FIRST WORD
COBRA KAI S6 The final season sees the titular dojo jet off to the world championships. Spoilers for S1-5 ahead…
If there’s one thing the past seasons of The Karate Kid sequel series Cobra Kai have taught us, it’s that even when you’ve won a major battle, there’s always another conflict just around the corner. The end of Season 5 saw Cobra Kai sensei Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) beaten by Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso and sent to prison. But is this the last we’ve seen of him? And what’s become of Martin Kove’s original antagonist John Kreese?
‘Just when you think you’re done, you get pulled back in,’ Macchio says, teasing the inevitable drama to come in the sixth – and final – season. It’s a long time for a modern show to run, as the actor (who also serves as an executive producer and directed an episode of this season) points out: ‘Nothing has six seasons any more, certainly in streaming, so it’s very unique to have what will be 65 episodes.’ There’s a part of him, though, that never doubted that a sequel to The Karate Kid movies would be a success. ‘There certainly were ebbs and flows, but the pop-culture impact of those films was always there.’
The karate soap opera, as Macchio calls it, has set up a finale that promises a showdown between the students of the three dojosDaniel LaRusso’s Miyagi-Do, Johnny Lawrence’s (William Zabka) Eagle Fang and the titular Cobra Kai. When it comes to the fight choreography, Macchio says he’s ‘worked harder this year, and the results are better’, while teasing a big fight sequence in the sixth episode. ‘I just got word back from the stunt team and the producers that it’s by far
