Cobra Kai Season 6 – One of TV’s Most Surprising Successes Lands Its Final Kicks [Review]

When Cobra Kai Season 1 first hit our Netflix screens, the overwhelming consensus was what a surprise. A follow-up sequel series to beloved karate films premiered on YouTube Red of all places, and somehow, inexplicably, it was good. It sat on YouTube for two years before continuing on Netflix, and over a total of six seasons became a widely beloved and charming staple. The sixth and final season wraps in a relatively mature series of emotional growth and closure for essentially every major character. A little of that characteristic angst is missing, but it’s still a fun set of final episodes that provides great performances along with repeated reminders of why Cobra Kai worked against all odds.

The final batch of Season 6 episodes follows a shocker at the Sekai Taikai. Kreese’s ornamental blade, a eunjangdo (after which Episode 10 is named), was honed in preparation for an attack on Terry Silver. Interrupted, he gets a second chance later but realizes he’s since dropped the knife. As the students from various dojos are engaged in an unsanctioned battle royale of sorts (as they’re known to do on Cobra Kai), Kwon grabs the blade as he fights Axel. In the fight, Axel blocks Kwon, who falls on the blade. We enter this last batch of episodes after the Sekai Taikai has been rocked by this tragedy, along with the various competitors and dojos.

Cobra Kai: Emote First, Emote Hard, No Stationary Character Arcs

It’s a season ripe with major changes and massive character growth. Johnny Lawrence becomes a father, faces his past, and comes full circle in his approach to sensei-hood; while Miguel Diaz, Tory Nichols, Robby Keane, and Samantha LaRusso all evolve and settle into a future to come. John Kreese continues to loathe Terry Silver, building towards a climactic conclusion. While the latter doesn’t grow at all and remains obsessed with destroying his perceived enemies. In six episodes, many character arcs and plotlines wrap up rather nicely for a series wrap that stays true to both the series’ Karate Kid origins and its campier evolution into Cobra Kai.

Cobra Kai Season 6 remains centered largely around Johnny Lawrence and ends his character at perhaps the most whole place we’ve seen him. While Zabka’s always been good and certainly fun to watch, here his character evolution allows some of the finest scenes he’s had yet, including an emotional moment of closure with Martin Kove’s John Kreese. It’s a layered and vulnerable performance that reminds us why the series was built around Zabka’s Lawrence to begin with over other potential ins to the series.

Kreese, for his part, changes ever so slightly… as the series wraps, he’s as much an ornery old bastard as ever, but he gets to take some degree of responsibility for his errors as Johnny’s sensei. These scenes are well written, and some of the series’ most emotional moments. Kreese’s coming to terms also allows for more nuanced material with newer protégé Tory Nichols, giving Peyton List (School Spirits) some solid material to work with as she struggles to find her center and kick Rayna Vallandingham’s Zara Malik to high heaven.

Tanner Buchanan and Colo Maridueña also deliver strong performances, both in combatting their Iron Dragons’ nemeses and in sorting through their continuous, mostly friendly, struggles to determine who’s the dojo’s top young man. Mary Mouser doesn’t have the same emotional journey as some of her peers–the LaRusso’s rarely do–but still capably delivers Sam’s journey as she opts to retrace her dojo’s Japanese origins. The cast delivers largely exceptional performances across the board as the often larger-than-life series still sports the big emotions and wild set-ups that made it so fun, but it supplements them with well-written moments of internal honesty.

A Bad Time Does Not Exist In This Dojo’s Final Season

There are several fun set-pieces here, like Robby Keene using a video game set-up to train for competition, Tory Nichols getting a legendary kick in when it counts, or a well-choreographed sensei showdown. It’s a great finale to a strong final season, though it’s missing a bit of the bold, wild batshittery that made the series so fun. The series’ huge free-for-alls (like the fatal rumble of the last episode batch) or roving bands of karate youths are tamed down relative to its usual continuous stream of teen melees.

This is somewhat necessary given how out of control the last batch got, with the series’ most serious consequences yet, and it makes sense that characters are finally taken to task in ways that haven’t happened before, but it does lower the octane considerably. That said, prioritizing strong emotional journeys and satisfactory wrap-ups, as well as forcing characters to contend to some degree with their errors, is a smart choice. It’s a well-wrapped series that delivers for most of the major characters, and it allows the cast to show off their acting chops in this dojo one final time.

Altogether, Cobra Kai ends on a strong note, with satisfactory closure for most characters, memorable moments in this final batch of episodes, and enough fun set-pieces that the pace stays as breezy and engaging (as the series is known for). Ironically, despite all the well-scripted closure, its finale slightly still feels incomplete. This is largely because the last batch of episodes is so explicitly oriented towards growth and finality that its beautifully campy nonsense has to be set somewhat aside, especially after the grave consequences in the last set of episodes. It’s still a satisfying wrap on a fun series that clearly hasn’t worn out its welcome. Cobra Kai never dies! Long may Cobra Kai live.

The final episodes of Cobra Kai will stream on February 13, 2025, on Netflix.

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