The last five episodes of Cobra Kai‘s fifteen-episode final season are upon us, and after the Sekai Taikai melee that ended Part 2 in tragedy, you wonder exactly where creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg will go. It turns out that the show will end where it began: Back in the Valley.
Opening Shot: John Kreese (Martin Kove) stares at his dagger. He asks Kim Da-eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim), “Is it time?” “Soon,” she says.
The Gist: After the melee at the Sakai Taikai in Barcelona left Kwon (Brandon H. Lee) dead, Kreese has a lot of guilt as the entire Cobra Kai dojo — minus Tory (Peyton List) — gives him a fiery send-off. When he says, “I caused this,” Kim says, they all did, especially her grandfather, Master Kim (C.S. Lee), and the old man will face the consequences for it.
A month later, things are trying to settle back to normal in the Valley after the tournament was cancelled. Daniel (Ralph Macchio) is rededicating himself to the dealership, which is making his wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler) happy. He still thinks that their daughter Sam (Mary Mouser) is going to UCLA, but she’s thinking she might want to get away from Southern California. Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) knows Stanford is out, but he has other choices. Johnny (William Zabka) gets the bad news that his son Robby (Tanner Buchanan) likely doesn’t have strong enough grades to go to college.
The situation in Barcelona, including what he found out about his mentor, Mr. Myagi, has made Daniel so distraught that he doesn’t even give bonsai trees out when he sells cars anymore.
In the meantime, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) finds Gunther (Carsten Norgaard), who runs Sekai Taikai, at a remote resort and convinces him to restart the tournament, as a tribute to Kwon. His reasons for doing so aren’t exactly magnanimous, as we see when one of his assistants hands him some pills when he’s on his yacht. Gunther tells Silver that they will restart the tournament, but only if all of the senseis agree. Of course, Johnny is all for it, but Daniel isn’t.
Back in South Korea, Master Kim drills the dojo on a deadly move that even Kreese can’t sign off on. He decides to give up the dagger that Master Kim gave him and try to figure out how to finally be a better person, though he thinks it might be impossible at this point. At the same time, Kim Da-eun makes a very tough decision that will allow her to run Cobra Kai her way instead of continuingly kowtowing to her cruel grandfather.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Cobra Kai Seasons 1-6, including Parts 1 and 2.
Our Take: As the creators of Cobra Kai — Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg — bring the show to its conclusion, you know that they needed to set up a way to get Miyagi-do and Cobra Kai together for one final battle, with the Sekai Taiki title at stake. Of course, with the melee and Kwon’s death hanging over their heads, what Cobra Kai looks like might be different than what we saw in Barcelona. But what the last five episodes are setting up is an epic battle, likely being held in the Valley, between the dojos, as well as Johnny/Daniel, Kreese and Silver.
Despite Silver seemingly going to Johnny to help him appeal to Daniel to restart the tournament and approaching Daniel with a sincerity that we’ve never seen from him before, we know that Silver is going to have more tricks up his sleeve. Daniel and Johnny know it, too, which is a smart move on the writers’ part; what Johnny’s view of striking a deal with Silver is that they’ve defeated him once, they can defeat him again.
What we wonder is where Kreese fits in with all this. It doesn’t seem that he’s going to be working with Kim again. Will he even be associated with Cobra Kai for this last battle? We also don’t see Tory in this last set of episodes yet. Where are her loyalties going to lie? And what will we see of Silver’s dojo, including Axel (Patrick Luwis) and Zara (Rayna Vallandingham)?
What we expect from the final five episodes is lots of training montages, some emotional character moments and lots and lots of fighting scenes. Will another free-for-all break out? Who knows? But we’re here for it.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: When Miguel, Sam and Robby hear from Daniel and Johnny that the tournament is back on, Sam says, “Bring ’em on.”
Sleeper Star: We get some more scenes of Julia Macchio, Ralph’s daughter, as cousin Julia LaRusso. Despite being distracted at how much she looks like her father, her character continues to be a refreshingly funny does of reality with regards to the whole “karate wars” thing.
Most Pilot-y Line: We see Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) at the LaRusso dealership’s anniversary party. Earlier in the episode, she’s up and talking to Johnny as he tries to put together their daughter’s crib. For a pregnant woman who is supposed to be on bed rest, Carmen gets around.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Will the final five episodes of Cobra Kai be corny, silly and sometimes make us roll our eyes? Absolutely. But given how far we’ve come with this show and these characters (we watched the first two seasons on YouTube Premium, for heaven’s sake), we’re ready to see how everything turns out.
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.