Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 6 On Netflix, Where The Valley Karate Wars Are In A Cease Fire … But Kreese Is Lurking

Season 5 of Cobra Kai was a bit strange, with Martin Kove as John Kreese mostly sidelined in favor of Thomas Ian Griffith as Terry Silver. And while Griffith was appropriately oily as Silver, there was something about him being the show’s “big bad” that didn’t quite jell with us. But now, Silver is out of the picture and Kreese is in the wind. Will the final season of Cobra Kai get back to what made it great?

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Opening Shot: “Roll With The Changes” by REO Speedwagon plays as we see what it’s like to have karate peace in the Valley. Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) gives his pregnant girlfriend Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) an Eagle Fang Karate onesie while her mother gives both Robby (Tanner Buchanan) and Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) lunch for school. Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) sees the sign from the Cobra Kai dojo built by Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) thrown in a Dumpster.

The Gist: There truly is karate peace in the Valley. The combined Miyagi-do and Eagle Fang dojo are getting along and getting ready for the massive Sekai Taikai tournament. Cobra Kai is in tatters, with Silver in prison and John Kreese (Martin Kove) on the run after escaping the prison stint that resulted from SIlver framing him. Danny, Johnny and Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) are teaching the kids their different philosophies, and they all seem to be meshing together.

Even within Miyagi-Fang, things are peaceful. Robby and Miguel are actually friends and are back to dating Tory (Peyton List) and Sam (Mary Mouser), respectively. Tory and Sam aren’t exactly comfortable around each other yet, but at least they aren’t trying to kill each other.

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Johnny is chafing a little bit at having to run his training methods past Daniel, especially after the warehouse where his dojo is located is demolished and he has to train his charges at Miyagi-do. When the students propose a name and logo for the combined dojo that Daniel and Chozen thinks soils their sensei’s legacy, Chozen challenges Johnny in a fight over the name.

To foster at least a little spark of friendship between Sam and Tory, Miguel and Robby take them on a double-date to a local arcade/batting cage emporium. It’s extremely uncomfortable until Robby spies Kenny Payne (Dallas Dupree Young) and tries to talk him into coming down off what Silver taught him and join Miyagi-do. However, Kenny’s older brother Shawn (Okea Eme-Akwari) is out of juvie and he’s there to protect his brother. The batting cage fight that ensues ensnares all Miguel as well as Tory and Sam, where the two girls find out that they may have rubbed off on each other over the years of their bitter rivalry.

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While Daniel tries to turn down the temperature on Johnny and Chozen’s dispute, Johnny is summoned to the same woods where Kreese held Cobra Kai training. He gets there to find Raymond/Stingray (Paul Walter Hauser) training preteens under the Cobra Kai banner. Stingray encourages Johnny to resurrect Cobra Kai, given they also have a spot at the Sekai Taikai tournament.

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Our Take: It really felt that Cobra Kai lost its way with the Terry Silver storyline. Yes, there were still funny moments, mostly revolving around how Johnny reacted to news about Carmen’s pregnancy and his attempts to bring Miguel and Robby to a peaceful coexistence. But for the most part, having Silver there as a mostly-evil presence hellbent on spreading Cobra Kai’s teachings worldwide felt a whole lot more cartoonish and a lot less personal than having Kreese as the “big bad.” Something was out of whack with Kreese cooling his heels in prison while Silver ran rampant.

Now, as we all suspected at the end of Season 5, Kreese is going to be back, and he’ll be gunning for Daniel, Johnny, and the combined Miyagi-do. How he’ll evade being captured and reconstitute Cobra Kai — with the help of Kim Da-eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim) — and get them ready for Sekai Taikai is still up in the air. But he’s around, and he’ll go back to being in his rightful place as the enemy Daniel and Johnny are looking to defeat.

Kreese isn’t pure evil like Silver; he has regrets in life, and the “No Mercy” philosophy he built into Cobra Kai four decades ago was an outcropping of his experiences as both a kid and in the military during Vietnam. We’ve thoroughly explored his psyche since he appeared at the end of Season 1, and he’s become a well-rounded character that just happens to be the bad guy.

Season 5 showed that Cobra Kai desperately needed a guy like that in the “big bad” position in order to make the storytelling by creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg more effective. Even with all of the connections back to the Karate Kid films and the associated nostalgia, along with the funny stuff that pops up with Johnny, Daniel, the students and other various characters, there are emotions there that bind the stories together. Both Johnny and Daniel have real hatred towards Kreese, with Johnny also burdened by the fact that Kreese was his mentor for so long. Their connections to Silver were more tenuous, which is why his position as the bad guy didn’t work.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Kreese comes out of the woods to view a group of Korean karate students. He says, “Tell Kim Da-eun that Cobra Kai is back,” and puts a cigar in his mouth.

Sleeper Star: Griffin Santopietro, who plays Anthony LaRusso, has sprouted up again between seasons and he’s now taller than even most of the guys in the cast. Let’s hope Anthony finally learns how to defend himself. It seems like he spent all of the previous season in Miyagi-do but didn’t learn a thing.

Most Pilot-y Line: Sam and Miguel cluelessly talk about where they’re applying for college in front of Tory, who has to remind them, “It’s kinda hard to get in anywhere when you spent almost a year on probation.” That’s one of those situations that wouldn’t happen in real life because everyone would be aware that Tory’s last few years weren’t helping her college situation.

Our Call: STREAM IT. With Kreese back in the center of the action, everyone working towards Sekai Taikai and an extended final season in 2024 and “final battle” in 2025 on the horizon, we can see Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald focusing and being able to bring Cobra Kai to the finish line with a funny, emotionally affecting story.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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