Cobra Kai: Season 6, Part 3

Streaming on: Netflix

Episodes viewed: 5 of 5

Spoiler alert: the last episode of the previous chunk of Cobra Kai was fucking nuts. As things got heated across the board during the Sekai Taikai (the – it must be stressed – extremely fictional world karate championship), the Russians were disqualified for doping, and their team’s sensei stormed the arena, knocking out the host before yelling, “Let’s gooooo!!”, precipitating the mother of all melees. Faces were headbutted, chests were stomped on, bodies were slammed and bones were crunched as long-simmering grievances boiled over, dozens of fighters – contestants, senseis, judges – beating the living shit out of each other. It was a frankly exhilarating 13 minutes of madness, dwarfing Season 2’s back-breaking school brawl and Season 3’s outrageous home invasion, and it ended in death. Actual bloody death.

When Cobra Kai goes for it, it really goes for it. It’s been seven (!) years since the show arrived, revisiting the fortunes and misfortunes of former Karate Kid enemies Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) as they repeatedly made up and broke up, eventually forging a strong bond and combining once rival dojos to thwart the real bad guys. And it has mostly been enormous fun.

But it’s not all been consistent, particularly of late: the first two chunks of this final season have been largely insipid, trying the patience of those who’ve stuck with it. The episodes leading up to the Sekai Taikai mega-ruckus boasted some of the series’ broadest and bluntest dialogue, and its cheapest contrivances. The reappearance of the saga’s most dastardly villain, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), previously headed to jail for heinous crimes but brought back with a ‘Will this do?’ shrug of exposition that said, “Hold my beer,” to Palpatine’s return, felt like the last, desperate, disintegrating paper straw. And just when you thought the series had dredged up every bit player from the original film trilogy… ha ha. No. Remember this meathead rando from The Karate Kid Part III? No? Well, here he is anyway, back with a vengeance. Etc.

This concluding cluster of episodes, though, repents for previous narrative sins. It may have taken a little too long to get here (six seasons has been quite the stretch), but after seemingly ageing down as its stars have got older, as it reaches the end, Cobra Kai grows up. There are genuinely moving monologues – quite a few of them. There are proper tears, in some cases the cathartic result of decades of repression and resentment. There are heartfelt confrontations you didn’t know you needed. The creative leads, Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg, are genuine Karate Kid fanboys, and never has that been more evident: they’ve kept these final exchanges in their back pockets from the start, and they are expertly executed.

All of the main players get their moment, each coming to terms with who they are and where they’ve got to. At its best, Cobra Kai took the binary black-and-whites of those original films and delved into the grey areas, in some instances turning dreck into dramatic gold, and the edges are sanded off further here. No spoilers, but suffice it to say that these closing episodes give these actors the workouts – physical and emotional – they always deserved.

That’s not to say that things don’t remain ridiculous. Yes, there is an Elizabeth Berkley cameo as a Tarot card reader, because why not? Yes, the show continues to milk the long-dead Mr Miyagi dry. Yes, something utterly insane happens at the end of the penultimate episode, in which reality doesn’t just take a back seat, it’s ejected out of the car. And yes, there is an ungodly number of callbacks. But here’s the thing… they are earned. There’s a fine line between cynical fan-service and sincere nods to the past, and in these final episodes, the show somehow never falls off that tightrope.

Boy, does it stick the shit out of the landing, delivering on promises the show made right from the start, providing some wish fulfilment that stays true to the spirit of the original film. No question, the cheese is laid on thick. But if you’re still hungry for it, you’ll be grinning like a goon and weeping like a baby by the end. Cobra Kai, when you were good, you were the best… around.