REVIEW: ‘Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3’ Sticks The Landing

A continuation series of the Ralph Macchio-helmed Karate Kid franchise, Cobra Kai Season 6 has stopped taking detours to the LaRussos and has finally set the camera square on where it began: With Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña).

The series has been a roller coaster. Off to a strong start originally on YouTube Red, the series became a Netflix Original and launched its young star, Xolo Maridueña, into the pop culture spotlight when it led to him landing the role as DC’s Blue Beetle.

Cobra Kai is written and executive produced by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg via their production company, Counterbalance Entertainment. Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 picks up directly after the shocking result in the Sekai Taikai. A student has died, and no winner has been declared, which means the future of the dojos and their students remains up in the air.

Ultimately, Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 pushes Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai to reckon with their pasts while facing an uncertain future both on and off the mat. The students have to understand what keeping up the fight means personally and competitively.

When Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) gives Johnny the opportunity to return to the Sekai Taikai and pick up where the dojos left in Spain, saying yes is going to take more than one discussion. With everyone questioning karate’s purpose in their lives, Cobra Kai Season 6 Part brings the difficulties that began 40 years ago at the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament to the front as its characters decide on what legacy they will leave or which one they’ll pick up.

Cobra Kai refocuses its attention on the characters that matter.

Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 gives Jonny the spotlight that I have been craving. As a critic, I haven’t enjoyed the sharp detours into Daniel’s life. Instead, I’ve consistently been gripped by Johnny. How he influences the kids around him, whether through the found-father relationship with Miguel, repairing his actual father-son relationship with Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan), or the mentorship he’s been able to give Tory Nichols (Peyton List).

While Daniel’s relationships with the students always seemed to come back to him and Miyagi-do, Johnny’s stark and abrasive attitude was always the right kind of malleable. Johnny may have no filter, but saying he doesn’t care about other people would be wrong.

Throughout six seasons, Zabka has never lost Johnny’s edges, but he has shown audiences that there’s more to him than that. He learns from his students and enemies in a way that makes him stand out. Zabka, as Johnny, is the heart of Cobra Kai, and this series finale captures that. Sure, every character gets their due and a happy ending, but it’s Johnny, his sons, and their future that stand out.

The heart of Cobra Kai has always been that the way things are isn’t how things should or can stay. While Macchio’s Daniel is dead-set in his ways and only learns new facts that always square with his worldview, Johnny is consistently pushed to break down the intensity that raised him and try to do better for his pupils.

Daniel remains Cobra Kai’s biggest weakness, with the Karate Kid shadow doing more harm than good.

Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 still has its fair share of melodrama, and it’s not always rewarding, particularly where Daniel is concerned. In the aftermath of Kwon’s (Brandon H. Lee) death, everything we see is how much it hurts Daniel. While there are some glimpses into what our young cast feels, all of them are too aloof for a group of teenagers who just watched someone die in front of them. But once again, Daniel LaRusso’s trauma and struggle dominate that plot point.

That said, the melodrama that directly comes from the ending of Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 2’s ending is genuinely left by the wayside as quickly as it erupted. Instead, we see the students balancing their love of karate, their college expectations, and meeting the expectations of the adults around them. This is where the series really flexes its strength. As the students, even Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser), begin to weigh the options in front of them, they have to understand what the sport means in their lives.

For Robby, the worry of becoming Johnny, the father has resented for years, begins to crush him. Miguel is beginning to buckle under the expectation of getting into Stanford. Tory has no family and no idea of what a future will look like if she’s alone. Samantha is finally bucking family expectations and looking to give in to her wanderlust to explore the world before deciding where she wants her future to be.

Each student gets the chance at a proper ending without a need for a Cobra Kai Season 7.

While the rest of the secondary characters like Demetri (Gianni DeCenzo) or Eli ‘Hawk’ Moskowitz (Jacob Bertrand) are also given their closure in terms of to MIT or not to MIT, that’s not where Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 puts its narrative weight. And that’s a strong choice. The core four of the series get the focus they deserve, and while I wish that there was less of an emphasis on enduring romances and more on individual choices for their futures, this is an ending that makes sense for the all-ages series.

While Part 2 featured more of the fast-paced action that the series had come to be known by, Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 is a slower-paced entry into the series. There are still big moments, a rightfully deserved murder, a little dating, and a direct confrontation of the past, but karate is tackled through the lens of what it means to its practitioners instead of what is happening on the mat.

Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 puts a cap on the final season of a series that had felt like it lost its spark in the last few years. Here, the showrunners are able to capitalize on the Karate Kid’s legacy but also bring the story back to where it all began, with Johnny growing into someone more than he thought he could be. I didn’t know that William Zabka was going to run away with my heart for the last six seasons, but he did.

Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3  stuck the landing thanks to Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence.

With a stellar final fight between the brutal Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) and Johnny, the series embraces the past without being constrained by it. With the inclusion of flashbacks and awkward body matching for Mr. Miyagi, Daniel’s closure of his legacy feels forced. But on the mat, Johnny’s reclamation of Cobra Kai as a dojo feels cathartic and pushes the series into a territory for a solid ending.

Johnny became the reason to watch, my reason to fall in love with the story, and the reason I stuck with the series through all of its ups and downs. Cobra Kai Season 7 is never coming, but with an ending as heartfelt as this, it doesn’t have to.

Cobra Kai’s finale captures why “Cobra Kai Never Dies” and buries the animosity that John Kreese (Martin Kove) stoked. And unlike what we thought throughout the series, it doesn’t have to. Not every legacy series can expand on a franchise and solidify it for a future generation. Even with its fair share of stumbles, Cobra Kai did just that. More importantly, Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 brings us all home.

Cobra Kai Season 6 is now streaming in its entirety, exclusively on Netflix.

Catch up with reviews of each season:
Season 1-2 | Season 3 | Season 4 | Season 5 | Season 6 Part 1 | Season 6 Part 2