WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
As somebody who grew up watching the Karate Kid movies and being obsessed with them well into my teenage years, the anticipation of getting to watch Cobra Kai on Netflix after its switch from YouTube Red was incredibly palpable. Like many fans of the franchise, I was encapsulated and impressed by how the writers managed to take the iconic characters of Daniel LaRusso (played by Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (played by William Zabka) and continue their stories while at the same time introducing a new cast of young characters with their own stories to tell. The series opens with Zabka’s character reminiscing on the 1984 All Valley tournament and how his whole life came crashing down when he lost, all while he meets a new kid in his apartment complex, Miguel Diaz (played by Xolo Maridueña), who is already having problems with being bullied by kids at school. Ultimately, this inspires Johnny to start up Cobra Kai again as Miguel’s sensei, training him to strike first against his bullies. These events spiral into six seasons of karate fights (some of which result in serious injury and death), new characters being introduced and fleshed out along the way, and the perfect end to an iconic franchise.
my takeaways from Cobra Kai’s 6th and final season
When I tell you nothing could’ve prepared me for the final season of this series, I mean it. I had no idea how they were going to come back from the death of Kwon, a Cobra Kai student who competed in the Sekai Tekai karate tournament. I knew it would catalyze some serious soul-searching with our main characters, but one character’s development in particular, I believe, was so beautifully done that I feel an obligation to talk about it first. This character is John Kreese (played by Martin Kove), who was Johnny Lawrence’s sensei in the original movie and who returned to the franchise at the end of season one. Throughout the whole series, Kreese is shown to exemplify the Cobra Kai mantra: “Strike first, strike hard, no mercy”, pushing his students way beyond their limits and putting them in often dangerous situations. We see that Johnny viewed him as a father figure, despite the toxic relationship between the two, and it took the death of Kreese’s student Kwon to realize the consequences of the way that he and his fellow senseis trained their students. It also caused him to reflect on his life up until that point and how he contributed to the trauma and self-esteem of his students, including Tory Nichols (played by Peyton List), a female Cobra Kai student who has been dealt a difficult hand in her life, seeing karate and fighting as the only way to channel her anger.
This reflection leads to his decision to not allow Cobra Kai to return to the tournament and to go and make amends with his students, namely Johnny and Tory. This leads him to give Cobra Kai back to Johnny, with Miguel and Tory as the dojo’s champions. And while his final scene may seem over the top to most, I thought it was an amazing way to redeem his character once and for all. In this scene, he overhears his former co-sensei and lifelong friend Terry Silver’s (played by Thomas Ian Griffith) plot to take Johnny’s wife and newborn daughter hostage in order to take back the tournament for his new dojo, the Iron Dragons. Once Kreese hears this, he fights Silver to the death, ending in throwing his lit cigar on spilled gasoline, causing the yacht they’re on to explode and killing both of them to protect Johnny and his family. Seeing him make the ultimate sacrifice once he had made amends with everyone he had wronged was such an incredible way to finally give him redemption and close out his character arc.
While Johnny has the opportunity to confront his former sensei, his former enemy and now friend, Daniel LaRusso, does not, having suffered the loss of Mr. Miyagi long before the series began, and given that we sadly lost his actor, Pat Morita in 2005. Daniel spends primarily the last few episodes confronting himself with the dark past of his former sensei, wondering how he could’ve possibly killed someone in his younger days competing in the Sekai Tekai himself in the 1940s. We see this action put into perspective when Daniel’s daughter Samantha (played by Mary Mouser), is given a pearl necklace as a graduation gift from her grandmother and Daniel’s mom, Lucille (played by Randee Heller). We as the audience are given the context that the necklace originally belonged to Mr. Miyagi’s wife, who died with their newborn son in a Japanese internment camp. Somebody had stolen the necklace, prompting Miyagi to fight in order to get it back. We are also told that before he died, Mr. Miyagi had given Lucille the necklace and told her to gift it to Samantha, who he viewed as a granddaughter when the time was right. Bringing the character of Mr. Miyagi full circle, and helping Daniel realize that there is always another side to the story, was such a beautiful way to honor the legacy of the character and the actor.
in conclusion: Cobra Kai never dies
In rebooting such a beloved franchise, the creators of Cobra Kai have done everything correctly and in my opinion, have set the blueprint for what a good spinoff looks like. In combining the nostalgia of the original films with the excitement and action brought on by a new cast of characters, these creators have expanded upon a universe they once loved to create it into something that every generation can watch and love, and I have loved watching every second of it.