8 Things We Loved (And 4 We Didn’t)

With the release of part two of the Cobra Kai season six, only five episodes left in the show. It’s an incredibly sad feeling if you’ve been watching the show since the beginning. Luckily, these penultimate five episodes — now on Netflix — are loads of fun. They are Cobra Kai do what Cobra Kai does best, tells a fun, character-driven story filled with action and adoration for The Karate Kid franchise. Here’s our review of things we liked (and didn’t like) in part two. Full spoiler below.

We loved: Sekai Taikai

That’s a pretty broad generalization since the entire season is on Sekai Taikai, but we’re talking specifically about the event itself. All the events are so cool, almost as if Play octopus met the Royal Rumble. The action is also very well choreographed. Together, it does a fantastic job of simultaneously advancing story and character while giving us exciting action delivered in unexpected ways.

We loved: The new characters

Axel and Zara forever, right? The new badasses, as well as the emergence of Kwan as a legitimate problem, really helped expand the scope of the season beyond the traditional rivalries. Lewis Tan as their evil sensai was also sensational.

We Didn’t Love : Kwan’s death

Ending the season by killing off a main character is a bold choice, but why would it have to be Kwan? We love Kwan. He was so dynamic. So diabolical. And of course that’s why you kill him because he made us worry. Damn it though. Now we never get a sequel to a Kwan movie.

We loved: The gang is here

Isolating these episodes to a single location with almost every main character really forced the show to spend more time with everyone. We love seeing all the boys in one room. We love watching Devon roll her eyes as they complain. And as things progress, the bonding that happens and the elevation of all their karate works with it all.

We loved: The Terry Silver reveal

We here at io9 are unabashed Terry Silver stans. So when he reappeared – in a hot tub no less – I literally cheered. Sure, it’s a bit repetitive and a bit of a cheat, but we don’t care. So is Terry Silver himself! We hope he also has a bit more of a role to play in the final episodes.

We Didn’t Love: Robbie and Tori

The idea of ​​Tori and Robbie captaining opposing teams was ripe, but the way it played out was emblematic of perhaps the biggest problem with these episodes. Those two are soooooo melodramatic. How many times did Robbie or Tori snap at the other as a result of a slow-motion look? It must be a bit much.

We loved: Miguel

To be fair, we always love Miguel, but these episodes are really some of his best showcases in a while. Xolo Maridueña is arguably the MVP with his fierce physical performance and emotional range, especially knowing that he should probably be the captain, but he makes the captain by empowering Robbie instead.

We Loved: The Miyagi Dream

This one is sure to be controversial, and we’d imagine a lot of people would put this on their “Unloved list.” But yeah, deepfake aside (which was approved by Pat Morita’s family – more on that next week) – the idea of ​​seeing Daniel with Miyagi again was just so exciting. It really shook Daniel. Plus, it was incredibly cool to rework Miyagi’s younger, more brutal version. We still don’t know the extent of this part of Miyagi’s life, but this scene was a great tease.

We didn’t love: Pregnancy scare

Killing off a main character was bad enough, thankfully Cobra Kai didn’t kill a baby too. Still, it was very strange that Johnny and Miguel flew back to Los Angeles from Barcelona to make sure Carmen and the baby were safe. It happens so suddenly and is resolved so quickly that you can’t help but wonder, what did this add? How expensive were these flights? How bad was the jet lag? Too many questions for not enough payout.

We loved: The cliffhanger

While killing Kwan was certainly a downer, the massive battle it happened during was not. We got pretty much every showdown that had been brewing over the course of the episodes, and then it ends with a big question of “What’s next?” Obviously, Cobra Kai tragically lost its captain as people all over the world watched unfold on television. How will it change things? Who will win the Seikai Taikai? Where? And will it matter at all? There is so much to think about.

We Loved: Chozen Romances

If Chozen only had the Kumiko rejection (which we’re sure was a misunderstanding) it would have been great. But seeing him and Cobra Kai Sensai Kim develop a thing after everything that happened was fun, romantic, and very important. Kim uses her anger towards him to teach Tori, and we get to see Chozen in a whole new light.

We didn’t love: Kidnapping

As much as we loved seeing Terry Silver back, his plan to set up and kidnap Daniel was questionable to say the least. Sure, it let us explore a bit more of Barcelona – which was always welcome – but what was his end game? Would he kill him? Just let him miss the rest of the event? It was a bit over the top, even by Cobra Kai standards.

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