Cobra Kai Recap: Dragonslayer

At this point, Cobra Kai has cycled through so many different student-dojo pairings and transformed so many rivalries into close friendships that it’s often hard to be taken by surprise anymore. According to some viewers, the show ran its course years ago and has gone on for too long. I’d push back on the idea that the show has gone stale, though, even if this final season doesn’t necessarily represent it at its most surprising, or most thrilling, or most hilarious. To the extent that this show had a bad stretch, I’d point to season three. In my view, the two seasons after that one were back-to-back bangers, with Terry Silver breathing new life into the show. It’s only recently that I’ve started feeling impatient, which really just means Cobra Kai is ending at the right time. But at this show’s best, it can provoke unadulterated joy — and based on this penultimate episode, it’s still capable of doing that.

Look, I have to start with that ending, which made me gasp and crack up and rewind multiple times. Here’s the setup, which we’ll explore in more depth momentarily: Silver, a man with only months to live and a legacy to secure by any means necessary, has just learned that his dojo can still win the world tournament if Sensei Wolf beats Johnny Lawrence in a tiebreaker fight the next day. He taunts Johnny with the insinuation that Wolf will break more than just his winning streak, that there could be “unintended consequences.” Upon retreating to his boat, he orders his lackey Dennis to essentially hold Johnny’s wife and newborn baby ransom to force him to drop out.

Then John Kreese materializes on the deck, kicks a now-dead Dennis down the stairs, and blows up the entire yacht, killing both Silver and himself.

Sure, that’s simplifying things a bit. There are a lot of great moments in this fight to the death, starting with Kreese identifying Johnny as a source of strength, not a weakness. His final line simply being “mercy” is also a fitting final beat for a character, for once eschewing the first word from his “no mercy” rule. But what really lands it is that big, ridiculous, computerized explosion ignited by a lit cigar in a pool of spilled fuel. I suppose this is the only way it could’ve ended for these two, though I did assume they’d make it to the finale.

The actual Sekai Taikai scenes also manage to be very engaging despite the ultimate outcome seeming all but guaranteed. It’s well established that karate skills on this show are about mind-set first and physical technique second, so all of these final matches will be determined by who wants it more and why they want it more. We know the deal with Axel already: He doesn’t actually enjoy hurting people, so he’s holding back from unleashing the full force of his powers. Silver and Wolf, as always, have no patience for this, and they’re really pushing for him to leave Miguel in the same state as Robby or worse.

Miguel has some anger in him, a drive to pay Axel back for snapping Robby’s leg. But as Johnny reminds him before the big day, that’s how he lost against Daniel back in 1984. Revenge can’t be the biggest motivator in something like this; he needs to fight for himself, the people he loves, and everything karate has taught him. It’s gratifying, as always, to see how fully Johnny and Daniel have come around to each other’s ways of thinking: Daniel helped resurrect Cobra Kai, and now Johnny is urging his star student to be less like himself and more like Daniel. Later in the episode, Daniel will go even farther, actually saying the words “Cobra Kai never dies” to Silver’s face. How the tables turn!

The girls’ final is first, with Zara surging ahead early on after successfully getting in Tory’s head. Even here on Tory’s turf, Zara has more fans in the audience, which is pretty wild. But when she starts to melt down after the first round, Robby offers the right words to cut through and get her back on track: “I love you.” She instantly cools down, and their kiss inspires a huge cheer from the audience. Not sure I needed that last moment — couldn’t Tory take private strength from Robby even without earning the crowd’s adoration? — but his “and no fuckin’ mercy” line is suitably invigorating.

As you’d expect, Tory has a comeback, laying down multiple knockdowns to nearly close the considerable points gap between Cobra Kai and the Iron Dragons. Her final, decisive move is to repeat her tooth kick from earlier in the tournament, this time on Zara. She also makes sure to drop a month-later comeback to Zara’s original “Welcome to Barcelona, bitch,” this time with the Valley swapped in. Sweet justice.

The pressure is on going into Miguel’s match against Axel: Cobra Kai is still ten points behind, so he’ll need to beat him by a somewhat sizable margin. At least he doesn’t have some personal turmoil hanging over his head like he has in the past. He admits to Sam right away that he saw her acceptance letter to the program in Okinawa, and he’s genuinely okay with it.

Going in with a good attitude, Miguel starts off well. But Axel catches up after yet another stern talking-to from Wolf and Silver (we’ve had enough of those, haven’t we?), with one particularly strong knockdown smashing Miguel’s head to the floor. Johnny slips Miguel one last pep talk about life’s tendency to kick everybody’s ass, accompanied by the truism “Points are for pussies” and the gift of Johnny’s own headband.

We know that Silver and Wolf are prepared to ensure their win with physical violence, both reparable and irreparable — so much for Silver’s claim that he won’t tip the scales, huh? — but this is truly a new level. They actually urge Axel to break Miguel’s spine while he’s pivoting, playing on his previous spine injury. But he doesn’t take the opportunity when he sees it because even if he has his limits, would people really respect a win earned by seriously harming both major opponents? Isn’t this a below-18 competition?

The sequence of Miguel remembering his old lessons from throughout the show is classic Karate Kid stuff, formulaic but satisfying, and the knockdown he scores on Axel makes for a triumphant end to the fight. As Tory and Miguel are announced as the champions, Wolf tries to punish Axel with another disappointed, belittling remark, though he doesn’t choke him out the way Kreese did Johnny in ’84. And Axel doesn’t let it get in his head. He quickly returns the sentiment and quits, hopefully ensuring himself many years of peace.

Miguel tying up the score means the tournament still isn’t over, although it seems like Cobra Kai’s success is all but guaranteed, considering it’s unlikely the show would allow someone like Wolf to beat Johnny. He’s our hero, an underdog ripe for redemption. But I can’t find it in me to complain about predictability when the show has done a commendable job changing things up often enough to feel fresh, even in these more straightforward good-versus-bad matchups. The end is just ahead, and until then, I’m happy to just spend time in this ludicrous, joyful world.

Mr. Miyagi’s Little Trees

• My chat with Thomas Ian Griffith about his return to the Karate Kid universe in season four is still one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever gotten to do. RIP, Terry Silver!

• On that note, Silver would’ve died of cancer soon anyway. Not sure about Kreese, though. He seems like he accepted everything was over for him a couple of episodes ago, but what if he’d survived this fight? Would he have gone off to live a monkish existence somewhere?

• Johnny is training Tory and Miguel awfully hard if they’re competing the next day, isn’t he? In general, the timeline here feels a bit compressed and confusing. Did Daniel manage to get the old Cobra Kai studio back the same day Johnny announced the switch? And Sam is already accepted to the Okinawa program, seemingly only days after telling Tory about it?

• I was quite moved by Tory thanking the LaRussos for the kindness they showed her after all her mistakes. She’s come a long way, and now she’s a champion, with no doubt in the validity of her win.

• Demetri tells Eli he’s going to Caltech, too, thanks to its robotics program and, you know, the presence of his BFF. Happy for them, but it feels a little unnecessary when their plans from the last episode already seemed like a sweet compromise. The show could stand to maintain some bittersweetness, as it did last time with Robby’s loss, but we’re headed for some pretty happy endings.

• Where’s Kim Da-Eun?