and it really always manages to be funny.
I also enjoy seeing different characters in the spotlight. The major character that gets some more focus in this season so far is Devon. She has always been one of the more interesting side characters, so I enjoy seeing her more front and center. Her relationship with Johnny is also good, because we see the fatherly side of him come out, but it plays out differently than it does with Miguel or Robby. She acts as a surrogate daughter for him, and that feels more resonant in light of something else that Johnny is experiencing during this season.
This is a difficult review, because I feel like all the positives that I have are pretty surface-level. It's fun. I enjoy the characters. The action is entertaining. These are things that almost go without saying when it comes to Cobra Kai. So those are the things that I really did enjoy in this first batch of episodes.
The Sour
Unfortunately, this first part of the final season has confirmed my fears.
It feels like this show has dragged on for too long. Cobra Kai started as a sequel to The Karate Kid that really puts our characters in a different light. The main antagonist of the first film is the protagonist of this show, and we see him essentially become Cobra Kai's Mr. Miyagi. As the show evolves, we see alliances form and break and lots of interpersonal dynamics between the characters, but the main conflict of the show is really about taking down Cobra Kai. And, at the end of season five, Cobra Kai is taken down. Terry Silver is arrested. Kreese could've stayed in jail. With some restructuring, season five could've easily been the final season of this show.
And, yet, the showrunners decided to have Kreese escape prison and have Daniel and Johnny pursue the Sekai Taikai. The Karate Kid has always been about kids learning to use karate to defend themselves against bullying while also crafting new relationships with their mentors in the process. At the core, that's a very relatable and human part of this franchise that was present throughout all five seasons of Cobra Kai. But when you have a season about these kids just preparing for a tournament that has no real emotional resonance, that feels empty. So that's what these first five episodes felt like. Empty.
The way TV shows work, there is supposed to be this build-up and natural crescendo when you reach the final season. Breaking Bad spends the whole show teasing the conflict between Walt and Hank, so that's what the final season is. Stranger Things's fourth season clearly sets the stage for the fifth and final season. Cobra Kai's natural crescendo was season five. Now, since both villains have been defeated and Cobra Kai has been taken down, it has to manufacture unnatural conflict that simply feels forced.
I also absolutely despised John Kreese's storyline here. Kreese has always been a bit over-the-top, but his subplot here is the most ridiculous thing Cobra Kai has done thus far. In episode two, he is hunting for ancient relics and fighting cobras in caves to prove himself worthy...to teach karate and bring some students to a world tournament. Really? Could the writers come up with nothing else?
I think the biggest problem with these few episodes is that they are rehashing so much of what came before. You can only have characters switch sides and fight with each other so many times. You can only redeem characters so many times. So bringing back conflicts between Robby and Miguel or Johnny and Daniel doesn't feel earned. It feels forced. It also feels like we are undoing character progression, where some of these characters are not following the lessons they've learned and the arc they've been on.
And the biggest example of this is what they do with Daniel and his discovery of some secrets that Mr. Miyagi held. They have this ultra-cartoonish plot line where Daniel discovers a literal box of secrets that Mr. Miyagi had and it alters his view of who Mr. Miyagi was. This doesn't work for a few reasons; first off, Daniel's reaction to this box is too extreme. It doesn't feel like the box is that big of a deal, and he acts like it's this life-changing, world-altering thing. Secondly, this feels like it hurts Mr. Miyagi's character and adds an element to him that is so unnecessary. I never like it when sequels destroy something from previous films, and it feels like that's what this stupid box is doing.
Final Thoughts and Score
Season six of Cobra Kai has gotten off to a rocky start. I really hope the next two batches of episodes are able to finish the show off nicely, but I just don't think this season was ever a good idea.
I have to go Sour here sadly. Age range is 10+.
SWEET N' SOUR SCALE
Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)
"Cobra Kai VI"
Fun Factor: 8/10
Acting: 6.5/10
Story: 4.5/10
Characters: 6/10
Quality: 5/10
Created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg
Rated TV-14 for moderate violence and action, language, disturbing themes and images, thematic elements
Released on July 18, 2024
Episode runtime: 35 minutes
William Zabka as Johnny Lawrence
Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso
Xolo Maridueña as Miguel Diaz
Courtney Henggeler as Amanda LaRusso
Tanner Buchanan as Robby Keene
Mary Mouser as Samantha LaRusso
Peyton List as Tory Nichols
Jacob Bertrand as Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz
Gianni DeCenzo as Demetri Alexopoulos
Dallas Dupree Young as Kenny Payne
Vanessa Rubio as Carmen Diaz
Martin Kove as John Kreese
Yuji Okumoto as Chozen Toguchi
Oona O'Brien as Devon Lee
Alicia Hannah-Kim as Kim Da-Eun
Paul Walter Houser as Raymond "Stingray" Porter
Joe Seo as Kyler Park
Griffin Santopietro as Anthony LaRusso
Okea Eme-Akwari as Shawn Payne
Brandon H. Lee as Kwon Jae-Sung
C.S. Lee as Master Kim Sun-Yung
Sean Kanan as Mike Barnes
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