After six seasons, Netflix’s Cobra Kai is finally coming to an end, with the streamer announcing February 13th as the premiere date for the final episodes. Dubbed “The Finale Event”, these five episodes aim to wrap up all of the show’s major storylines in advance of Sony’s Karate Kid: Legends, which comes out this summer. That eagerly anticipated film is expected to be something of a standalone, with only Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso confirmed as part of the cast (so far) while Cobra Kai showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are uninvolved.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Season 6 Part II!
The final episodes pick up in the wake of a disaster at the Sekai Taikai, where an all-out brawl between the rival dojos resulted in the death of Kwon, one of the season’s main villains. The Netflix synopsis states, “After a shocking result in the Sekai Taikai, Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai must reckon with their pasts while facing an uncertain future both on and off the mat. Almost 40 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, it’s all been leading to this.”
Given the first-look images (see them below), it looks like the gang will still be fighting in the Sekai Taikai, which strikes me as a little hard to swallow, given how someone actually died in what’s essentially a tournament for teenagers. Nevertheless, I have to admit that Cobra Kai is one of my favourite current shows, with each bite-sized half-hour episode always a blast. The show started on YouTube Red back in 2018 but exploded in popularity once Netflix picked it up. One of the most rewarding things is how it gave William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence, who was initially this two-dimensional eighties villain, new life as arguably the show’s main protagonist while also launching the career of Blue Beetle star Xolo Maridueña. It’ll be sad to see the show wrap up its run, although I’ll admit that season six, which will have run fifteen episodes by the time all is said and done, has gone on a little too long. Hopefully, they stick the landing.