Recap of ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 6 Ep. 6: Welcome to Barcelona

Cobra Kai

Welcome to Barcelona

Season 6

Section 6

Editor’s assessment

3 stars

***

Photo: CURTIS BONDS BAKER/NETFLIX

Welcome to Spain! After a few months off, Cobra Kai is back for the second of its three final batches of episodes. When July’s midseason finale of Cobra Kai skipping ahead to Sekai Taikai, I had some mild concerns: If the Great World Tournament ended in the next few episodes, what else was left for this final season to cover? However, after watching the first episode of this next batch, I feel reassured. The All Valley tournament in season four took two whole episodes, and this one might take five. I’m all for spreading the event across multiple episodes, especially if it means we get to know the competitors from the other teams better. This shouldn’t feel like just another battle between Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai, though it will inevitably come down to them in the finale.

“Benvinguts a Barcelona” begins immediately following the ceremony at the end of the last episode, the night before the tournament begins. This means breaking the cast again into children and adults. While the competitors go on a field trip to L’Aquàrium Barcelona, ​​their senseis will mingle with sponsors at a cocktail mixer.

I felt like the last episode rushed a bit to get everyone to Spain, so it’s nice to see this episode slow down a bit, even if it means delaying some of the payoffs and repeating some of the stories we’re already familiar with. Johnny and Daniel still butt heads, work together as senseis and share the same hotel room, but refuse to be friendly. Daniel is worried that Johnny is blowing it with the sponsors, and we see the guy almost immediately get into a fight over the last two steaks at the buffet. But as always, Daniel has an equally deep capacity for aggression, and it is he who becomes almost violent when Kreese threatens him.

And yet the biggest embarrassment is Chozen showing up acting like he just drank an original recipe Four Loko. He is totally sloppy and smashes vases full of the same flowers he brought to Okinawa to win over Kumiko. Unfortunately, someone he jokingly calls “Towel Man” (then “Shower Man”) answered her door, so it appears that Kumiko has another man in her life. Then again Chozen didn’t last long enough to hear who exactly the guy is. It is quite possible that he does not understand the full truth about the towel man’s identity.

Johnny learns at the mixer that winning the tournament could lead to lucrative brand deals that would put Miguel through college and easily support Carmen and their child (plus Rosa). Daniel also has an epiphany, albeit one that will affect him less on a material level and more on an emotional level. After showing Mr. Miyagi’s bloody Sekai Taikai headband to Representative Gunther and another dojo equipment and clothing expert, he gets a head start on a legendary master named Master Serrano, who may have known Miyagi from back in their tournament days.

On their field trip, the children are preoccupied with their own mix of petty drama and more serious conflicts. This is a much needed episode for Tory, whose perspective we haven’t heard since she stormed out of the Miyagi-Do captaincy competition after her mother died. She seems fully aware of Cobra Kai’s unattractive qualities this time around, based on her reactions to Kim Da-Eun calling her a rat and downplaying what she did to Tory’s hand last season. But it’s like she later explains to Robby: With Sam almost guaranteed a captaincy, this felt like the only opportunity to compete. At least she still seems to have Kreese in her corner.

Fresh from the angsty conversation, Robby accepts Kwon’s challenge to a high-kicking contest and gambles away his and Demetri’s room when he loses. He gets even more heat when Sam calls him out to be played by Kreese again; he knew Kreese had approached Tory after escaping from prison, but didn’t tell anyone, and then she was sucked back into Cobra Kai. Everyone seems annoyed with Robby, who is clearly distracted by tomorrow’s tournament, but most are reluctant to confront him directly about it, perhaps worried that they’ll disturb the peace and throw him even further out of the game.

Tory makes an effort to ease Robby’s suffering … by putting their relationship on “pause” when he visits her in the middle of the night. She might think this is actually helpful for him after hearing from Sam about his inability to focus when he’s so worried about his girlfriend – but it apparently backfires, as it turns out that being dumped nor does it help you focus! In fact, from one angle, Tory may have actively (if inadvertently) sabotaged the competition by breaking his heart. Robby is right when he points out that she only trusts herself, a core problem that she can’t move on from despite Miyagi-Do’s positive influence.

The first event the next day is called “Captain’s War” and it involves pitting entire dojos against each other in groups of four, each tasked with protecting their own captains and taking out the others. Tory knows Miyagi-Do, so her dojo should really listen to her, but Kwon walks all over her until she takes Kim Da-Eun’s advice and gives him no choice but to follow. The Miyagi-Do competitors quickly fall and Robby is distracted by Tory and messes up.

This provides a decent opportunity to really establish dojos other than Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai on the mat, and there is… some success. Flachi Della Notte, one of the two new teams in Miyagi-Do’s group, are effortlessly decimated in the background before we get a chance to see much of them. But the Iron Dragon dojo actually wins the first round, their two captains handling Tory, Kwon and Yoon without much trouble. (They were so sure the other fighters on their team actually withdrew voluntarily, which is pretty bad.) “Welcome to Barcelona, ​​bitch,” says the girl credited as Zara, who met Tory briefly during the photo shoot previous. It looks like she could be a fierce new antagonist in these middle episodes alongside her sensei (the guy who stole Johnny’s steak).

“Benvinguts a Barcelona” feels mostly like a setup episode; the one event we see probably doesn’t mean much in terms of determining Miyagi-Do’s place in the tournament, and both Daniel and Johnny’s goals and conflicts in Barcelona are still being defined. But I’m pretty excited for the upcoming tournament, which should feel different from the usual contests back in the valley. Who doesn’t need a little vacation once in a while?

• RIP Chad McQueen who played Dutch in the original film and died back in September. There was once upon a time plans to bring him on board to enter Cobra Kaibut it never worked out.

• Apparently, Kreese’s charges were dropped because he is a veteran with PTSD who was allegedly innocent and forced to escape. Not sure that makes any sense, but sure.

• “Are those your models? I have far better looking kids in my dojo. Let me show you some pictures.” “That’s not really the criteria.”

• I really like the conversation when Sam tells Tory that she felt hurt that she didn’t reach out after her mother’s death, but instead stepped into Cobra Kai’s arms. The conflicts can get repetitive on this show, but it’s the changing contexts that keep the rivalries interesting.

• I recently rewatched part of the Disney Channel Original Movie Johnny Tsunami for a Halloween costume and discovered that Yuji Okumoto (aka Chozen) was playing Johnny’s dad, so that was a fun discovery.