Cobra Kai

Review of Cobra Kai, Season 5

Then the globe, then the Valley!

This review of Cobra Kai: Season 5’s 10 episodes, which premiere on Netflix on Friday, Sept. 9, does not contain any spoilers.

With a September debut and a climax that, for the first time, feels like default closure should the series not return for another run, Cobra Kai’s fifth season breaks convention with the previous two episodes, which have both premiered at the end of the year. Season 5 is a touch less organic than what came before it because everything feel a little too nice and tidy at the end. Despite this, the ten “summer break” episodes are most successful since they contain a lot of audience-pleasing moments, a lot of heartwarming emotion, and some happy uses of franchise antecedent characters.

As this is the first post-All-Valley Tournament narrative since the show’s second season, there are repercussions to deal with, a need for regrouping and recouping, and healing that needs to take place. Terry Silver, the affluent and evil Terry Silver played by Thomas Ian Griffith, is now in head of Cobra Kai and has big plans for growing the dojo. Even though Tory won victory in their championship match, Mary Mouser’s Sam and Peyton List’s Tory are both devastated.

Both William Zabka’s Johnny and Ralph Macchio’s Daniel are depressed since their respective dojos must now close, but Johnny just seems delighted that Kreese is in jail, while Daniel gets fixated on defeating Silver, who, as we all know, is generally one step ahead of poor Daniel. Additionally, Johnny is now more future-focused than ever because he must take into account aspects of the future he never foresaw while simultaneously wanting to make reconciliation with his son Robbie (Tanner Buchanan) and his adopted son Miguel (Xolo Mariduea). As usual, Cobra Kai is full of drama brought on by uncomplicated misunderstandings, but it also earns every single one of its reckonings and reconciliations through clever ploys and fulfilling interactions.

It’s amazing that Daniel and Johnny have reached the stage where they can interact as true friends and benefit from one another’s personalities (this season has a delightful twist in which the two temporarily trade positions). The same is true for Daniel and Chozen (Yuji Okumoto), and this season, Chozen’s role stands out the most. Chozen develops into a much more complex character in Season 5 as Daniel’s weird “ride or die” versus Terry Silver, whether he’s serving the humour or the drama. Chozen is still a lingering aspect of the second movie that still feels worthy of exploration here, even though this year’s offering is clearly set in the events of The Karate Kid Part III (there’s even a new villain wonderfully born from a throwaway sentence in that movie).

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It didn’t matter that Daniel and Chozen last split up on “good” terms. One of the series’ brilliant moves is the insistence on making them BFFs. It has a really nice M.O. for a show to have and arguably the finest way to pay tribute to a series of movies that made use of stupid adolescent rage for the sake of action. This message is intended to permeate the entire series, including Robbie and Miguel, Tory and Sam, Kenny played by Dallas Dupree Young and Anthony played by Griffin Santopietro, among others. Even in Season 5, there is a brief exchange of gunfire between Louie and Anoush, workers at LaRusso Auto. only to reconcile in a few minutes. The idea in this is always forgiving and understanding, whether it takes years or minutes.

Okay, perhaps not when it comes to Terry Silver, who is this year’s standout villain. You may have to put up with Daniel making some incredibly stupid mistakes at first since he is unable to recognise how Silver is causing him to self-destruct, but gradually things settle down and everyone’s minds are put straight. — in addition to not simply Daniel’s. He learns from his errors, but others also start to catch up to him as they realise the genuine, serious harm Silver is capable of doing. Cobra Kai still has more Part III tricks up its sleeve, from cameos to callbacks. It’s no surprise that Sean Kanan’s “Bad Boy of Karate” Mike Barnes returns this year as it was already revealed (though Mike’s role may surprise you, in its own way). When it comes to the Miyagi-verse, Cobra Kai is nothing if not thorough.

As Season 5 approaches its conclusion and events are resolved more neatly than anticipated, the series appears unsure of itself.

Cobra Kai has been on for five seasons, and while there is a clear pattern at work, there is still opportunity for surprises. We wonder if this will be the time that Martin Kove’s Kreese finally engages in some serious soul-searching while he spends his days in jail (framed by Silver for beating Stingray). And just as Robbie was given Kenny, a tormented youth, in Season 4 to mentor, Oona O’Brien’s Devon can now emerge from the All-Valley in Season 5, ready to complicate Tory’s life even further. It’s difficult to hold Cobra Kai too heavily responsible for short-sheeting the finale of this collection of episodes because there is still so much gold to be mined in what feels like the penultimate season.

This is not to suggest that there are plot holes or that some events go unanswered because everything still makes sense. Just a moment of very bad judgement on the part of our protagonists that seems to point them in a far different direction than it actually does. As Season 5 approaches its conclusion and events are resolved more neatly than anticipated, the series appears unsure of itself. There are only some aspects of this finale that, if necessary, play like the end-end. This does not imply that there is no way into Season 6, since a very significant story begins for our heroes in Episode 8. With Netflix, you never know. No doubt… You know you can’t end this without Hilary Swank, right? You simply must.

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