Season 6 Part 3 - 5 episodes (2025 February 14)
Watch Cobra Kai on Netflix
Created by: Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
Starring:
Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Xolo Maridueña, Mary Mouser, Tanner
Buchanan, Jacob Bertrand, Peyton List, Martin Kove, Gianni DeCenzo
Rated: TV-14
Watch the trailer
Plot
Decades
after their 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament bout, middle-aged Daniel
LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence find themselves martial-arts rivals again.
In this season students of Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai prepare for the Sekai Taikai, the world championships of karate
Verdict
Part 3 finally pays off what parts 1 and 2 were clumsily building. It saved all of the excitement for the third part. I'm not sure it was worth it, but this does conclude the series and provides endings for all of the characters. Part 3 is a lot of fan service and most of it is very obvious pandering. If you've watched up to this point of the show, you'll likely feel obligated to complete it, though I certainly wouldn't start the show based on this part alone.
It depends.
Review
I've watched all the other seasons, so I'm succumbing to sunk cost fallacy and finishing the series. It does seem absolutely ridiculous to stretch this one season into three separate parts. The first two parts were disappointing. This season wasn't set up to be split, so the first two parts have no conclusion. The best aspect about this part is that it concludes the season and the series. I covered my criticisms of the show overall in my review of part two, from how this show started to where it is now.
I had completely forgotten that episode ten ended with an all out brawl and a Cobra Kai fighter accidentally impaling himself. Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Kreese (Martin Kove) are reeling from the event, dealing with it in their own ways. Daniel is busying himself at the dealership while Kreese is reconsidering his years as a villain.
 |
| William Zabka, Ralph Macchio, Courtney Henggeler, Vanessa Rubio play Johnny, Daniel, Amanda, Carmen |
That's the thing about Kreese and the other villain Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith). I can't fathom two guys that care this much about karate tournaments, willing to commit felonies to win. It's just wild. This is a show that focuses on drama first and everything else second. This penultimate tournament, the Sekai Taikai, pops up when this show has exhausted all other sources of drama. In this tournament the games are made up and the rules don't matter. That could be the tagline for this show. I assumed they would take the championship fights all three rounds to maximize drama, but they don't. The fight could have been much more intense. You never really doubt who will win.
These five episodes are clearly the farewell tour. So many characters reminisce about how they first met, complete with flashbacks to the first season. Kreese turns a corner and wants to resolve how he treated Johnny (William Zabka) all these years ago. Johnny and Daniel have always been adversarial but finally come together for the sake of the tournament.
 |
| William Zabka, Lewis Tan play Johnny Lawrence, Wolf Xaio |
Remember how I mentioned the tournament rules are made up? Johnny ends up having to fight against a rival sensei that became the head of Cobra Kai when Kreese took it away from Johnny in a previous season. It's absolutely ridiculous that to settle the tournament Johnny and another sensei need to fight.
It's an effective conclusion to the series with a lot of obvious fan service. The first couple of seasons were interesting, focusing on Johnny being stuck in the past. That soon devolved to a lot of teens fighting. That's when this show became karate and drama first with story, character development, and logic an afterthought.
No comments :
Post a Comment