Netflix's Cobra Kai is Beginning to Outstay its Welcome

By Sienna Thompson, Second Year, English

Netflix has graced our screens with the fifth season of Cobra Kai: the sequel series to the Karate Kid film tetralogy (1984-1994). However, has this season surpassed the honeymoon stage of the series’ nostalgic plot and characters?

This season sees the Cobra Kai dojo under the control of Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), who becomes more menacing and like a cult leader than ever. As well as this, we see all the beloved characters face the wrath of Silver as he aims to make Cobra Kai the best dojo in the world.

The show stealers this season had to be Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) and Kreese (Martin Kove). Okumoto brought humour and nostalgia as well as some amazing combat scenes, including the best fight scene in the finale. Kreese was initially more of a side character, yet his story developed into the series cliffhanger with him faking his death in prison and breaking out.

Whilst it’s always a pleasure to see clueless Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and original Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), other characters are beginning to feel exhausting to watch. Especially since many of the younger characters, such as Sam (Mary Matilyn Mouser), seem to have had no character development.

Some of the plot this season seemed messy too. For example, Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) has been one of the main characters from the beginning of the show and, at the beginning of this season, the series followed him on his journey to Mexico to find his father.

After that, however, his character seemed pushed aside, with only some relationship drama with Sam being noteworthy. That said, Miguel’s fight scene with Robby (Tanner Buchanan) halfway through the season made up for some of his lack of spotlight, with the return of his PTSD from his accident in season two.

Much of this season seems to be set up for a sixth, but I believe that Cobra Kai has reached its utmost potential and may feel butchered if more plot lines are forced out of it. I would be very interested to see more of Kreese’s storyline though. I found his flashbacks with Silver, as well as just his general character this season, more entertaining. If more content is going to be created, I believe a Kreese spinoff series would be a great option.

Whilst this season hasn’t been as good as the other seasons before it, the finale’s fight scenes and cliffhanger did somewhat make up for it. Would another season be good for this show? Personally, I don’t think so, but I would be invested in a spinoff series of some sort. Nevertheless, this season was still perfectly enjoyable and would have been a satisfying conclusion to the series.

Featured image: IMDB

Do you want to see more seasons of Cobra Kai?